The annual cookie bake-a-thon.

Cookie baking day was a tradition that started with my grandma and I when I was little. She used to have me over to her house for a few hours of baking sugar cookies which I'd share with the family when we all got together on Christmas Eve. Many years down the road now, and two cousins added into the mix, the cookie baking has become a day long event which includes pretty much the whole family. The baking is no longer limited to sugar cookies and now includes dozens and dozens of other cookies and sugary concoctions. We also moved the "bakery" to my aunt's house so we could utilize her double ovens. When it comes to the sugar cookies, my cousins and I love to use every cookie cutter available between my grandma and aunts...this explains the Christmas turkeys, witches, dinosaurs, and Porky the Pig.

We did, unfortunately, have one tray of casualties this year. Fingers could not be pointed though since everyone claimed that someone else was in charge of the timer for that batch.