"Heaven has fallen, and it is full of happiness and Diamonds!" or "How to solve all your problems using baked goods"

Whistler is Heaven. It is not that Whistler is very much like Heaven; it is that Heaven fell from the sky and landed in British Columbia and now they call it Whistler. I lost track of how many runs I took, falls I lived through, drinks I had, and American dollars I spent. The entire weekend was a blissful blur of powdery snow, breathtaking views, relaxing hot tubs, hopping night life, amazing food, and great company. To top it all off, my friend came home with a Big Ol’ Diamond on her finger. I would say more about that but that is her story not mine, I will however, say Congratulations to the soon to be Mr. and Mrs. Tacompton Tiffany! I will also say that I am now much more confidant about my skills on the skis and I am drooling desperately over the prospect of getting to the mountain this weekend.
Because it is the holidays and because I am broke, that may or may not happen. You see, this weekend is Christmas Cookie Day. Christmas Cookie Weekend (as it has been more recently) started out as an innocent enough tradition. My mother and her two little girls (that is, me and the little sis) would cook up 3 or 4 kinds of cookies and give them to people in pretty hand decorated “Christmas” bags aka plain brown paper lunch bags with tiny trees and snowflakes drawn on them. Over the years however the entire operation has taken on a life of its own. Last year there were at least 10 participants and over 20 kinds of sweets that went out in fancy baskets and tins wrapped up in cellophane with ribbons and bells. It took 3 days to bake, decorate, and package all the goods. We hired cheep illegal immigrant labor to package and deliver all 5,000 baskets. We set up a package tracking system ant outsourced it’s maintenance to India. Ok, so perhaps only ½ of that description is true but the point is that the event has taken on a life of its own and it needs to be stopped.
Luckily, my mother and sister agree. After being forced to put on a thanksgiving where there was no culinary theme and there was an entire turkey (my family usually has small, themed, meatless thanksgivings where we listen to Alice’s restaurant and eat in the clothes we cooked in) my mother deserves a break. Her holiday stress card has been maxed out and it is only the beginning of December. So we decided not to invite anyone else to Christmas Cookie Weekend and we decided to change it back to Christmas Cookie Day. It will once again be just the three of us. Now that we are older we can get more done in a day and will probably have 10 kinds of delicious confections in pretty baskets rather than paper bags with Santa stamped all over them but it will be seriously toned down compared to last year.
It is this plan that has given me the hope that I may go skiing this weekend. If everything goes as planed I can pull of my scam and make it to the mountain. This plan is brilliant because it takes care of both of my problems at once. The first of my problems being that Christmas Cookie Weekend was taking up a whole weekend. We now have hope that it can be reduced to one day leaving an entire other day to hit the slopes. The second of my problems being that I am broke and don’t have money to do Christmas and go skiing. If I get enough things baked and find a good discount on baskets, I can give them as gifts and selfishly spend all my money on my newly acquired adrenaline addiction.