Baking Weekend 2025

This past weekend Two weekends ago was our annual Baking Weekend. Baking Weekend started as Baking Day twenty-five-ish years or so ago. It became quickly apparent that just a day wasn't going to work, and we expanded to Friday night for dough prepping, then baking all day Saturday. Then, that wasn't quite enough time to get everything done, and we expanded to baking on Sunday as well. Every year, it's a production, and I'm so thankful that Mom has the beautiful lodge and hosts our craziness.

This year, we had a little surprise! My Staci's daughter, S, joined us for the first time since she was a wee one. It's been 15 years and she's now in college! On top of that, my nieces and nephew decided to join us (usually one or two come up, but to have all three is a treat). AND ... the day before Baking Weekend, this little video popped up in my Facebook Memories:

The kids were so little! Now, they're (almost) all grown-ass humans, Asset being the exception, but she's a senior in high school. With all four of the not-so-littles at the lodge together for the first time in 15 years, we had a brief thought of re-enacting the video, but we were way too busy for that. Instead, we made them pose for pictures around the magic window cookies.

The pictures of the four of them were taken on Sunday, as we were wrapping up, so the pictures are out of order, but I'm just so excited and thrilled by this happiness, I had to share it right away.

After almost 30 years of doing baking weekend, you'd think we would have it all sorted out and we'd be a smooth, cookie baking machine, right? The truth is, we always get it done, but there's usually a lot of chaos involved. This year, however, we made a couple of changes that did turn us into a nice, smoothly running machine.

Annual group picture with my girls.

First, instead of piling ingredients onto the counter in the corner of the kitchen, we set up a six foot table outside the kitchen and piled everything there. That eased up congestion in the kitchen - we went out to the table to get the ingredients we needed for specific projects, then returned everything back to the table when we were finished.

A moment of brilliance that made everyone's life so much easier.

Several years ago, we started to prep the doughs that needed to chill on Friday night so that they'd be ready to go Saturday morning. For that, we are a well-oiled machine. We've had years of practice. We can crank out six batches of magic window cookie dough and a batch of gingerbread in less than an hour. Three of us got bowls, two of us measured out everything and dumped them into the bowls, and Mom supervised and washed bowls between batches. It works like a charm.

It's also the perfect time for us to catch up with each other before the real craziness starts Saturday morning. 

Mom keeps our tally board from year to year, and it's always fun to look back to see what we did the previous year. It looks like we were slacking a bit in 2023 with only 936 (78 dozen) cookies made. I'd have to look back at my memories to see why we did so few. 2024 was more of a normal year for us, with 1,420 (118.3 dozen) cookies made. That's pretty much our average, I think.

On Saturday, we usually jump right into our baking projects after breakfast, but this year, I suggested that we knock out the easiest projects first before moving into the more involved ones, and to leave the magic window cookies and gingerbread for later in the day when there were more hands to help. Nebalee's crew always comes in on Saturday afternoon and stays through Sunday.

Robs always comes up with fun projects, and this year she made peppermint Grinch cookies that were super easy and so very tasty.

These Grinch cookies were a hit!

We hit our groove pretty quickly and cookies started flying out of the kitchen. Not many action photos were taken, because we were having fun and cranking out the cookies. About noon, though, hunger for actual food, not cookie dough, kicked in and we paused long enough to munch on some real food.

The table filling up quickly.

After we recharged our batteries with lunch and a brief sit-down, we were back at it. We put S to work crushing the jolly ranchers for the magic window cookies. It was a lot easier for her this time than it was when she was just a four year-old and the mallet was as heavy as she was.

Nebalee and her boo showed up in the afternoon, followed by her kids, and their energy invigorated us. By the end of the day, we had quite a list of cookies completed, a full table, and we were dog tired.

Us, too, Reba. Us, too.

Saturday night's cookie-laden table.

Tally as of the end of day one.

Breakfast on Sunday was lively, with everyone there, which made my heart happy. As a raging introvert, it's not often that I jump into and relish chaos because it's absolutely exhausting in a family of extreme extroverts. However, a couple of times a year, my heart overflows with happiness at the chaos.

Sunday was primarily finishing up magic window cookies (the magnetic tally board stayed in the kitchen for easier tallying) and gingerbread. This year, our first batch of gingerbread refused to come together, so we whipped up another one and added water until the dough started looking and feeling "right", even though the recipe doesn't call for additional liquids.

Mid-morning, it was time to start packing up everyone's cookie bags/boxes/trays. I neglected to get a full table picture, but even after the packing up started, there were plenty on the table.

The table looked decimated, and we panic-baked a batch of Christmas M&M cookies that we'd forgotten to bake on Saturday. Once those hit the table, everything looked much better and we resumed packing up.

One of my jobs is the official tally nagger. We all love to know how much we baked each year, and I nag everyone to write their tallies down. This year, we had a record-breaking year! All cookies. Some years, we've counted any non-cookie items as well, such as fudge or chocolate-covered pretzels. This year's tally was strictly cookies.

Yes, that says 126 dozen!

There were a few left for Mom's cookie gift trays, and for her to put some magic window cookies up on the tree.

The biggest question we get every year is, "What do you do with all of those cookies?!"

We give them away. Every last one finds a home with friends/family/co-workers. Even with 126 dozen split between all of us, I realized that I forgot to make a box for a friend of ours, so Jay and I quick whipped up more Aztec and pumpkin spice cookies last night for today's deliver.