I’m sure you have a much more organized system for wrapping your presents than I do…..

This would be called the “scatter everything on the living room floor, grab a gift, then search around for what you need to wrap it with” method!! My girls were engrossed in reading the books we bought for my nephews.

Well, our daughters’ doll beds are nearly done!

The finishing touch will be a wooden letter (their initial), painted in black, and attached to the center top of the headboard.

Here’s one of the dolls trying out her new bed.

I took these pictures while my husband was out with our daughters yesterday, doing their annual Christmas shopping trip for my presents. The girls got lunch out of the deal as well, so I think they were pretty pleased! I know they’re going to love their doll beds tomorrow, too!!

I typically don’t do a lot of cookie baking around the holidays since we already seem to be swamped with sweets from every corner at this time of year. However, once our daughters were old enough to bake with me, I wanted to begin a tradition of making some type of shaped cookie that they could decorate as they pleased. Since I personally don’t care for gingerbread, I was delighted some years ago to find a recipe for chocolate cookie dough that I could use.

It’s from the Holiday 2004 edition of Kraft Food & Family magazine and I’m posting it here, in order to share it with you – and also for posterity’s sake, in case I ever lose the original!

Chocolate Holiday Bears

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 package (4-serving size) chocolate flavor instant pudding & pie filling
1 egg
1 3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 squares baking chocolate, if desired
Decorations, such as assorted small candies, raisins, craisins, sprinkles, chocolate (or other flavored) chips, colored sugars, mini marshmallows, shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat butter, sugar, dry pudding mix and egg in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended.

Combine remaining dry ingredients. Gradually add to pudding mixture, beating until well blended after each addition. Form into ball. (Refrigerate for up to one hour if dough is soft.)

Roll out dough on lightly floured surface to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut out the dough into shapes using large cookie cutters; place on lightly greased baking sheet. Reroll scraps and cut additional cookies as needed.

Decorate cut-outs with assorted decorations, pressing in lightly. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until slightly firm. Remove from baking sheets. Cool on wire racks.

Melt chocolate in microwavable bowl on medium power until melted. Spread on cookies as desired or use as “glue” to attach more decorations.

Every year, my daughters and I bake these together a few days before Christmas, keeping some for ourselves and sharing some with friends. This time we decided to carry out this tradition by including a couple of friends in the baking. To help things go more smoothly, I made the dough ahead, then had each set of girls roll out their own dough, use the cookie cutters to create the shapes they desired, then decorate their individual cookies.

The older girls ended up with neatly decorated cookies…..

…..while the younger ones were a bit more random and generous with their toppings!

This is another tradition that I look forward to every year and is an additional way to create fun memories together!

Others are sharing their Christmas food traditions at Life as Mom.

You may remember my little dilemma from a couple of weeks ago in regards to needing mattresses for the doll beds my husband is making our daughters for Christmas. Based on my own thoughts and a couple of reader suggestions, I decided to see about buying some foam that I could cut or have cut for me to the proper size and then attempt in my own non-crafty way to cover it.

Well, that idea lasted as long as it took me to peruse the Walmart craft department. The first item I spotted (after asking a “sales associate” for direction, that is) was a package of four foam squares, intended for seat cushions. Size-wise, those might have worked if I somehow finagled them together, but at a cost of almost $12, I wasn’t willing to try it. Who knew foam cost that much??? Beside that product was a space for some thinner foam, cost of about $9, but all out of stock. I suppose I could have gone to the fabric store to check the cost of foam there, but decided to keep wracking my brain for some other idea.

The next night, I was standing in our laundry area, looking at some table place mats I had recently washed and decided that they had seen better days.

Just as I determined that they were headed for the trash, a light bulb clicked on in my brain. These were a rectangular shape that was similar to what I needed for the mattresses. Was there a way I could use them to make what I wanted? I decided to experiment.

I trimmed each of the four place mats down to the size that I needed, then hand stitched the cut side of each one to close it. I found an old, relatively fluffy towel and cut two pieces out of it that matched the size of the cut-down place mats. I stitched those three layers together – one place mat, topped by a towel rectangle, topped by the other place mat – one set of three pieces for each mattress.

Once that was done, I took some old pink fabric I had around the house and cut it to double the size of the place mat. I stitched around two sides (one side was the fold), then turned it inside out, inserted the place mat/towel configuration and just hot-glued the final side shut.

I was actually pleased with how it turned out, considering my total lack of expertise. My husband pointed out that it’s not the thickest mattress in the world, but I don’t think the dolls will be sitting up in bed in the middle of the night to complain.

Maybe touching it up with an iron would help as a finishing touch!! The doll beds are receiving their final coat of white paint, so I hope to post pictures of the completed project tomorrow.

See what others accomplished this week at Tackle It Tuesday.