The craziness started Friday afternoon when I got home from work. Tigger was very confused as to why I was home before 5 p.m. and started going insane. She was running all over the house, causing the stockings I put up the morning before to continually fall off of their hooks.

Her tail was going a million miles per minute and was jumping all over. There were a few times where she almost knocked me over. After getting her to calm down and a few episodes of The Mandalorian, it was time to make the cookie dough.

Nate had multiple jobs which included dumping a half cup of flour into the mixing bowl when I needed it and keeping Tigger, at least somewhat, relaxed.

Making the cookie dough takes at least an hour and it was significantly easier this year having help. Normally, the whole kitchen is a disaster and there is an egg, sugar and flour combination over almost everything.

This year, that mess was just about avoided as my hands could stay messy from mixing the ingredients together and Nate could dump in whatever I needed him to. This was also the first year I’ve made it without my family where I wasn’t completely covered in flour.

The Christmas festivities continued throughout the day on Saturday. Once I got home from photographing the DAV’s Christmas Dinner, we started to decorate the tree.

Tigger was, and I think still is, confused about what is on the tree. This year, we were unable to put up our ornaments from various trips and the keepsake ones. All the ornaments on the tree are red, green, gold and silver and some are glittery – just the standard ones from Target that most people use as filler.

This is the first year I haven’t had personal ornaments on my tree, but we didn’t want Tigger to destroy all of them.

She already destroyed a few of the sparkly snowflake ornaments. Multiple times a day she is trying to get ornaments off the tree or bites the tree. While it’s almost fallen a few times, Nate or I is always around her and has been able to catch the tree before it goes tumbling to the ground and probably on top of her also.

After (another) Mandalorian break, the cookie cutters came out. The dough had to sit out for a few minutes before we could start doing the cutouts as it was as hard as a rock. I cut out all of the cookies while Nate kept Tigger away from the table. He also had to put the bake sheets in the oven, take them out and then put the cookies on a plate.

The frosting was made on Sunday night. That is one recipe where my mom and I hope we are doing it right and we never know until we tastetest it.

A few years ago, we were looking at the recipe and asked Grandma how much she uses of each ingredient. She said that she didn’t have measurements and just dumped in what she thought was needed.

Mom then found a recipe that had measurements on it, but it doesn’t make nearly what is needed. I now start with the base recipe and then dump in more milk and powdered sugar until it tastes like what I remember it tasting like when Grandma made it.

Nate and I were exhausted after that so we decided to have the cookies and frosting be chip and dip style for the time being.

He then said I could pick a Christmas movie to watch so I put on the classic film “Miracle on 34th Street.”

To my amazement, Nate has never seen it.

We got about half way through it until deciding to postpone it to another night.

Maybe one year the holidays won’t be so exhausting, but I highly doubt that day will ever come.

Caitie Ihrig