Christmas Cookies

The holiday season is not complete until I've baked a couple batches of Christmas cookies. I'll bake more with my mom once I'm home for Christmas, but I couldn't wait until then so I took a study break last week and whipped up a batch of Chocolate Candy-Cane Thumbprint cookies and Gingersnaps dipped in White Chocolate. They both turned out so cute and were a huge hit with all my friends.

Before I started baking I got all my "special" ingredients ready. I love to bake, so I have a pretty well stocked baking cupboard filled with standard baking ingredients. For both cookies I only needed to purchase the more decorative ingredients, and I found this adorable festive serving tray at my local Harris Teeter! I know you can only see part of his face in this picture, but isn't the snowman just too cute?!

I always wear an apron while I bake at my place. I don't have a fancy KitchenAid stand mixer or anything, so flour has a tendency to get everywhere once I get my little hand-mixer going. I absolutely love this apron from Kate Spade. It's big enough that it actually covers most of me and I don't end up with flour on my jeans or sweater, and it's festive enough that it feels Christmasy, but since the pattern is just metallic and black snowflakes, I think I can get away with wearing it in January and February as well. Since it's more of a winter print and less of an explicitly Christmas print, it's not relegated to only being used in December. It makes me so sad that all the cute Christmas decorations and clothes only come out for a month out of the year, so I love when I can get away with stretching my festive things into the rest of winter. I have matching dish towels and an oven mitt in this pattern as well, and Kate Spade carries an entire dishware line in it as well, but I don't have enough storage space in my apartment to keep a set of seasonal dishes.

I like to be comfortable when I bake or cook. Being distracted by an itchy top or pants that are sliding down makes baking much less fun. The sweater I'm wearing is from J. Crew factory a few years ago. It's kind of a sweater-sweatshirt hybrid because it looks like a sweater but it's made of sweatshirt material, and it's sooo comfortable. I love it so much that I bought it in cream as well. It's also great because it has a jeweled collar, so I don't even need to think about jewelry when I wear it. I can throw on a simple pair of stud earrings and I'm good to go. I also love it because of the color, maroon/burgundy in the fall and winter is one of my favorite looks. Sometimes bright Christmasy shades of red don't look great with my skin-tone, and burgundy is a great alternative that still feels festive. I paired the sweater with my Madewell Roadtripper jeans. Madewell is my go to brand for jeans. They're high quality and generally comfortable. These particular jeans are the most comfortable pair of Madewell jeans that I own. They are somewhat high-waisted, so they prevent any risk of muffin-top, but they still sit an inch or two below my belly button. The material is incredibly soft, and I often forget that I'm even wearing jeans when I wear them, they feel more like jeggings! They're stretchy, but they don't lose their shape or start to fall down my waist after a few wears. Basically, they're the perfect jeans and they were great for baking in.

I don't always wear shoes in my own apartment, I'm more of a fuzzy sock girl, but when I bake or cook I do like to wear shoes just in case I spill anything on the floor, I don't want any food or ingredients to wind up on my bare feet or stuck in my socks, that's gross. These flats are the Tory Burch Caroline flats from two years ago. I love them because the logo on the toe of the flats blends in nicely with the nude color, so it's not an obnoxious, in-your-face logo. I think the Tory Burch logo is very cute, but I like it to be somewhat subtle. These flats are super comfortable because there's a strip of high-quality elastic around the edge of them, so it prevents any potential rubbing from the leather. I wear these flats all the time because they're comfortable and the neutral nude color goes with everything.

Ta-da, my cookies turned out so cute (and tasty too)! It definitely feels more like Christmas now that I can enjoy a festive cookies or two while I lounge on the couch.

Apron: Kate Spade.

Sweater: J. Crew Factory from a few years ago, they have a basic sweater in the same color here, and Macy's has a similar burgundy sweater with a jeweled collar here.

Jeans: Madewell.

Shoes: Tory Burch Caroline flats from two years ago, they currently have the Minnie Travel Ballet Flat in nude with a subtle logo, which is also a very comfortable style.