Nothing says Christmas like competition!

So here at Huge Financial Institution That Did Not Require A Bailout, in my little corner of it, the Bankruptcy department, our resident Mother Hen (doesn't every office have that nice little old lady?) organized a cubicle decorating contest. The winner got a $10 gift card and second place was a $5 gift card. As soon as I heard I sprung into action. I am just a tad competitive you see. I was bound and determined, come Hell or high water, that I was going to win.

After a couple of days I was the only one that had decorated. At this point I just had my lights up and my mini tree up. Then a co-worker, a super nice woman, approached me and said five words that was a game changer "I'm going to beat you". So at this point I'm snickering to myself, like "yeah right lady, not with one strand of lights your not". Then I saw garland go up, then she brought a plush singing snowman. 

I emailed her two very short and direct words. "GAME ON"- and it was. Oh yes, it was. 

I am lucky that I have an empty cubicle on either side of me (one the girl moved to a different department and the other he was... well a chester and got caught, different story however). So I was able to spread my Christmas cheer out over 3 cubicles. You may say that's cheating, I like to think of it as using the resources available to me. 

So my decorations went from colored lights along the top of my cubicle and my mini tree, it turned into this:

 

 

Also, there are red and gold ornaments and snow flakes hanging over my cubicle from the ceiling tiles. 

That's right Christmas threw up in my cubicle. 

Yesterday was the judging and my dear sweet Mother Hen could not make a decision between me and my main competition. So we were both declared the winners. Although, both Mother Hen and several co-workers told me they knew mine was better and it was/is. My competition was just some garland and some ornaments and a lifesized snowman made out of sheets and pillows named Reverand Snowman and he was rocking a Bible. In case you were wondering, my snowman's name is Bruno. Also, others did decorate, but they didn't bother trying to compete, they knew better. 

Also, I did a tiny bit of Christmas baking. I made some Eggnog Cookies. I found the recipe on a fellow Blogger site ChristineCooks. I have to say, I wasn't thrilled with them. They were tasty, but they didn't taste at all like eggnog. I even doubled the eggnog and added more confectioners sugar. I'm not giving up on these though, I know I can make a success out of these given enough playing around. 

Egg Nog Meltaways

Recipe from SugarCrafter

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 Tbsp rum (or 1/2 TBSP vanilla extract)
1/4 cup eggnog
1 cup powdered sugar, for rolling

In a medium bow, whisk together the flour, cornstarch, and salt. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in the rum and eggnog. 

Add in the flour mixture gradually until well-combined. Cover and refrigerate the dough an hour or until firm.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll the dough into 1″ balls and place on the baking sheets about 1″ apart.

Bake 12-14 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool about 5 minutes before rolling the cookies in the sugar. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

**I doubled both the eggnog and the powdered sugar**