Holly Basket Cookies and Let's PaRTay

 Christmas is happening.  My woes from the last post have been solved, it's wrapped and under the tree.  It's time to celebrate and boy howdy I have been celebrating!

Girls' Night happened and was so great.  We started our evening at Shelly's.  She went crazy making delicious appetizers and a great drink.  Christmas balls in the drinks were a big hit.

 As always we all talk at once and laugh throughout the whole evening.

 We had dinner at Keenans in Bellingham.  Delicious as always.  We sent our compliments to the chef.  He came to our table for a visit and then sent out his chocolates.  They were crazy good.

I've been wrapping and baking in between parties.

 I baked sugar cookies and I'm frosting as needed.  I cut out trees and used green and white to decorate.  I had seen it on pinterest.  Not that my cookies look like the ones on pinterest.  They were eaten yesterday before I got the shot.

Sheryl and I have been baking our Holly Basket Cookies for twenty plus years.  She bakes with her girls now.  Originally I saw them in a magazine and rest is history.  They are our specialty. I'd consider them top secret but anyone could look at them and figure it out. lol  I'm sharing today with my tips.

Holly Basket Cookies

Whip together:

1 c. peanut butter

1/2 c. shortening

Add sugars and mix.

1 c. sugar

1 c. brown sugar

Add 2 eggs and mix.

Add 2 c. flour and 2 tsp. soda.

Bake at 325 degrees for 8-10 minutes.  Bake until they start to crinkle.

Unwrap Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and cut them in half.

It's a good idea to have them all unwrapped and ready before you start baking.  Cuz you are going to get really busy. They need to go on the hot cookies and you'll be rolling cookies and rolling in sugar, adding baskets and moving those cookie sheets in and out of the oven quickly.

I use my smallest scoop to make sure they are uniform in size.  Scoop and then roll the dough into balls, then roll in a bowl of sugar before baking.

 After they come out of the oven, press a "basket" into the hot cookie.  Then take off the tray to cool on the counter.

 Let cool for a few hours, as the chocolate basket melts and need to firm up.

You'll need a tube of green and a tube of red decorating icing, and the tips.  Sheryl and I tried to make the frosting one year.  Don't do it!  It's too difficult to get the icing stiff enough or red enough or green enough.  Unless you're a professional baker just buy the grocery store icing.  

 Max found the last green in Lynden on Saturday.  So good luck with that.  If you use Wilton from Micheals make sure you have their tips as the grocery store tips do not fit Wilton's.

Decorate with two holly leaves and two or three berries.

Warning:  That frosting is stiff and by the time you get finished your hand will hurt. A lot.

Aren't they just the cutest cookies ever?

Enjoy!

 On Saturday Max's friend Travis came to our house for dinner.  I made them the grilled cheese guy burgers.  There's bacon too!

 After church on Sunday we had our annual Dykstra Christmas party. This is my Mom's family and it is sometimes hard to believe that we all still get this extend family together.  It's a fun day of getting caught up and delicious food.

My computer won't let me edit the pics I took yesterday so they are what they are.

 The gym pictures aren't good quality photos but there was some quality FuN going on with the bigs and the littles.  Love that so much!

 Christina and I always get a shot of #bigmaxlilmax. 

 After the party I went home, plopped on the sofa and watched the Seahawks game.  What a great game!  Isn't winning fun?  The Beast had a tummy ache but wow did he have the run of his career or what?

Today is Costco and Haggens. Hoping I can hang on to my sanity.