While being deployed to Romania from October 2022 to April 2023, the girls and I were unable to partake in many of our annual holiday traditions. One that we missed the most was our annual Halloween Cookie Decorating Party; we also missed the Christmas-version, but you will not see the post for this year’s event for a couple more months. With the girls and I about to enjoy our first Halloween at Fort Campbell, it was also a great opportunity to invite some friends over for some fun with cookies, frosting, and sprinkles.
We started this annual tradition in 2019 at Fort Huachuca by just inviting a few neighbors over to decorate some sugar cookies. We all had a blast and it eventually caught on as a must-attend event within our circle of friends. Contrary to popular belief, even parents love to decorate cookies. We have gotten a lot better in our hosting duties over the years, including our frosting and sprinkle selections, cookie shapes, and take-home containers. We invited four families to join us this year, all of which have kids in school with the girls or are friends with them (I was initially worried that I would just be inviting my friends with kids, but instead finding out that most of my friends have kids that are friends with the girls as well).
I stayed up the night before to bake three batches of rolled sugar cookies, choosing the following four shapes this year: Cats, Ghost, Mummies (or Caskets), and Pumpkins. To compliment these shapes, I made four batches of buttercream frosting, colored in white, orange, and black.
While the girls cleaned the play area and their rooms, I prepared the buttercream frosting and set up the dining room table for the event. Disposable plates and a table without grooves certainly made cleanup a lot easier this year. I probably overdid it a little with both the sprinkles and the amount of frosting, but hey, can you ever really have too much of either?
In between cleaning, the girls kept bugging me about if the frosting was ready. Eventually, all the food coloring had been added and the girls finally got their promised beaters of frosting. (It probably should be noted that, given the amount of sugar they ingested, the girls brushed their teeth several times throughout the day instead of just their usual two).
And then, with a clean house and a ton of cookies, we played the waiting game. Basically, just an hour of the girls asking when they could start eating cookies.
Our friends (mostly) arrived on time to start the festivities, with one family forgetting and another without their patriarch, who was at home screaming at his television during the Ohio State vs. Penn State football game; he apologized profusely, saying that he would have just annoyed everyone if he attended yet still watched the game. The parents and kids went right into decorating, making about four to six cookies each. I ended making far more than we needed, which just meant that my co-workers got a lot of leftovers on Monday morning and the girls had extra frosting for the next few days.
The parents and kids all seemed to have a good time, but the latter eventually got bored and all went on the trampoline. That led to the parents crowding the windows, just amazed that so many kids were on our trampoline, all getting along and not hurting one another. Unfortunately, in all the excitement of getting to talk to adults outside of work, I completely forgot to take a picture of all the finished cookies. One of our friends asked if we were having a Best Cookie contest at the end; it is not something I had planned, but certainly an idea that should be incorporated into our next cookie decorating party.
Even though it did not last as long as our previous iterations, another successful cookie decorating party was in the books. The girls got to hang out with their friends and I got to talk to other adults. And everyone got to create some art while enjoying a sugar rush. Because of our family structure, we do not hang out with other families as much as we could, but sometimes I feel that I am just using that as an excuse to be anti-social. It was great to be around other families and it is something I really need to make happen more often. It was just so easy and natural at Fort Huachuca, that it seems like it takes more effort to be social at Fort Campbell. For my daughters’ sake, I will do better. But I am glad everyone had a good time and looking forward to the next event at either our house or someone else’s!
Thanks for checking in on us.
Cheers!
Adventures in Single Dadding 