Both of the last two weekends have really felt like the weekend before Christmas. A tree has been acquired. Inle has been making his family’s traditional baked apples. Other people (not me yet) have been baking cookies.
This weekend, more of the pre-Christmas ensued. PhysOrg and I got up late and went to breakfast Saturday morning. Then I dropped him off at home and went shopping. The crowds weren’t really too bad (parking at the mall was the biggest hassle, but still it’s the mall so it’s not really great any time). I spent four or five hours out and hit somewhere in the neighborhood of ten shops, I think. Not really a lot of present-buying for specific individuals, either. Most of the purchases were bakery items or baking ingredients or utensils.
I have been doing more and more of that sort of thing recently– just doing some general baking and such around the holidays rather than buying a bunch of presents. Unless someone has really been wanting or needing something, it’s hard to make a good guess about what to buy them and in previous years I had just resorted to gift cards. There may be some of that before it’s all over, but so far I have not been compelled to go that route in holiday season giving.
After shopping, I came home (to the smell of baking cookies), put things away, and watched a couple of movies back-to-back. Amazingly, the day was already over by the time I finished the second one.
This morning, cookie dough has been made. There are three bags of gingerbread cookie dough chilling in the fridge, waiting to be baked later tonight or this week.
One last full week of work this year, then a couple of short weeks. Yay!
