JINGLE BELLS!!!! OMG!!!! IT'S ONLY..................

Aaron - Have you considered baking a head of time? I have some ideas for how to take the boxed bread mixes and enhance them to make them special. Plus these breads can be frozen unti you need them. You can also get the mini bread pans and make a basket with a sampler of the mini loaves. Some ideas of what I am talking about: Take the Banana Bread mix and add a smashed banana and mini choc chips. Take the Cranbery or Nut bread mix and add chopped apricots and Cransins. Make a spread out of softened butter with appricot preserves mixed in (you can out this in a cute little container from the craft store). Take the Pumkin mix and add chopped apples. I have more ideas if you want to go this route. I sometimes do this to add to the bounty I make at Christmas. I actually make these breads for the office at Halloween, so I know they work and everyone always goes crazy for them.

Thanks Debbie!!!!  Got your PM and this is a great idea!  I may do this in addition to doing a few other goodies too!  That way I won't have to bake as many cookies at mom and dad's.  AND I can concentrate on my home made truffles I make every year :)

Aaron, my mother bakes early (right after Thanksgiving) and freezes cookies (of all sorts!) every year.  She bought the shoebox size plastic containers (like Rubbermaid, etc) and layers them with wax paper.  They come out of the freezer just as fresh as they went in. Give it a try for sure!  Mom fills up her stand up freezer every year.  Hmmm, no wonder I got fat huh?  Ummmm, did you say TRUFFLES?????  YUMMMM!

 shut up tia lol

Aw, c'mon, Helen, you know you love me!!! 

Tia

AAAACK is right!  I am not ready to even think about Christmas right now.  Halloween and Thanksgiving first!!  But I do love the Christmas season and I love the image of you and K and B making cookies together.  What a fun Aunt you are! 

Thanks for thinking of us new postops, because that's what I'll be by then.  (Yay!)  I would love to be satisfied with only one cookie.  That would be nice. 

Yes, I am in for an OH holiday gathering, as long as it's on a Friday or over the weekend! 

Even with Tia's red and green font it is still too early for me to get into the spirit. That does not happen until the day after Thanksgiving. I got this hang up that I refuse to entertain the christmas holiday with music, decorations until the Friday after thanksgiving. I try to enjoy and savor each holiday and right now I am in Halloween mode, looking for a costume etc. Hell, I even have a flying which as a mouse cursor on my computers

I know, Terri, retailers rush the season horribly!!!!  Except for my very careful planning, I don't really consider it to be the start of Christmas until I've watched Santa arrive in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and I watch "Miracle on 34th Street" Thanksgiving night.

On Black Friday, though - LOOK OUT!!!  Out comes the tacky sweatshirts, sweaters, socks, earrings, pins, bracelets, etc.

Yeah, I'm a little OCD when it comes to that kind of stuff!!!!  LOL!!!

Tia

Terri,
YES!  That is EXACTLY me as well.  I like to savor each holiday.   I don't deal with anything Thanksgiving related until after halloween, and don't put up any Christmas decorations until the day after Thanksgiving. 

Thanks, Jen!!  YES, I AM a fun aunt!! But I have a fun KB, so that makes it easy (MOST of the time)!!!

I was 2 months out on my first Halloween - I planned ahead and bought s/f lollipops, which I kept in my mouth the ENTIRE night!!!!  Plus, my Mom always makes sure to buy candy we don't like to eat, that way we can't!!!

On Thanksgiving, 3 months out, I had ONLY the stuff I liked best:  a spoonful of each:  mac & cheese, mac salad w/shrimp, and stuffing.  I also made pumpkin fluff - basically, whipped cream cheese with Splenda, canned pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice (you can also add s/f whipped cream).  Yummy - in fact, I bought some s/f gingersnaps, and we had it as a dip/spread for the cookies!!!

Same thing with Christmas basically, since our menu for Christmas and Thanksgiving doesn't really vary, except at Christmas, we add ham.

So you see, it's ALL about being creative and focusing on what you CAN have, not mourning what you CAN'T!!!!

Hugs,

Tia