Chocolate and Presents

For anyone still trying to figure out what to get others for Christmas, one sentence of advice: DO NOT GIVE CHOCOLATE TO PEOPLE THAT OWN PETS. Chocolate, including Lindt Lindor truffles, Hershey's kisses, Whitman's assorted chocolates, and See's candies, are attractive to both dogs and humans, and while they may be a little fattening for us, they can cause serious problems in any size dog. Dogs have much more sensitive noses than we do, and can smell the chocolate in the nicely wrapped package sitting under the Christmas tree. Trust me, I know. For the past week, at least half (likely more than half) of the calls in to work have been about chocolate. I could probably recite the information in my sleep (luckily I haven't had dreams about it yet, but there's still 3 more days until Christmas).

As for me, I have finally completed my Christmas shopping today (does it count if the other person bought 2 of their own presents?). And no, I didn't get chocolate or candy for anyone.

Let the baking begin

Over the next 2.5 days, I am doing my holiday cookie baking. The grand list includes sugar cookies, white chocolate pretzels, chocolate macadamia bark, peanut butter spritz, chocolate truffles, pecan tassies, date pinwheel cookies, sandies, and chocolate chip meringues. Don't worry, they're not all for me. I'm actually hoping that if I'm around enough of the sweets I make tomorrow and Tuesday, I won't want to eat any for the rest of the holiday season (we'll see how that goes).

Hmm...maybe I should work out first both mornings, then start baking.