pile stack

Now that is a heaping pile stack* of Christmas cookies and candies!  (And a bottle of wine sneaking into the picture, which I must say, goes well with chocolate.)  I did not bake all of these myself by the way.  My mom now lives in town!

from top to bottom:

• pretzel wreaths
• Swedish cookies
• shortbread
• spicy pecans (recipe here)
• sour cream and nutmeg sugar cutout cookies
• mixture from a cookie exchange party, (including a wonderful peppermint pinwheel, some coconut macaroons, chocolate cherry cookies and... lots more)

Next to the pile is a box of Russian chocolates from the office white elephant party. ( I always go for something edible and not white elephant-ish because otherwise I end up with the dog Christmas stocking paired with the plastic dog that poops candies if you bam it on the head.) The chocolates are adequate, but I don't eat adequate chocolate if I can help it. Plus the translations of the contents in each are a bit rough so I can't predict what I'm going to bite into. The kids like them.  On top of that box is a bowl of fresh pecans from a farmer in my CSA and some random school party candies. And wine.


*a "pile stack" is a phrase from baby Pook

And, because I'm dealing with photos, here is my new dining room table: