Growing up, my family had this tradition of cutting down a mammoth Christmas tree straight from the hillside every year. If Christmas trees were Harry Potter characters, ours would be Hagrid. “Simply too big to be allowed.” Seriously, we’re talkin’ like 12-13 feet. And every year my poor dad risks life and limb by standing tippy-toe on the highest step of the ladder, to lasso the lights and tinsel around the very top.
This week my parents were jet-lagged from vacation, and my Dad was sick, so a trip to The Mountains (what I dubbed any locale with even the slightest altitude as a kid—we are valley-folk, what can I say) had to be foregone this year. Instead we trekked on over to Costco. For a completely normal-sized tree. This is a first, folks. With my dad out for the count, it was my job to light up that sucker. No big deal, right? How hard can it be? Just throw some lights up and plug it in.
WRONG. That measly little tree DEFEATED me. I haven’t thrown a tantrum like that since I found out Reese’s shrunk the size of their cups. I mean we are talking foot-stamping, twinkle-light-hucking outrage, complete with girly squeals. Why is it so hard?? It looked like a nest for a bird of prey. And then since things had already gone to pot I let Charlotte do the tinsel All By Herself. This tree’s a winner guys. Hopefully the rest of you are not as twinkle-light inept as I am. In any case, I have this to make me feel better:
I officially (and retroactively) proclaim it gingerbread week. We started off on Monday with these Frosted Peppermint Gingerbread Bars, and today we are getting in your face with these Nutella Stuffed Gingerbread Cookies. Last year I made this same cookie but with chocolate chunks in them, and they were amaaaazing. The dough recipe is from the lovely Alaina over at Fabtastic Eats, who made these Caramel Stuffed Gingerbread Cookies. Yeah, read that again. Pretty much any way you embellish this dough, you are going to have a winner. But I have to say I am partial to the Nutella version. Because, HELLO, Nutella. I just don’t feel like I need more words here. I could not get enough of these. You know how cookies are usually kind of ‘eh’ by day 2? Not so with these. They get even softer by day 2. I wouldn’t know about day 3. Because I know what’s good for me. Do you guys give up? Or are you thirsty for more? Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter
More Christmas treats! Never enough!! Chocolate Chunk Gingerbread Cookies «This is the same cookie, except with chocolate chunks. Also a fabulous choice:
Frosted Peppermint Gingerbread Bars « I know I just posted these 2 days ago, but they deserve another shout out. SO GOOD:
Nutella Stuffed Browned Butter Blondies. With over 76,000 pins to date, these guys are still hanging out at the 3rd most visited post (ever) on my blog. Let’s give em a hand, huh?
Other recipes from around the blog-o-sphere: Nutella Chocolate Cake from Life, Love, and Sugar Nutella Gingerbread Hot Cocoa from Anyonita Nibbles Gingerbread Cupcakes with Gingerbread Frosting from Roxana’s Home Baking
