12 Stuff Ups of Christmas

On the 7th day of Christmas my true loves gave to me…a messy house for me to clean. Seriously detesting school holidays already. It feels like all my children do is back chat, fight each other and make a mess.

A true gift was Miss 9 getting invited for a sleepover. Only one cheeky monkey for us to deal with. When the child’s mother texted ‘I know it’s the night before Christmas Eve but the girls want to know if Miss 9 can spend the night’ I had to think about it for all of 10 seconds.

I wanted to text back ‘Are you serious? She can stay for a week if you like.’ But instead I just said ‘no problem’.

I was also grateful that without his sister’s influence, Mr 6 happily helped me with getting the house ‘ready for Christmas’. I still did like 95% of the work, but the house looks reasonable and I don’t feel as angry about having had to do it as I usually do.

We waited for Abigail to return before starting to work on a batch of Christmas cookies. I’d been procrastinating about making them since I bought the Christmas themed cutters weeks ago but hadn’t really gotten any further than that. Thank you Woolworths online for the recipe (not sponsored but happy to receive payment).

I did not have a few of the necessary ingredients. This served good purpose as I also hadn’t wrapped Hubby’s present so I sent him down, citing a fear of Yule tide carparks.

Mr 6 insisted that I should make the dough and he would cut out the shapes. Miss 9 was finally ready to be picked up as I started. I was pleasantly surprised to find Hubby had made the dough in my absence.

The first tray Mr 6 and I made was difficult. The dough was too soft and that made picking up our stars, snowmen, candy canes and stockings difficult. Hubby suggested adding more flour and letting the dough chill in the fridge for a bit.

Miss 9 helped with tray number two. The dough was firmer but had a tendency to break apart when transferring to the tray. Miss 9 was tired from her sleep over so gave up after a couple of tries, leaving the rest of that tray plus two more to…you guessed it me!

By this point it was about 2.30 pm, which in Sydney, in Summer is pretty much the hottest part of the day. I ranted out loud about how this was obviously a tradition for the northern hemisphere while I read about how to make the ‘Royal Icing’ with sweat dripping down my back, legs, etc.

First part of the icing was to separate an egg, something I’d never done before. I turned to Hubby who apparently hadn’t either, but I insisted it be him. He’s just much less…well shit at small fiddly things like that. I must admit he did it like a pro.

Then I had to whisk in icing sugar until it was the right consistency. Slowly. And it had to be sifted. I sifted and added and sifted and added until I finally had to relent. We were out of icing sugar and would have to go to the shops.

What felt like half an hour (my children insisted on coming and conversing with just about everyone) I was ready to resume sifting and whisking and sifting and whisking until…that’ll do…I hope.

I finally got to use the piping bag I’d bought six months ago. The icing was still quite runny so I didn’t ask the kids to help and they seemed to be quite busy anyway. Mr 6 was playing a virtual reality game and Miss 9 had a tantrum and fell asleep. Great bonding experience guys.

Anyway the pick with the article is ‘our’ actual cookies and I think they look edible. I do not know if they will even get a look in at Christmas lunch amongst the ham and pavlova but really I did it for the experience. It was a bit shit, but would I do it again? Ask me this time next year, and remind me to buy royal icing in a tube.