Christmas in July!

"Wake  up!  Wake up, everybody!!  It's time for fun Christmas today!!"

And now a note from my ten year old:

"Yes, you read that correctly.  CHRISTMAS IN JULY!  Around the Carson house things are... well, Christmasy!  You may see  holly by the door, a jolly Santa figure, and even a small, lit tree!  There may be snowmen lurking in the bathroom and all sorts of other small surprises.  There are literally candy canes hanging from the ceiling.  There will be cinnamon rolls and treats too.  Of course Santa is a little too busy to visit today, but there's still that good ole Christmas spirit!  Who would have guessed what a wonderful idea it is to have a fun Christmas day in mid-July to be precise?  Keep your Christmas spirit folks because Santa watches us all year long, even in July!"

Today, for several reasons, we had a Christmas in July day.  My daughter Sophia's cooking camp was canceled at the last minute, and she was a bit depressed.  My daughter Lili has been obsessed with a book called That's Not Santa for the last two months, and she is very interested as of late in discussing Santa Claus, his reindeer, his wardrobe, and his bag of presents.  My daughter Emma simply loves Christmas, and when I mentioned the idea to her one evening last week when we were out for a walk, she decided that it simply must happen.   So today it happened.

I pulled out a few of our Christmas decorations from the basement and set the stage last night.  We also took the First United Methodist cinnamon rolls out of the freezer and pre-chopped all of the ingredients to make the world's best omelets this morning.  Buddy the Elf would have most definitely been pleased.

Today, while listening to their favorite Christmas Cd's, my girls looked through our Christmas cookie cookbooks and chose a couple of recipes that we've never gotten around to at Christmas time.  To be honest, as much as I love the Christmas season, it is often hectic and stressful, and the idea of dirtying up my kitchen to make experimental cookies does not appeal to me one bit.  Today, however, it was a perfect day for experimental cookies.  Emma and Sophie chose to make Thumbprint Cookies and Orange Snowballs.  The Thumbprints reminded us of British treats; my British friends do seem to love goodies with jam in the middle.  And the orange snowballs were a treat that I remembered from my own childhood.  After making them myself, I'm not sure that I like them anymore.  They were way tastier when I didn't know what was in them.  Did you know that there is LOTS of  butter and sugar in cookies? 

I had a delightfully wonderful time making cookies with this girl today.  Her two sisters curled up on the sofa to watch a Christmas movie, and she helped me make the thumbprint cookies.  She gave herself the title of "Cookie Editor in Chief" since she went behind me making sure that all of the cookies were the right size and that they each received a sensible portion of jam in the center.  Oh, how I love that girl!  One on one time with my older girls is a treasure these days.

For dinner we had somewhat Christmasy fare: roast chicken and vegetable with sage and onion stuffing, and I did get some high fives around the dinner table.  I also have a feeling these kids might remember and want to do it all again next July.  Tomorrow all evidence of "Fun Christmas" will be put away so that we don't get too much of a good thing, but a bit of Christmas was just what our hot July needed.