"The most wonderful time of the year"

I spent much of the weekend baking, and now we have a mountain of cookies waiting to be enjoyed and/or given away.

Karen's ginger cookies are a must in our household each year, and I also tried new recipes for shortbread and congo squares.  I have had Mary's congo squares quite a bit and love them.  The ones I made are a little softer than hers (perhaps because I used butter?), but still delish.  

The shortbread... not so much.  While they taste fine, they all flattened out as I baked them.  My friend Diane stopped by with some cookies for us, and she said the same thing happened to one of her batches.  It's nice to get a little sympathy!

Saturday it started snowing around 2 pm, and by the time we woke up Sunday, we'd had 6" of fluffy stuff.   True to Vermont form, the roads were cleaned up by lunchtime, enough so we could walk over to Mary and Manny's for a visit in the afternoon.   Their Christmas tree is very pretty, and I noticed a star ornament I made them a year or so ago.  

This morning, the temperature was 1.6 degrees.  I doubt if we'll walk anywhere today.  The roads need a little warmth and sun to dry out.  That's OK - I still have one section of the sampler quilt to add as well as borders.