'Tis the Season for Cookie Baking

Began a busy morning with breakfast and the first of three Christmas Carol-based specials. The Flinstones are probably not the first characters you'd associate with this story, but A Flinstones Christmas Carol is a surprisingly accurate version (considering it's set millions of years before Dickens or Christmas existed). Fred's playing Scrooge, but his constant rehearsing is getting on everyone's nerves. Wilma's particularly ready to shove that rock script down his throat. She's not only the director of the show, but has to make costumes and take several roles, due to a local flu bug. Not only that, but Fred gets so caught up with his role and with shopping for his family, he forgets to pick up Pebbles at daycare. It takes a visit from a real "ghost" while caught in a department store to finally drive home how important his girls are to him.

The Stingiest Man In Town is Rankin-Bass' animated adaptation of a TV musical from the 50's. Tom Bosley tells the story as insect E.H Humbug, who lives in the office of one Ebeneezer Scrooge (Walter Matthau). He witnesses the arrival of three ghosts who change Scrooge's feelings on the holidays. Nice music here (I'm especially fond of the opening number "An Old-Fashioned Christmas" and "Yes, There Is a Santa Claus" for Martha Cratchit) and a good cast that includes Robert Morse as the young Scrooge and Dennis Day as Nephew Fred.

Spent most of the morning and early afternoon making the first two batches of Christmas cookies. I always make five kinds of cookies at Christmas to give away - oatmeal chocolate chip, peanut butter, almond biscotti, molasses roll outs, and cherry coconut bars. I did the first two this morning. The oatmeal chocolate chip got a little brown, but not too bad.

I didn't have the cake mix for the peanut butter recipe I originally planned on using, so I switched to the peanut butter cookie recipe in that one-bowl cookie cookbook Lauren sent me a while back for my birthday. They came out even better, though I think I should have added a little more peanut butter.

Cleaned up, had lunch, and got Lauren's package together while doing one more Christmas Carol. Stuck to another 50's TV musical, this one featuring Fredric March as Scrooge. It has some interesting ideas - the actor and actress who play Nephew Fred and Belle also play the Ghosts of Christmas Present and Past, and the Future segment is cut down to one short sequence of Scrooge at his grave. I didn't find the music to be that memorable, but according to Musicals 101, it was big enough in the 50's to be made into a hit album.

Finally headed out around quarter after 2 to run some errands...and went right back inside after a few minutes, partially because I forgot my purse, but mostly because a package had arrived from my friends Linda and James Young. A couple of gifts for Christmas Day and New Year's Eve went in the back room, but I was able to open two now. One was a book of weird and wacky Christmas stories that'll be great for when I read stories from my Christmas anthology books during the week between Christmas and New Year's. The other...was a Susan Branch Christmas book Linda sent me a few years ago. Oops. That was ok. I donated it to the Haddon Township Library. They have a few of her other books. (They also included a lovely card with a wreath on it.) Thanks, guys!

My first stop when I did make it out the door was the Oaklyn Post Office. I literally made it inside just in time. I had no sooner grabbed a roll of packing tape and gotten into line than five or six people got in line behind me. Fortunately, I had no problems sending a package with gifts for Lauren and her family off to Pittsfield and my out-of-town cards to their destination.

It was a dark, damp, and windy day, if relatively warm for the time of year. This may be why Newton Lake Park was empty when I passed through. I saw two other people out for a stroll and several flocks of Canadian geese looking for a late snack, but not much else.

The Haddon Township Library wasn't busy, either. I looked for two children's books for the head librarian and shelved DVDs, CDs, and new books. Found new releases for Elena of Avalor and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, as well as a new copy of an older Mickey Mouse Clubhouse special. Movies this week are Scrooged and The Owl and the Pussycat.

Went straight home after I left the library. Just managed to get out before the traffic got really bad. As soon as I got in, I went straight into writing. Re-wrote the previous segment slightly to have the Ticket Seller direct her to Mother Goose's home Hubbard Manor in order to ask her how to get back to Philadelphia. The pretty girl in the old-fashioned peasant outfit she encounters is Rey Quite Contrary, who runs the Cockleshell Gardens around Hubbard Manor. She explains that the household is in mourning. Mother Leia Goose's husband, Han Be Nimble, was believed to be lost at sea several months before. The Toymaker, Mother Goose's brother, has sequestered himself in his Toy Factory. Mother Goose is going in the opposite direction, trying to work with everything and everyone to forget her pain.

Broke for dinner at 6:30. Made spinach-cheese chicken sausages sauteed with spinach, mushrooms, and cauliflower while watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. "Mickey's Adventures In Wonderland" begin when Donald frightens the bird in a cukoo clock so badly, it runs off. He and Mick follow him into a hole, which leads them into a strange land where white roses grow on pink bushes and the Cheshire Pete shows up randomly and asks them riddles. They have to find that bird before 6 o'clock, or they won't have a birthday party gift for Daisy.

"Goofy Goes Goofy" in the bonus episode when he's hit with a glob of Professor Ludvig's Von Drake's potion. It can make anything multiply...but Goofy's doused with so much of it, he becomes six Goofys! They cause quite a commotion when they all want to help out with Clarabelle's new store.

Finished the night with my third cookie batch. The almond biscotti aren't the hard rusks many of you dunk into hot drinks. I bake them once, roll them into candy cane and wreath shapes, and sprinkle them with colored sugar. They're crunchy, buttery, and very unique.

Ran episodes of Elena of Avalor as I worked. Most of these episodes revolved around holidays or important events...and there's few holidays more important to Hispanic culture than the Day of the Dead. In "A Day to Remember," Elena is looking forward to celebrating their loved ones who have passed on with her family when she discovers she can actually see ghosts. This new-found power allows her to help the late grandmother of a pair of bickering siblings. The brother wants to sell their grandmother's restaurant, but his sister wants to remain open. Elena has to figure out how to make them realize how their grandmother's cooking used to bring them together...and how to get her own sister Isabel to come out of her room for the festivities.

The sibling duo also appear in "Navidad." It seems the whole town wants to invite Elena and her family over to enjoy their Christmas traditions. Elena is overwhelmed by their requests, until she suggests a party in the park. That doesn't go well. Everyone's traditions seem to intrude on everyone else's. They switch it to a parade to celebrate their traditions, but the obnoxious woman who sells decorations in the town encourages everyone to compete against each other, until the entire parade is a disaster. It's up to Elena to find a way to remind them that the holidays are more about the people we're with than the things we do.

"King of the Carnival" introduces the charming Victor Delgago and his sister Carla. They both appear to be friendly with Elena and her cousin Esteban when they show up at Carnival. But they have something more sinister in mind. Victor intends to use a dark secret in Esteban's past to force him to help them steal the Crown Jewels during the Carnival parade!

The Hispanic tradition of Quinciera - giving the daughter of the family a huge party for their 15th birthday - is discussed in "My Fair Naomi." Despite turning 16 rather than 15, Elena still insists on giving Naomi a big traditional party. Her friend can't seem to do anything right at first. She insists on Elena and their guy friends Mateo and Gabe being in her Quinciera Court, talks too fast, and has no idea how to walk or dance like royalty. Esteban is desperate to make a good impression...so desperate, he starts to rub off on Naomi, until she's acting as snobby as him. It takes a talking-to by Elena's grandmother to realize that her friends are more important than showing off for the crowd.

Isabel goes to regular school for the first time in one of the bonus episodes "Crystal In the Rough." She's brilliant at science and math, but her attempts to use them in the classroom doesn't make her popular with what most people would call the "cool" kids in school. She does her hair and dresses like them to fit in...but it'll take her keen mathematical mind to get them and Elena out of a jam when they wander off in a crystal cave and get into trouble.

We meet Naomi's mother for the first time in "Captain Turner Returns." Turns out she's the captain of a major ship. She's just gotten a job that'll allow her to spend more time with her family...but it's in another country. Elena and Naomi do everything they can to try to get her to let them stay.