Twas the night of Christmas in our house.
Dinner was venison steaks made in wine sauce.
You wanted to lick your plate.

All cozy and full,
poker was played,
to the sound of the television blaring in the background.

Laughs were had,
while sitting in The Alliance Bar,
joking amongst great friends.

Off to my right,
what should I see?
A Christmas cookie cookbook I had received.

While talking and laughing with friends,
I paged through the cookie book.
My tummy started to mumble.
It would be inclined to have a cookie or two.

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It was Christmas after all!

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Reading the recipes by the soft light of my monitor.
I found a cookie we might have all the ingredients for.

Taking the book around the kitchen,
I corralled up flour, butter and brown sugar.
Much to my surprise,
all the containers were on their last bits.

Measuring out the flour
exactly four and one-half cups were to be had.
Next came the brown sugar all stuck together.
I eyeballed what was left in the bag.
It was close enough to one and one-eighth cup.

A pound of butter was now needed.
The hunt from the refrigerator to freezers began.
Low and behold under a twenty-pound ham,
were two, two-pound packages of frozen butter.

Into the microwave to thaw, it went.

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Vanilla we had in spades.
No worries.
More than one teaspoon was there.

The last ingredient called for colored sugar which we didn't have!
No worries, I thought, I will make frosting.
Everything will be fine.
Except the powered sugar container was empty!

Naked cookies would still be good.
It was Christmas night after all.
Yet.....
We needed some sparkles in our life!

On the hunt, I went,
for the gel food coloring purchased just two weeks ago.
The box, too big to fit where the baking supplies normally go.
I had found a safe place to store it.

Ten minutes later I emerged.
A box of rainbow gel colors in hand.
Dumping normal white sugar into a bowl.
I opened up green gel that spattered everywhere...
but in the sugar bowl.

Scrapping as much as I could into the sugar,
I started to stir and stir.
Mushing came next.
Blending the gel into the sugar lump-free.
The lumps won in the end.

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Cookies were soon to be rolled and baked in the oven.

Creaming the butter and sugar was more along the lines of mashing the lumps of brown sugar into the butter. Perseverance won in the end.

While gently adding the flour to the wet mixture,
a bad feeling came over me.
There was going to be too much liquid for the amount of flour I had.

Trusting in Christmas,
I just kept stirring.
I realized the wet dough was not meant to be round this day.

Into the pan, the dough went.
Green globby sugar was sprinkled on top,
to the sound of the oven beeping,
it was preheated.

Sliding the pan into the oven,
A small prayer was said.
Waiting thirty minutes,
Delicious smells filled the air.

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The cookie (bars) came out of the oven.
Globby green sugar had turned a tad florescent,
when heating to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Hubby walked in the kitchen following his nose,
asking what had I made.
His eyes widened with joy,
spying sugar all over the place.

"Butter Balls Cookies", I said with a smile.
I dared him to say they were square.

Cool enough to cut.
We both ate our fill.
The best part of all?

The green tongues we will be sporting for days! 😹

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