Christmas Prep--I'm on it

I have popped the clutch on my Christmas prep. The dog's beds and blankets have been washed, one dog has been bathed, ears cleaned and....well...I won't mention the rest. But Wiggles (15 yr. old male chocolate/tan dachshund) is ready for Christmas. At 15, maybe he needs to be. Now, Sister (7 yr. old black/tan female) is simply a different story because she is as heavy as a boat anchor and to lift her up to my farmhouse sink in the kitchen is worse than 50 push ups, so she becomes Bruce's job. I don't mind bathing her--even if she is a whale--I just then have to "decon/de-dog" the sink. Since they are "Big Love", I'll leave that to the two of them. Sis thinks that because Bruce shoots the squirrels that taunt her (pellet gun) , he is George Clooney. Mr. Clooney then lets her carry the squirrel to the trash where quite often she won't "drop it" when told to. Just another female who doesn't do what she's told...nothing new there. Since Muffin (15 yr. old Egyptian Mau cat) got a bath for Thanksgiving, he's done as far as I'm concerned. He fights like an Al Quaida terrorist when you bathe him so he's clean enough for Santa in my book. He also turns on his plumbing to gross you out but that's a whole other story.

Anywho, I've also just finished making my favorite cookies that I only make once a year, Viennese Crescents. I got the recipe from a friend of Bruce's who is an incredible cook. Peggy could cook the phone book and make it taste good. And she's got all the cooking toys, too. She doesn't have just one torch to caramelize sugar--oh, no. She has three or four, in differing sizes. I don't know if welders have that many. Anyway, her cookies are supposed to be shaped in half moons, if you are that crazy. Peggy said one of her son's used to painstakingly shape the "moon cookies" every year from the time he was little until he went to cooking school and became a chef. (Peggy has since decided that blows and just rolls her's in logs, cuts slices, and then makes little balls. Oh, hell yeah, Peggy.)
So, after my first cookie sheet of balls, I decided to try half moons. Wrong, Mary Lou. At first I thought it was just my technique, or lack there of. Nope. They still looked like old ladies toes--all old and gnarly looking. I patted, I rolled. Nothing. Even a good podiatrist couldn't have helped these. So I just put them in the oven. What came out was arthritic looking swollen fingers. Egad.... I figured rolling them in the powdered sugar might help disguise them a little bit....and a little bit was right. But, boy, they tasted good. No...make that great.
Next will be my annual fudge, better known around our house as "ferdge". The back story on "ferdge" involved a little boy named Phillip, a "ferdgesicle", and a wonderful black housekeeper who was hilarious. To this day, I can look at my sister and say "ferdge", and she will LOL. Guaranteed. Every time.
Some traditions are still worth the hassle if they make you laugh and remember.