COOKIES, CARDS, & CAROLS

So... my apartment is a mess of card clippings, sugar, flour, and chocolate, and things are really hectic with planning finals, grading, teaching. But, since I don't have a class to teach tomorrow morning, I thought I'd share with you all a little bit of the fun that I've been having in the midst of all this busyness.

I've been throwing Christmas cookies, cards, and carols parties for my students last week and this week. ... Right now I've had 5 groups of 11 over (on 5 different nights). I've got 6 more parties to have before next week.

Here some students in the process of making and decorating cookies:

You can hear one student, frustrated with sticky icing, saying (in Chinese), "Chopsticks are better." ... Chopsticks actually do work well for icing cookies! We tried it last night.

Most have my students have never baked before, or cooked very much for that matter, but the cookies have turned out very well! As you can see from the picture.

Before we eat them, we must take a photo!

And this is what it look like 3 minutes later:


And now it's time once again to clean up. ... I guess I'll just HAVE to lick all the spoons covered in chocolate.

p.s. Is it just me, or was the turn-around between Thanksgiving and Christmas abnormally fast? I really feel like Christmas has snuck up on us this year!