Christmas cookies. A photo essay.

Take note that if my fingers were a bit fatter, I would, indeed have man hands. 
Now, laugh heartily.

That bottle up there is your new best friend.  It's a little, um, medicinal looking (think gastroenterology), but it is indispensable for piping a well to flood cookies with royal icing.

Recruit all the "help" you can. 

This will make clean-up much easier, and less time consuming.

Ice and paint till your heart's content. 

Try not to sneak drinks of the vodka that you used to mix with the luster dust.

At this stage, you may find this difficult, but remember, you're using cheap vodka,

 and, in the end, a cheap vodka stomach ache/headache wouldn't be worth it.

Enjoy the prettiness and the deliciousness,
but save some for the guy in the red suit that breaks into your house on Christmas Eve,
or you won't get any presents, that, and he might steal your dog!

Stand back and cringe at the mess and shocking lack of a Kitchen Aid stand mixer,

but know it was well worth it because the kids got to eat so much cookie dough

they'll have diarrhea for days,

and your youngest broke out in hives becuase you think she's allergic to royal icing,

but she keeps dipping her fingers in it anyways, and stuffing them in her gob,

and you are perfectly okay with that because... 

this is what memories are made of, my friends.

Happy Festivus!