It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas

This here blog's going to be even more domestic than usual this month: I'm going to be spending my spare time baking and freezing all of our favourite Christmas food. Chris and I sat down last night to come up with our master list of everything home-y that we want to make sure we have this month (seeing as we don't get to go home to have these things baked for us).

And I don't know how I ever became this person, but the prospect of trying out a bunch of new (to me) recipes for a month is thrilling. I may have to blog some of the results (and experimenting).

Here's what we're cooking:

From Chris's list of "things that Mom usually makes":

• shortbread (he will make this one)
  
• caramel squares (I believe this one is my MIL's recipe)
• "nutchos" (not the brand name, but another MIL recipe)
• fruit pizza (for Chris's birthday cake)
• butter tarts
• mini quiches
• mini cheesecakes
  
• a gingerbread house
• (he also put in a request that we buy those cream puffs that come from Wal-Mart, since that's what his Mom does)

From my list of "everything I love that Grandma makes, except I can't make krumkake (which we call "krum kaga") since we don't have the iron to make it -- to be consumed on December 23rd, aka 'Little Christmas Eve'":

• rice porridge, done properly and not terribly like last time
• kumla (potato dumplings)
• lefse (potato pancakes) (I've made this one before, but it was a long time ago)

We'll also be doing two turkeys (one for the church Christmas dinner and one for home), a cheeseball, and a chicken (for back-up food on "Little Christmas Eve," so that my guests don't only have to eat Norwegian food). And Chris is apparently baking me a birthday cake this year, so that I don't bake my own again.

Expect that I'll find plenty of blogging material from this list, especially since in several of these recipes I'll have to try to recreate how either my mother-in-law or my grandmother cooks. And my mother hasn't even attempted making kumla before: I'm just going from a recipe that a relative wrote out, on the understanding that it looks pretty reasonably simple to make. (I'm going to have to call Grandma and talk these recipes through.) My other challenge will be making sure that these items (other than the Norwegian food, which will be cooked closer to the event) make it to the freezer immediately, or else we'll be eating them up before Christmas even arrives.

(We should also be stepping up our exercise routine this month, or else we're each gaining a thousand pounds, by the look of this list. It's shocking how many of these recipes use whipping cream.)