For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for December 16, 2018

the cat’s out of the bag when it comes to “baking” Christmas cookies

I would love to have a sweater like Elly’s where the zig-zag pattern moves up and down from time to time. That would be super cool and quite an attention-getter.

I’ve been shopping in the wrong store. Where is this bakery?

Home baked doesn’t have to mean your home.

My aunt used to make some wonderful peanut butter fudge every Christmas. I have not brought myself to have anyone else’s since she died.

Change the colours to yellow and black, and she could stand-in for Charlie Brown.

They’re home baked. Says so right on the box.

We used to do this as kids. We would trade pieces of different colors and make our own creations, and you better not touch anyone else’s. Of course, half the dough was eaten raw before anything was baked. 1/2 butter, 1 1/2 cups sugar, 2 eggs, 3 cups flour, 1 tsp vanilla, food colors. Bake at 350 for 12 min. Chilled dough is easier to handle, or you may add more flour. Bon appetit!

I’m in the middle of a cookie baking nightmare (of my own making). I’m not halfway through my cookie list and there’s just a little over a week to get 15 more kinds of cookies done. I’ve done 10 so far, but I’m getting the feeling that I’m not going to make the whole list this year. Kind of a bummer since I give cookies as gifts every year to my friends, in-laws, and my brother.

Once a year, I make a 10 lb batch of fudge. I am always anxious about it setting. One year we had to eat it with a spoon, LOL! Then I started overcooking it. When you do something only once a year it takes awhile to get it just right. Each batch tastes great, so they aren’t a waste. It is the softness and hardness that I haven’t quite nailed yet. Only been doing it for 25 years, LOL!

Bittersweet memories – my mom was a great baker.

I eat Christmas cookies in December, and still regret it in May.

She gets points for being honest.

I’m awaiting delivery of my Figi’s Christmas Cookies.

My youngest sister picked up the cookie baking recipes from mom, and now she’s teaching one of our nieces.

In between holidays we buy baked goods from the store. We have a “home style” bakery near us, and for what we use, their baked goods are just what the doctor ordered—one or two cookies per week.

What Elly said applies to me too.

A little trivia note: This is the first time in the comic strip that Lynn Johnston mentioned her mother’s avatar (Elly’s mother) after her own mother died in September, 1989.

Yeah. No. I baked a double batch of Alice B. Toklas brownies (with and without nuts) and am just finishing off a batch of gingerbread cookies for my favourite ginger, the Mrs.

All you do is complain. If you’re so dissatisfied with Lynn’s cartoon, stop reading it!!

Have you got time for coffee?

What’s that? A trick question?