Better Cookies Made with Love and Glee

So, in my abundant free time, I often watch people's children, thus fulfilling my quota for social interactions until the next week. I get along pretty well with children, considering I have the maturity of a four-year-old most of the time, but sometimes there's a problem keeping them entertained in a way I never was a kid, meaning, let's not plop them in front of the TV for six hours and then we'll talk to them. This time, instead of running around in the freezing cold and possibly breaking some bones on the hazardous ice, I decided we should make gingerbread. The theme? Something all of us had in common, ie. the game I made them play and they turned out loving: Final Fantasy VI. (III in America, I believe.)

From top left: Edgar, Terra, Kefka, Sabin, Celes, Mog, Chocobo, Shadow
Aren't they precious?

So, I basically made the dough, the kids helped by turning on the mixer and such, seeing as they're young and I don't much fancy eggshells in my cookies. The gingerbread is the same recipe as the last batch of cookies, so we won't talk about that. If I'd had fondant they probably would have been a lot nicer, but it wouldn't have been as much fun for the kids, so we mixed up a couple colours of icing and I let them loose. They had a blast. They made a mess. I cleaned it up. Life is good when you're eight and six. They treated me as though I were Leonardo da Vinci himself as I taught them how to use a piping bag, although my skills (seeing as it's impossible to tell apart the ones I decorated from the ones they did) are lacking at best. Point being, we had a great time.

Cyan, Strago, Locke, Relm, Gau and Setzer

I had been planning on doing South Park cookies this year, but seeing as most eight-year-olds (myself excluded, apparently) aren't avid South Park fans, I figured I'd better switch the plan up a bit. So now I have a batch of FFVI gingerbreads, and life if pretty damn awesome.

Gogo and Umaro

Making these cookies was pretty straightforward. We mixed the dough and put it in the fridge for the necessary hour. During that time we looked up pictures of what we wanted to do and prepared icing and such. Time passed relatively quickly. I rolled out the dough and they went to town cutting out the people. Funnily enough, we had just enough dough to make all the characters and a chocobo, well, we'd had two chocobos but one was stolen by an evil passing adult. They cooked rather fast and while they cooled the kids wanted to play the game, so we did.

This one's my favourite. It's both cute and Setzer. ♥

After that, with the icing we prepared earlier, we decorated our cookies. These children are obviously prodigies. I am so proud.

This was the biggest pain in the ass since I had to move back in with my grandmother.

Well, my cookies are done, and I'm already feeling far more jolly than I normally would at this time of year. I think a victory fanfare is in order.

Cheers!