Christmas Tree Progression
Finally got the Christmas tree up tonight, aka "Abi annually crams wa-a-ay too many ornaments onto one tree."
Like I mentioned in my Christmas meme, I played old Christmas carol cassettes (The Nutcracker Suite, Bing Crosby, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, etc). What I didn't mention is I play them on this super old stereo:
I feel like a hipster with how much I geek out about it, but I've been using it since I was a kid. There's something very visceral, stripped down, and physical about the old system. I'm working on getting the turntable up and running so I can play some 45s my parents collected. See again: lame hipster.
And afterwords I celebrated with Christmas cookies my neighbors brought over. They were delicious.
Beyond these gingerbread cookies, I haven't been doing much Christmas cookie baking of my own. They came out OK, but I did the royal icing wrong so it shatters if you look at it too hard. I wouldn't want to give them out. I've been thinking of making spritz cookies and cupcakes for my very generous neighbors, but I better get on that soon.