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Oh lord god, those caramels look so good!

I am looking forward to my mothers christmas cookies German style (and you know the Germans have some good christmas sweets), known as Plaetzchen. They have a lemoney fresh bite (from the egg wash i think) which turns into an almondy nuttyness (almond extract). :)

Barron's Brownies, from Maida Heatter's Great American Desserts! Also gingersnaps, homemade marshmallows, and Karen DeMasco's amazing cashew brittle.

I am extremely ritualistic in my December baking. I want the same things I grew up with and I leave my experimenting for the other 11 months of the year. So for cookies, I make my Mom's shortbread recipe (which has made me a total shortbread snob!), my Grandfather's gingerbread men, and my Dad's cheesies. I also make cinnamon and fruit breads like my Mom's. If I'm not finished at the end of that, I might make the optional desserts like gingerbread cake and cranberry cottage pudding.

And if I knew how to make them, I'd make and eat an entire batch of my Grandma's sausage rolls.

Cookies!! next weekend is cookie weekend, where my sister and I go back to our parents' house and spend the weekend baking up a storm with our mom. We make pecan tassies, lemon madrid twists, russian tea cakes, jewel cookies, pinwheel cookies, and assorted extras as we find recipes we want to try. I'm going to add the "evil handful cookies" again this year, I think. And possibly the cardamom cookies.

I'm hoping Mom will make her fruit cake, too. And Christmas Eve dinner is ALWAYS sweet and sour pork, fried rice and gyoza made from scratch from my Dad's mom's recipes.

I always make my Christmas mice. It's a stemmed cherry dipped in chocolate and pressed against a hershey's kiss. You put 2 almond sliced in between before the chocolate hardens and then use icing to make the eyes and red nose. Very cute, easy, and cheap!

Here's an image:

http://www.saltboxcakes.com/images/chocolatemice.jpg

Enjoy!!!

MaggiesMomma, Thank you! You just solved my conundrum of what to get a friend that has everything (and loves rats!). I hope you don't mind if I steal the idea.

I made those caramels last year for gifts for my family, and they were *very* impressed. I would totally recommend it.

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It just isn't Christmas until I've inhaled a few of my dad's pralines. They're a bit of work, so I think I'll just leave the candy-making to him this year.

The recipe is at the end of this post. I'm sure he wouldn't mind me sharing.
http://chimeraobscura.com/mi/holiday-baking-and-sugary-miscellany/

That picture reminded me that my brother makes the best caramels in the world. Whenever he would make them, they wouldn't even make it to the wrapping stage, we'd just hack of hunks and gorge ourselves on the creamy goodness.

I will be giving people peppermint bark and Orangette's granola (yum). I am having a holiday party and don't feel like making full-on rolled out iced cookies so I will be having snickerdoodles (family recipe) and the cardamom-brown sugar palmiers from this month's Sunset.

And the Christmas mice idea is adorable!

I will DEFINITELY be making that toffee--yum! I'll have to give those caramels a try; in the past, I've made the Espresso Caramels from 101 Cookbooks with great success, but I think it's time to shake it up. I'll probably make a bunch, wrap them up in waxed paper, stick them in a glassine bag tied with a ribbon and tuck them into stockings for Christmas!

All these things sound so great! I wish I had the time to try them all. I personally love home made eggnog--and I have a question--anybody out there know a great recipe for old-fashioned Christmas custard? I mean a liquid, drinkable custard that is delicious by itself but could also be used as the base for eggnog.

Hmmmm caramels and toffee... I think I might give those a try. Since I'm not going home for the holidays this year, I have to mail all my gifts back... and with the economy, I'd like those gifts to be as inexpensive as possible. :)