'Tis the Night Before Christmas ...

Hey there! I just finished a teeny cookie marathon ... gotta leave something out for Santa, right? ;-)
These two are my faves ...
A Spanish Snowflake. Then a Hanukkah Heart ... (I like alliteration).
I just got in the mood when I was doing my grocery shopping for tomorrow. Plus, I've been up close and personal with plenty of holiday cookies lately. Most recently a holiday party thrown by Food Network and before that I had a party with some of the girls from Food Network. Only thing is, we taped it waaaaaay before the holiday season, when it was still warm enough to make icing melt.

At first, when they asked us to tape it, I thought ... a cookie swap party?? Who does those?? Then like a new word you learn that pops up everywhere, I kept hearing stories about people planning a cookie swap party. Funny. Here's a look at the spread ...
We had cookies from everyone in the Food Network family and we even made some snacks and drinks. Here's Anne Burrell and I during the shoot.
There aren't many times we all get to hang out, so this was fun. Aida flew in to tape as well and we always try to sneak in some time when she's in NYC. Usually it's brunch, lunch or drinks. Thank goodness for texting and emails, eh? Remember actually writing and sending mail in an envelope? I did that for 3 years as a kid living overseas and then as an adult overseas, the anticipation of a letter in the mail is something special we are all missing out on these days ... I digress.

While we were shooting there was some noise being made outside by some construction workers and after about two or three retakes due to the noise, our producer stepped onto the side patio and gave us all a New York City moment. Once she got his attention, she said a few short sentences and used the right words with the right inflection to buy us some silence for the rest of the shoot! I managed to catch her mid-mini-tirade ...
If you click and enlarge, up on the right is the construction guy hidden mostly by the fire escape and a sheath. The wind was blowing quite hard and all us girls had a good laugh because maybe the inflated sleeves made our producer's small frame a bit more intimidating from a distance. Too funny, maybe a 'had to be there' thing, but I'm trying to make it like you were :-). Here's the team checking the monitors just in front of the kitchen set ...

It took most of the day to shoot the whole thing, but the sweets kept us on a Sugar Rush. Remember that show? And have you seen the guy in the credit card ads? Anyway, there are videos of every step of a cookie swap party, just in case you ever want to throw your own and want some tips and recipes. It's up now on Food Network at Cookie Swap with the Stars.

Happy Holidays! I hope you enjoy your family, friends and food!