Getting in the spirit!

JS will roll his eyes at me when he sees that I'm thinking about Christmas already. In his mind, nobody should be allowed to even think about Christmas until December 1st. Christmas carols in November? Not a chance at our house! But an early gift to ourselves is an exception to his way of thinking I guess, and so, we bought a camera. 

As it turns out,  JS was not too happy with the D60, and so we went back to the store last night after work and upgraded to the D80. We just got the kit lens, which is an 18-55, but it will do for now. We'd like to get some better lenses eventually. The D80 just has better features and is quite a bit faster, so it will take us farther than the D60. The cookie to the left is one of my first photographic attempts with the new camera.

After fooling around with the camera, it was time to get into the kitchen! Today was the day I set aside to start my Christmas baking. First on the list was shortbread. I decided to be a purist this time and not get into lavender and crystallized ginger. At Christmastime, I think tradition always wins. So scalloped round, buttery shortbread biscuits with sparkling coloured sugar were in order. Also on the agenda was gingerbread, the dough is hanging out in the fridge while the shortbread continue to hog the oven. Hopefully I'll have time to bake them today.

Usually I send some cookies to all our "gosses" in France. I've done shortbread, sugar cookies and gingerbread. Surprisingly, J, who was 2 at the time, loved the spicy gingerbread, even though the French don't usually seem to be fans. So this year I'm going to go with gingerbread again. Maybe in the shape of sapins de noel....