The Saturday before Christmas my kitchen was taken over by gingerbread (graham cracker) house making elves. It was so fun hosting these two boys so their parents could go do their Christmas shopping. We ate as much as candy as we put on the houses. We used sugarplums, candy canes, twizzler ropes, loads of frosting, M&Ms and tons of sprinkles. Check out how creative he is with the gate that opens in front of the house! We laughed all afternoon. Did I mention that we had so much fun creating these? I have to say this was way better than when I taught 4th grade and we made the houses as examples of all the geometry terms we had learned. We just created, had fun, washed hands as wanted and clean up was way easier! I was tempted several times to point out right angles, cubes and cylinders but just mentioned them in passing.

Sunday I woke up with visions of sugarplums still dancing in my head and I was ready to do my Christmas baking. After creating a list I got started!

Pans of brownies are dressed up by cutting them out with a decorative cookie cutter.

I called these Charcoal Chunks- for anyone who had been naughty this year! I hope that even the nice friends who got cookie plates enjoyed these. They were so delicious!

Christmas Granola Cookies starting whirling away in the mixer. Jovial (the red dog) is always right there to help during baking.

Oats, almonds, walnuts, coconut, chocolate chips: Christmas Granola- cookie form!

It grew a little out of control as I added all the ingredients! This is a new recipe that got rave reviews this holiday season. I can't wait for my dad to try them.

This scoop from Starbucks makes the perfect size cookies. I love finding multiple purposes for kitchen gadgets.

Plates are starting to form. Cookies are overflowing the bowls!

Time for the favorite- peanut butter cookies. Nothing better than that first scoop from a fresh container of Jif!

Peanut butter cookie dough waiting to be crisscrossed...

Crisscrossed!

Racks and racks of goodness cooling. These fly off the racks...before they even cool.

Merry Moose Munch being coated with the caramel and peanut butter sauce in my $1 dutch oven- love a good auction deal!

Drizzled with chocolate and firming up on ourkitchentable! Check out the "blue hour" photo! Outside is a beautiful hue of blue when photographed at this time of evening. I learned about this at the Between Naps on the Porch blog. I loved that I was able to capture one of these magical photos! Also, there is a little bokeh going on (learned about that from PW)!

Sprinkle with M&M's to add holiday color.

ourkitchentablecreations! Plates of cookies and cones full of Merry Moose Munch are almost ready to be shared with family and friends.
To package the Merry Moose Munch I used icing bags and tied them off with a tag. The back of the tag gave me a great place for a message of thanks and happy holiday wishes. The mailman as well as the recess supervisors and Secret Pals at school all got these as a token of my gratitude.

I also glued these on the cones so the friends would know what goodies they were enjoying.

Here are the labels I put on the top of the plates of goodies. I printed these out on cardstock and then used the cricut to cut the circles. A bit of glue attached them to the plastic wrap so they could be refastened to the plate after the snacking.

Six cookies wrapped together made perfect little gifts.

It was a great day of baking and I had a blast delivering to the neighbors and friends and family during the next week. I've really enjoyed snacking on these throughout the holiday as well! Thanks for coming by to snack on some cookies with me. Leave a comment if you enjoyed hanging out ourkitchentablecreations today...and I sure hope you did.