Swagless Christmas

I had intended to get this post up last week, but the combined forces of Pete being on vacation and a mean germ that has been leaving me feeling quite cruddy completely disrupted my normal routine.  But  now the New Year has begun, my husband is back at work, and hopefully that mean germ will be taking its leave soon as well.

But back to Christmas.  To me, a huge part of Christmas is baking Christmas cookies.


Over the years, my “must bake every Christmas” list has grown and it now includes some candy treats as well.  I look forward to my Christmas goodies, but home-baked goods are a bit trickier to bolus for without that handy nutrition label to consult.  This year, I decided to fix that problem and banish the Christmas Swagging for good!

First, I made an Excel spreadsheet with a tab for each Christmas recipe.  I listed the ingredients, and then used Calorie King to look up the carb counts.  This was time consuming and mind-numbingly boring, but I knew it would be worth it in the end.  (I also looked up the calorie counts.  Scary, but necessary because I am determined to log my calories and lose weight in 2012.)  I added a row in my Excel spreadsheet to tally up the carbs (and calories - ugh).  I then typed in how many cookies each recipe made, and let Excel do the math again.  Voilà, carb counts for my Christmas treats!!


I typed all of the information into a table and printed out a few copies.  One goes with my “Christmas Cookie Recipe Packet” so it’s ready and waiting for me each year.  One went on the dining room table where all of the treats were stored.  And one went in the drawer of our coffee table, just in case.  And my blood sugars thanked me for putting in the effort and making this a Swagless Christmas!