Do the Monster Mash

Those of us who are at or near the 60 mark will remember the song Monster Mash, back from 1962.  Yesterday, I was doing the Monster Mash … baking Monster Cookies.  DD put out a not-so-subtle request on Facebook for Monster Cookies, assuring me that they’d help the healing process.  How could I refuse?   

12 eggs
2 lbs. brown sugar
4 cups granulated sugar
1 tbsp vanilla
1 tbsp pancake syrup
8 tsp baking soda
1 lb butter (room temperature)
3 lbs peanut butter (I use extra chunky)
18 cups quick-cooking oats (must be quick-cooking)
1 lb plain M&Ms
1 lb semisweet chocolate chips
Mix together all ingredients listed - in large pan or tub.  Use an ice cream scoop to dip out the dough onto ungreased cookie sheets.  Flatten each scoopful with glass dipped in granulated sugar.  Bake at 35 for 8-10 minutes.  Let cookies cool (I use parchment paper so I can lift/slide the cookies off the cookie sheets to cool on my kitchen island/counter tops). 

With my ice cream scoop, this makes a lot of cookies (9-10 dozen).  Since there’s no way that DH and I need THAT many cookies lying here, tempting us, we delivered some to friends and kept a couple of bags for our friends with whom we’ll be having dinner tonight.  I wish I had thought to take a picture of my entire kitchen island covered with cookies!   But by the time I finished up the cookies, DH had arrived with our tree!

Yes, we have a tree up and decorated!  It’s officially Christmas season now! 

The lights gave me fits!  I got myself confused when trying to connect the strands of lights together and had them looping instead of connecting.  I had to pitch one strand because half of the strand would not light up (for no apparent reason).  And I should have trashed another strand because half of it doesn’t want to light up … every time we turn back on the lights, I have to jostle/reposition the strand for it to light up.  Obviously, had I known that we were going to fight this strand, I wouldn’t have put it up, but it lit up fine during the pre-lighting testing.  But even with the hassle with the lights, I am tickled to have our tree up.  I loved the scent of the tree when I walked into the living room this morning.

We had a little bit of wintery weather yesterday.  When I got up, there was a thin glazing of ice and a few white sprinkles on the deck (I think they were little ice pellets rather than now).  We got a few more sprinkles in the afternoon, but nothing of any consequence.  There are a few leftover sprinkles this morning (since the temperature has been hovering around the 32-degree mark for the last 36 hours).  So I’m still waiting for snow.

I can’t close without playing The Monster Mash!