Christmas, Christmas everywhere

Today has been a bit of a long day, but I think it's mostly because I'm still not sleeping all that well. Jet lag is a killer to get over right now. Although, waking up in the middle of the night, I have discovered that Baby K likes to move around a lot during that time.

I continued with my Christmas baking, finishing my gingerbread dog cookies and also making cream cheese-filled snicker doodles. Everything seems to have turned out really well, and I'm excited to give these to BK's team. My only quandary now is: should I make something bigger for the entire group that works in the same proximity and with his team, or just stick with his team. They're used to me bringing something on workday five, but there's usually enough for way more than his team. Depends on how fast I'm moving in the morning.

Here's how my snicker doodle baking went down. I don't seem to choose very simple and tidy recipes, but like I said, they turned out well, so I'll happily clean up my mess for a good end product.

Snicker doodle dough, cream cheese filling and cinnamon to roll them in

Prebaking stage- they have to chill in the fridge for about 15 minutes

Cooling on the counter

Cream cheese filled middle

I have to say, I've made these a couple of times, and I really think these were the best result I've had yet. They are soft and chewy and have a quite a bit of the filling in the middle. Yum! I saved a couple for BK and I as well.

The other baking project I finished earlier tonight was icing my gingerbread dog shapes. I didn't get too crazy with the icing- it's just simple white icing, but it looks good and adds a little something to the plain cookies. Now I just have to decide how to festively package these together.

Icing on the dining room table

The other fun thing I did tonight was go explore the Christmas markets happening in Basel right now. In various squares around the city, small booths with crafts and handmade items have popped up, and everything is now decorated for Christmas. I met my friend EJ in one of the markets and we (she) enjoyed mulled wine and winter punch, then had a great dinner at one of the little restaurants that was set up. After dinner we walked around to some of the other areas to see what else was happening.

Here's what Basel looks like during the Christmas season:

Mulled wine stand

Barfusserplatz

Freistrasse

Munsterplatz

That's about it for today…I'm calling it a night. I was hoping to stay up until BK got home from work, but no such luck this month-end. It's always a relief when workday four comes and goes for another month :)