Merry Christmas!

Good morning, my friends. I hope you're ready for Christmas, because time's up! I still have one more baking project to do this morning, but that will be the end of my baking extravaganza for the year. The only other thing I need to make between now and the time we leave is some egg salad for sandwiches. I'll hold off on that for another day or two.

With a big windstorm headed our way, I went straight to work on my baking yesterday. I wanted to make sure it was all done in case we lost power. So I got busy baking some cookies. These are Chocolate-Chunk Oatmeal Cookies with Pecans and Dried Cherries. At the link I've given you, I used dried cranberries for the holiday season. You can also substitute white chocolate for the bittersweet.

These will be for snacking on our drive. I've been able to scale this recipe down to make it a cookies for two recipe. So, I made cookies for two to last us four days.

While those were baking, I went to work trying this new recipe for a no-bake Cranberry-Cookie Butter Cheesecake. Mine was scaled down by half to make it a cheesecake for two (or six). It wasn't hard to make, but it took a while to work through the steps. 

A crust is made from the ground up cookies, some melted butter, and some other seasonings. When the crust is formed into the pan, it goes into the freezer for at least an hour. Then the filling is made by first creating a sort of cranberry jelly. Some whipping cream was whipped into stiff peaks. Then, I made the cream cheese filling by mixing the cream cheese with some sugar and orange zest. The cream cheese mixture is divided in half. Half is mixed with the cookie paste, and half is mixed with the cranberry jelly. Then, the whipped cream is divided in half and added to the two cream cheese mixtures. Then, it's spooned into the frozen crust in two layers with the cranberry layer on top. Then...back into the refrigerator for a minimum of four hours. 

It looks pretty, and everything behaved as expected. I ended up with only half as much of the cranberry jelly that the recipe suggested, but I doubt it makes any difference. We won't eat this until New Year's Day. I'll freeze it between now and then. Of course, I'll report back and let you know how we liked it.

And then, after all that, I sat down to look at email and found this headline from our local newspaper.

So, the big scary windstorm we were promised never materialized. It was supposed to move through coming from the south to the north. I read a little later that high wind advisories had been canceled in Washington too. So...the storm that wasn't. I want my money back.

Okay, so I hadn't done any slow stitching yet, and it was lunch time. Smitty helped me finish off the last Tiny Treasure for this go-round.

I'm not exactly sure what this one is supposed to be. I'm going with Frankenfruit. This is Tiny Treasure #36. It has stem fill, satin stitch, and lazy daisy stitches.

These are the 12 just completed. I'm halfway through the group. 

Here are all the Tiny Treasures I have so far. (The one in the upper right is turned 90 degrees.)

The bird feeders were empty, and there was a break in the rain. I headed out to fill the bird feeders and found these daffodils popping up along the way. There was another grouping a little farther on.

It's always such a hopeful sign when the daffodils reappear. I have some new ones to enjoy this spring. Hopefully, they'll hold off blooming until we're home.

So, okay! Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!

We'll be heading off to Erik and Mae's this afternoon for our annual family feast. I'm looking forward to seeing everybody. The next two days will be the final push to get out the door and on our way south. I'll be back tomorrow with my "Best of 2025" post. Until then, have a wonderful day. I hope Santa is good to you this year.