Merry Christmas in July! Recently I got into the early holiday spirit by joining my fellow podcaster Brian at the ‘Christmas Past Podcast’ in his Christmas in July Cookie Swap. I was assigned a woman named Cindy in Virginia and honestly I think planning out the cookies was the most fun part. Then of course I got assigned to someone else, a woman named Rikki who lives right nearby in Sandy, Utah!

For my offering for the swap I pushed the definition of cookie by baking some pumpkin chocolate chip bread with walnuts. I was trying to think of ways to make the box more festive and this seemed like a yummy way to do so. Plus, it gave some variety to the box of  treats. I also dipped chocolate wafers in mint chocolate making copycat thin mint cookies and made toffee brownies and butterscotch cookies (died green so I called them the Grinch cookies). Finally I included 2 sugar cookies from The Fix, which are much better than anything I could make (and they had red this week which is perfect!)

In return Rikki left 4 shoe boxes of cookies on my doorstep! I was blown away. Every cookie was delicious but I think my favorite was the Mexican Wedding Cookies with almond and powdered sugar. Yum! I also loved the Danish butter cookies. As she reminded me in her card they may look like sugar cookies but they are different. The flavor is different and more like shortbread. It’s moments like these I wish I had a crew full of people to eat all this but I’ve made a pretty big dent. Plus, I took them to our family party we had this week and they enjoyed them.

What a fun activity it has been to participate in the cookie swap and I’d like to thank Brian for putting it on. Even though it involved turning on the oven, it was still a nice break from the hot summer weather. Even just dreaming of Christmas lightens stress and reminded me of many happy memories.

Thanks again Brian for organizing the swap. I had a great time!

Merry Christmas!