Halloween Cookies (Or "The Propagation of Holiday Disappointment")

I was looking through one of those holiday family fun magazines the other day and came across a picture of a family making sugar cookies together. How fun! In my head I pictured us gathered as a family, rolling out dough, the kids laughing as they used the cookie cutters to create their cookie masterpieces. I pictured us sitting around together as a family, happily frosting our tasty treats and proudly showing off our masterpieces, that would of course look something like this:




So here's what happened in real life. I made the dough this morning and excitedly pulled it out of the fridge when Todd got home, ready for our magical night of cookie creation. Instead of gathering around smiling, the kids immediately started fighting over who got to use the bat cookie cutter first, and once Aaron started screaming about it, he wouldn't stop, even after he was given the cookie cutter in a desperate move to make him quiet. Didn't he get the memo that this was supposed to be a fun family activity? Apparently not. After that, Todd ended up battling Aaron and trying to put him in time out while I grappled with the cookie dough, which ended up being rolled too thin and removed from the oven too soon, which resulted in an impressive combination of crumbly yet still raw. We finally got Aaron calmed down long enough to let him cut out a few bats, but by then the dough was warming up enough that it was sticking to the counter and coming out of the oven looking like mutant bats, pumpkins, and ghosts. After two cookie sheets full of Halloween shapes, I gave up and just used a plastic cup to make circle cookies that could be produced much faster. By the time it came to frosting the cookies, we were so burned out and disillusioned that we ended up just sitting the kids at the table, each of them with a few cookies and a glob of frosting, and letting them frost their own while we cleaned up dinner.

I really think all responsible "Family Fun" magazines should add disclaimers at the bottom of their articles so that all of us normal people don't actually think our activities will go as well as the ones staged in the magazines with child models. Oh well...the kids ended up having fun and I got an amusing blog post out of the ordeal, so I guess I can't complain too loudly. Here are some pictures of Halloween "Family Fun" reality:


Tori took the project very seriously...



Aaron...not so much. This is him frosting his cookies.
Or frosting his tongue. Or eating his hand.



Any time the camera comes out lately, Tori needs to
take at least one Diva picture.



Adding finishing touches.



Tori's Masterpieces.



Aaron's masterpieces. Looks like Van Gough cookies
to me. And yes, that is a Christmas plate we used to
showcase our Halloween cookies. All part of the "reality".



Tori showing off her cookies



Aaron showing off his cookies...with spaghetti sauce
still on his face from dinner. One last splash
of "reality".

Like I said, in the end, the kids had fun, and some of the cookies (the ones that were not too raw in the middle) actually tasted half decent. What more could we normal folk ask for, right? :)