Cookie Battle

Every year, my company's holiday party includes a silent auction for two employee-picked charities. I find it to be a refreshing mix of celebration while also thinking of others less fortunate, and trying to make a small difference somewhere en masse.

About two weeks before the holiday party, the call goes out via flyers and emails for donations for the silent auction. A little bit of everything gets donated- bottles of alcohol, glassware and serving platters, toys, sports tickets, a hand-knit scarf or two.

Two years ago, a new entry joined the fray- a big basket of homemade gingerbred cookies. The bidding was fierce, if I recall-- and the winner dropped a pretty penny for that basket of goodness. Last year, three of the baskets were entered. I was lucky enough to scurry home with one of them (where it was consumed pretty quickly). This year, I kept in touch with the baker, and we jokingly decided to both enter cookies and have a friendly "cookie battle."

I talked to J. last week and asked her how many baskets she was planning on including. She said four. I decided to enter two. Last night, I ran over to Michaels to pick up a couple of cute baskets, shreddy stuff to fill the basket, some ribbon, and some individual cookie bags. I then set up shop in my kitchen to make a bunch of cookies, bag them up, and then make gift baskets to enter into the auction.

Erich came down about an hour into the process, and remarked on the one-woman assembly line I had going. My key was making sure that I started the next set of cookie sheets as soon as the first set went into the oven. That way, I could do a quick switch every 15 minutes. In two hours, I did a double-batch of cookies, bagged 36 of them up, and divided them between two baskets.

One came in to work with me today to be put in the silent auction preview. I also brought in some sample cookies for my department-- they were inhaled within an hour and a half. (I credit a department of 38 women and 6 men to that record). The other basket will come in tomorrow morning, and then the bidding begins.

I wonder if a cookie basket will go higher than the $50 from last year.

It's all for a good cause, after all. And calories this time of year don't count.


;)