The Reindeer have Arrived!

Okay, so this post is largely for my mother and my brother, neither of whom believed when I spoke with them on the phone that plain sugar cookies could quickly become reindeer! Also, this is a neat trick for the rest of you, who I'm sure have about 80 school parties, church functions, cookie exchanges, and other happy Christmas activities all requiring you to bring something cute - because we all have tons of baking time right now! :)

So here's how it works:

1. Take plain sugar cookie dough and cut out circles. (I used a sugar cookie mix, rolled, and cut them with a cutter, but only because my grocery store was out of the slice-and-bake sugar cookie dough.)

2. Pinch each circle in the middle to form the shape of a peanut.

3. Add chocolate chips for eyes and a red M&M for a nose. Break sections from regular-sized pretzels to make antlers and add. (Expect to have to sacrifice a lot of pretzels in this process to get good sets of matching antlers, but who ever uses a full bag of pretzels anyways? Come on, they live in your pantry for too many months and then they get thrown out, right? That's what happens at my house!)

4. Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for about 8-10 minutes. Cool completely. I put mine in the freezer for about 5 minutes to really set the chocolate chip eyes before I packed them in the cookie jar. I hate doing all this work and then ending up with chocolate shmears all over my cookies! :(

5. Enjoy! Ours turned out to be tasty and quick! We mixed up the dough early in the day (takes maybe 10 minutes including doing the dishes!) and then we made about 4 dozen in an hour this afternoon. Will did all the decorations himself - always a favorite at our house! Sure, the antlers aren't exactly straight and a couple of cookies were sacrificed in the process, but, hey, that's part of the holidays, right? Joy in the journey not just the destination is my motto right now!

6. By the way, I'm thinking you could get creative with this idea, too. I haven't tried it, but I bet you could cut out an oval and pinch it twice and have a great snowman. Maybe decorate with a chocolate chip eyes, M&M buttons, a red licorice scarf, and a pretzel broom? We might try it - probably in January when we have a little more baking time! :)

7. Have fun!