Christmas, Cookies, and an Assortment of Bear Books!

I love December and all that it entails. I love celebrating the birth of my Lord and Savior. I love watching A Charlie Brown Christmas for the upteenth time. I love wrapping presents. I love that my family gets to spend two entire weeks together with no school or work. And I love to bake cookies. Lots and Lots of cookies. 

There were my old standbys like Swedish Butter Cookies, Raspberry Cookies, and Date Nut Pinwheels also known as Railroad cookies because railroaders would take them in their lunch pails. In addition, this year I tried several new recipes. I made Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies, Cinnamon Bun Cookies, Iced Oatmeal Cookies, and Italian Ricotta Cookies. Not everything turned out quite how I expected, but it was still a fun experience. The ricotta cookies were iced with sprinkles and looked gorgeous when they dried, however, when I placed them in airtight containers, the moisture in the cookie made the glaze turn gooey like day old donuts. This of course made me fearful to glaze the oatmeal and cinnamon cookies, but thankfully they tasted divine without glaze. I do have to say though, that the chocolate cookies were the absolute best ever.

 

I had quite an assortment of cookies and so I thought I would share an assortment of bear books this week. I'm not sure why, but I do love bears. I have various bear figurines and stuffed bears, some from as far back as my childhood (I know, that is scary old) and some of my favorite childhood books are about bears. So below is my list of  really great bear books both old and new. Enjoy and have a very Merry Christmas!

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. And feel free to drop by my personal website, Fun With Aileen, any day of the week for even more on reading, writing, my very own early grade chapter book, Fern Valley, the sequels, Return To Fern Valley,  and Cooking In Fern Valley, along with my very first picture book, Quack and Daisy! I'm also on twitter @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days.