With friends like these...

...who needs Santa Claus?!

So Peter sent something via USPS the other day, and I got the automated email saying something was coming.

And all that did was put me into a frenzy (remember, I'm a 12 year old girl - I'm easily excited!). You can't just let me know something's coming - I'll go apeshit bonkers trying to figure out what it was. He just clued me in that some of it would help with Christmas. Oh, and I knew he'd baked some cookies out of the new Martha Stewart cookie book, so I figured there was a strong chance I'd get to do some taste testing!

And when I got home yesterday, there it was - a box on the front doorstep.

SQUUEEEEEAL!!! (Ok, we talked about this already...get over it...)

So while I was waiting for some plum jelly to boil (more on that fiasco later), I cut into the package and then delicately pulled apart the layers of tissue paper to find...



Wow - don't those look good? And they smelled good too! But wait! There was enough height to the box, and enough shuffling of the layers of tissue paper to imply there might be MORE goodies! So I lifted up the coconut shortbreads to find...


GASP! OMG! Holy shit - chocolately cookies and...wait...hold on a sec...

(sniff sniff)

(go on, get your face in there closer (you might have to scratch the picture on your monitor to acitvate the scent))




Mmmmmmm! That's not just chocolate. That's chocolate AND GINGER! What's my weakness? GINGER! Give me some of that yum-yum!!

Ok, plus there was the mention of something being included to help with Christmas, and sure enough, under the chocolate ginger cookies was ANOTHER layer...


Yup, looks like I'm set for some Christmas cookies this year. Good thing there's a holly leaf in the mix - mine is rustin' out, and I have to admit that a holly-shaped cookie is a nice, SIMPLE thing to decorate (outline in green, draw a green vein up the middle, and pop on three red dot-berries. DONE!). And that snowflake is a nice, simpler, chunkier snowflake shape than the ones I already have - meaning it won't BREAK THE TIPS off when you take it off the cookie sheet. Eh hm. I'm just sayin' -it happens.

So thanks Peter! I LUUURVS my goodies! (And so do the coworkers I shared some of the cookies with today - rave reviews all around!)