For those of you who don’t know me, Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I can be obnoxious about it. Last year, my roomie came home to find me twirling about the house with my six (you heard me, SIX) boxes of Christmas decorations out, the Charlie Brown Christmas album on and a manic grin on my face.

Her only response, bless her heart, was “it looks like santa threw up in here.”

Luckily for me, I’ve always tried to surround myself with other Christmas lovers. It isn’t so much the holiday (I’m not religious in the least bit), it’s just the season. The cookies! The tree! The holiday drinks! I love the warmth of Christmas. Granted, I have an amazing family, who always gets along during the holidays, and our traditions run deep. We are a family of baking cookies with grandma every year, of going to the tree farm to cut down our own tree and having approximately 5 celebrations in the span of two days.

We’re a Christmas family.

And as you can guess, this year is different. This year I didn’t make cookies with  my mom and grandma. This year I didn’t go with my dad to the cute Christmas cottage out in the country on a wet drizzly day. This year I will make a trip home for 9 days and try to squeeze in all things seasonal with the people I love.

Just because I live in a place where winter looks like shorts, tank tops and sweaty bike rides doesn’t mean I won’t sport a santa hat and drive out to the country for a tree. Dammit.

Yesterday my sister, brother-in-law, boy and I went out to Elgin, TX to find ourselves a tree. I was wearing shorts. My sister, a sun dress. The fields were dry and hot, and the mud warning was replaced with, “there are a lot of burrs out there!”

Weird.

But I got to hold hands with this boy I like. We got to pick out the perfect tiny tree together, and take funny pictures. I got to be ridiculous with my sister, and squeal over our home-made gift ideas and planning our cookie party with our dear friend Cristin.

We celebrated our christmas tree’s with a chalice of beer (no joke, it was the size of my head), which promptly led me to nap. I woke up and this darling boy of mine had decorated the house. Not going to lie, I got a little teary eyed. Nothing like realizing you’re with a kindred soul when you wake up to find nutcrackers on your window sill and lights adorning the eaves.

So I broke my healthy no sugar/wheat/fat plan (see: chalice of beer), made some vegan peanut butter cookies and washed them down with coconut milk nog.

Nothing says christmas like cookies and milk.

I suppose I can make this hot, Texas Christmas thing work. I think I can.

Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies

From: Chocolate Covered Kate

Delicious peanut butter cookies!

• 1/2 cup peanut butter (Mine has salt), or another nut butter
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 3 tbsp whole-wheat pastry flour (or white or a gf mix)
• 1/4 cup sugar (for sugar-free cookies, see below link)
• 2 tbsp brown sugar or coconut sugar
• 2 tbsp applesauce
• 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• optional: chocolate chips

Mix dry ingredients very well. Then add wet and form cookie balls. If you want soft cookies, fridge the dough for at least an hour. Then bake in a preheated oven (350F) for 8 minutes. They’ll look underdone when you take them out, but that’s ok. Let cool for at least 5 minutes before removing from tray.

To keep them soft, store leftover cookies in a plastic container. This recipe will make about 15-22 cookies, depending on how big you roll them. (For 22 cookies, they’ll have 50 calories per cookie.)

I wanted to add some extra sweetness to mine, so I popped in some chocolate chips (go big or go home, am I right?) Nothing says cookie like peanut butter and chocolate. Holy moly.