For those of you who know the Bates family well, you know that we are a competitive group. We like competitions of all sorts, whether it's watching sports or Iron Chef on tv. We like a challenge and we like to win even more! So it's only natural that we would invent a competition for the holidays. We chose cookie decorating (which none of us know anything about or claim to have any skill in!) and this year marks our second annual competition. The kids, Cooper and my nephew, Hudson, went first and had such fun. (We saved the intense competition for later!)
Cooper is a natural baker - he LOVES the flouring and beating the dough!
Pop works with the boys to cut out their cookies freehand using a knife. My dad has done this since my brothers and I were kids. He can make whatever shape we would like to give to Santa!
Hudson is also one happy decorator! He is growing up so mcuh and it was fun to spend time with him! Hudson is 4 1/2 and he is as smart as a whip. He wears a digital watch everywhere and he made sure to keep us all on track. When he woke up at 5am, he asked, "what time are we doing the contest?" You should have seen the look on his face when we told him we were starting at 10:00... But I'll tell you what - we started those cookies at 10 on the nose! : )
In the end, Cooper won in the "Under 3" category and Hudson swept the "3-5" category. Turns out that eating the cookies is just as fun as the decorating!
After the little guys had their contest, Colin, Dayna (Colin's girlfriend) and I got to work on our cookie creations. As usual, the Honorable Dan Bates presided as the judge. As you can see from the photo below, the competition was intense.
We worked steadily for what seemed like hours and each of us had unique concepts and designs. I chose to create a snowglobe, Colin did a heart (a cheesy tribute to Dayna...) and Dayna did an ornament and a Santa. Check out the tweezers in my left hand... I told you were were serious about this! (Workmanship counted for a large portion of the scoring!)
I must say that Dayna's Santa was the most ambitious project of them all and she pulled it off really well!
The judging...
The waiting...
The winner... Colin's heart.
I must admit I was most disappointed, but I will still compete next year. I think we may have scared Dayna, but hopefully she will play again next Christmas as well. We had fun - it's a Bates Family tradition!
3 comments:
talk about cheezy! i liked your snowball and santa equally as well. looks like you guys had fun!
I don't look too happy during the judging... probably because SOMEONE's wrong-holiday-cookie won the competition. Yours was the best and I had so much fun!
looks like ya'll had a blast! what a great idea...you know me, i love traditions too, so i may have to start this in the tinajero family as well! thanks for the idea!
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