Advent Baking

As we mentioned on Sunday, it is Advent! It’s the most butter-ful time of the year.

Seriously! With our annual Christmas cookie baking frenzy, the amount of butter we go through from Thanksgiving to Christmas would probably grease a steam engine, if we were so inclined to be wasteful.

We prefer to use it to grease our arteries. It’s kind of like lubrication. It helps the blood to flow more smoothly. #Science!

That way, it may go to waist, but it will never go to waste!

First up, one of Mommy’s favorites, orange white chocolate.

3 dozen!

Just because we are baking cookies, doesn’t mean that the humble loaf of bread is neglected.

This is yeast bread. You can tell by the mitosis.

Winnie’s boule.

Looks good enough to eat!

The pioneer spirit is strong in our house right now (those are actually their Flopsy and Cottontail costumes from Halloween, minus the bunny ears).

On Monday, another favorite, this time from Daddy’s childhood: Chip-chocolate-oatmeal-raisin cookies.

Winnie didn’t actually make that many cookies. She spent most of the time licking cookie dough off her fingers.

Surprisingly, though you wouldn’t know it from the pictures I’m sure, this was rather a chaotic morning. In the chaos we overlooked an ingredient.

That’s right, these are, in fact, oatmeal raisin cookies. No chocolate was chipped in the making of these cookies.

Oh well, we’ll try again. If at first you don’t succeed, make another batch.

It is worth noting that Advent is traditionally a penitential season in the Church, not a celebratory season. Liturgically we are anticipating the birth of Jesus, but also re-living, to some extent, the bleakness of the world without Him. While this is not observed in our commercial culture (think of the economic shockwaves if people waited until December 24 to start partying, and then partied non-stop until the Feast of the Epiphany!)

This is not to say that Advent is a gloomy season. It is a season filled with hope, and therefore with joy. But it has been my experience that the joy of Christmas is best prepared for by a measure of austerity during lent. The humble Christmas cookie is a great vehicle for learning this at a visceral level. We make cookies and put them in cold storage in tins on the back deck where they will wait (in joyful hope!) until the coming of Jesus.

It is just one way of living as if Jesus really matters.