This is one of our favorite weeks of the year – the week when all of the holiday baking comes out!

This is the week where we decorate cookies, make homemade marshmallows, decorate gingerbread cookies, and more. We focus on the traditions that are important to our family, and don’t do more than that.

What foods make the holidays for your family? How can you pare down and make it easier for yourself?

One of our family’s favorite cookies is a gingerbread cookie with a Hershey Dark Chocolate Kiss pressed into the top when it’s slightly cooled off from the oven.

We could take the time to lovingly make gingerbread from scratch, unwrap each kiss individually, and make a mess of the kitchen in the process.

But instead, we choose the less messy, less stressful, and less time consuming option of buying gingerbread cookie dough, and unwrapped kisses, and have our favorite Christmas Cookies with less than half of the time and mess.

Remember that your family traditions don’t have to be time consuming or messy. It’s okay to take the easier way out and enjoy it, instead of stressing about doing it the “right” way.

Enjoy your time with your family this week! If you feel like it, come on over to the Facebook Group and share your favorite holiday baking recipe with us.

We’re so close to Christmas! Focus on enjoying this time of year and making memories. Take pictures of your family enjoying this season, then use the timer mode on your phone or DSLR and take a few of yourself enjoying it with them. They won’t stay this small for long. (Pro tip – you can buy a remote for most DSLR cameras for less than $10.)

We’ll see you next week for Christmas week!

PJ and Brett