Christmas Cookies!

One other really neat feature of the Christmas markets here is that there are some neat activities for kids! Elora is finally old enough to participate in some of the neat activities, so a couple times last week I met up with my friend Rene and her daughter Grace for the girls to bake Christmas cookies at the Christmas markets.

At the Rathaus the girls learned to roll out their dough, cut out cookies, and place them on the baking sheets. No adults allowed! Just all the little bakers.

I love the little hats they got to wear!

It only cost 1.50 Euro, but the session is also only 15 minutes long, so Elora was a little sad that she didn’t get to make more cookies – until they gave her a big bag of cookies to eat, and then she was happy as can be!

Ollie wasn’t old enough to bake, but he had fun running around the Rathaus, and also enjoyed eating the cookies Elora shared with him. When Elora was baking he kept walking up to the windows to stare in at what she was doing. I think he was ready to go join in the fun! We’ll have to bake at home so Ollie can help.

The next day we headed out to meet Grace at the Schonbrunn market for more cookie baking. As we sat at the bus stop, Elora looked at this poster and said, “Why is she sad?” to which I replied, “I don’t know.” Elora stated, “She is sad because someone took her clothes and she is cold!” Probably a good assessment…

While we waited at the bus stop Elora had a great time breathing and watching the “smoke” come out of her mouth. Then it started to snow, and I caught some snowflakes on my glove for her to look at. I wish I had a picture, it was amazing. They were the beautiful little star shaped snowflakes, every one looked different, and all miniature, detailed snowflake stars. Amazing.

At the Schonbrunn bakery, they let the kids each decorate a gingerbread house.

Elora looked so serious while she frosted her house! I was also impressed that she didn’t spend the whole time trying to eat the frosting, she very carefully tried to cover the entire house with frosting. To the left is Grace, and in the middle is Grace’s friend Helena, who joined us.

When they brought out the sprinkles, Elora was very excited. She grabbed handfuls of every kind of sprinkle to decorate her little house with.

The pile of sprinkles just kept getting higher and higher on the house… some of the other mom’s laughed when they saw how many sprinkles she piled on there. This pic doesn’t do it justice…

When the kids finished their houses, they got to go cut out some cookies. Elora pulled the whole bowl of cookie cutters next to her so she could check out what shapes they had.

She was excited to try out all the different shapes, especially the shooting stars.

The gingerbread houses were nicely boxed up to be sent home, and the kids also received a gift bag of cookies, a drink, and some candy. Very nice! This cookie baking session is also done for about 45 minutes, so Elora got her fill of cookie making and decorating!

After baking Elora said she would like to visit the market. Oliver was home with daddy, so we made a short visit to the market to check out some of the toys.

The kids saw that the stage was empty and wanted to get up on it. I told Elora I thought it was for performances, to which she replied, “I need to perform for everyone.” Okay then! All the kids were excited to dance on the stage.