Weeks 23-24: Ekhardt Christmastime Again baking extravaganza

Brett Jr. usually spends Christmas day in Minneapolis with his stepmom's family.  Several years back, Chuck & I started a tradition of spending Christmas day baking cookies.  It's quickly become one of my favorite Christmas traditions.  Chuck & I both come from families for which massive amounts of Christmas cookie baking was an annual event.  Chuck's family made dozens & dozens of cookies that they shared with extended family members.  When I was a kid, my family had an open house every year on December 23 & invited the entire church over.  We usually had 150+ people come through our house for food & treats.  For a couple days beforehand, we baked non-stop.  Each year on Christmas, Chuck & I bake some of my favorites from the open house days. 

This year on Christmas day, Chuck & I made peanut blossoms, 7-layer bars, and lemon bars  (all three of which we had at every open house).  We also made Oreo bon bons (a new recipe that my friend Jon sent me) and cornflake clusters (a recipe we found in Chuck's mom's recipe box).

Our total for Christmas day: 19.25 dozen cookies.  Here's 14.25 dozen of them:

And here are some of the Oreo bon bons (you'll notice that I found good use for all those Christmas sprinkles I've been hoarding):

The day after Christmas, Chuck & I donned our aprons and made 21.5 dozen more cookies.  We pulled out another Falzone recipe - Italian pineapple cookies (yum!), made buckeyes for the first time (YUM), and made Chuck's mom's chocolate chip cookies (for half of them, we added in some peppermint bark).  Here's the chocolate chip & pineapple cookies - look, more sprinkles!

Here are the buckeyes pre-chocolate:

And here they are post-chocolate:

We took half these treats to the office for our co-workers, and packed up the other half for the Ekhardt Christmastime Again gathering.  Every year, we drive to Iowa to spend the week between Christmas & New Year's at my brother & sister-in-law's house.  And my parents fly in from California for the week as well.  Brett Jr. named this holiday "Christmastime Again" after the lesser-known Peanuts holiday special.

While in Iowa, my sister-in-law, Tracie, and I made cookie dough cupcakes with frowny faces.  She added a brilliant touch - one surprised/worried cupcake:

We also made sugar cookies, which we slathered buttercream frosting on & then handed them over to the kids to cover in sprinkles.  I was too busy applying frosting to take pictures, but good times and good cookies were had by all!