More Cookie Making on a Bristow Christmas Eve

Bristow Dawn

Evie and her Girls, Halle and Hayden

Hayden and Halle with their Cousins

A bright sky this morning, up at 7:00, with Drew, Halle, and Jill to follow around 7:45.  It's a very cold 22º outside and supposed to rain off and on during the day.  Halle's playing Hanging with Friends with Evie, who left a word on her Itouch.  We are watching Morning Joe, just like my mornings at home.

Yesterday, for the most part, was a cookie morning.  Evie, Drew, and Halle made three or four batches of cookies to put on trays for the neighbors.  While they worked, Jill and I took a brisk hour walk around their Kingsbrook neighborhood.  It is amazing how developed this area has become over the past ten or fifteen years.  And it keeps growing, with huge housing developments going on as well as another mall.  Pretty soon it will be too crowded, time to move farther away from the DC area.  This used to be the boondocks twenty years ago.  After we returned, Evie and I made a cookie recommended to us by her sister Claire called Oreo Truffles.  They are very easy; just take a package of oreos, grind them up in a food processor, combine the ground oreos with a pound of cream cheese, form into small balls, dip them in chocolate, sprinkle them with leftover oreos, and refrigerate.  No baking. They are sinful, to say the least.

About 3:30, we went to a birthday party for Drew's brother's daughter.  His sister and brother were there along with his Mom and Day  We had punch, champagne, and appetizers.  It was fun to see Drew's family, some we had not seen since Jill and Drew's wedding.  And the girls seem to enjoy their cousins, which is neat. We then went over to Drew's sister Carrie's house, with his parents, and sat around till about 7:00, watching football, drinking beer, and talking.  His brother in law is a font of wisdom when it come to football, has a great sense of humor, a fun guy to be around.  We got on Drew quite a bit about his changing attitude, shall I say infatuation with Britney Spears.  He thinks she's pretty cool.  Figure?

We came home  hungry, so we had corn and potato chowder, which Evie had made earlier in the day, along with toasted ham and cheese sandwiches, a perfect way to end the day.  We watched some TV with the girls and all of us went up to bed by 10:00, tired I suppose from cookie making.

Today, we make more cookies, pick up a few sides for tomorrow's dinner, then wait for Santa.  The girls are already hyper, especially Hayden, who doubts if she will be able to sleep tonight.  And it's the last night for elf as he heads back to Santa's house.