It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ... at least on our kitchen floor.

OK, enough of the singsongy stuff—let me get straight to the point. It was the beginning of Christmas at the ol' homestead last weekend, and that meant stringing up the lights (make that, stringing up the damn lights!) and, yes, baking the Christmas cookies.

It all began with the ritual of the lights, and the 20-year-old was responsible for stringing them all over the house and the shrubbery—it turned into a weekend-long project.

He started out with one string of lights that would have been 9,000 feet long had it knot been knotted in big knot that would knot come out! By the time he sorted out the strings, strung them up and got them all shining (one goes out, they all go out!), it was Sunday afternoon. The finished product, while maybe not any competition to an Alan Aerts display, was enough to make PG&E smile. And me, too ... because it's the first year I didn't have to do it!

It was late Sunday before we could get on to the cookie thing. The boys and I decided that we'd try to continue the family tradition of making Christmas cookies. So we went to the store to get the supplies, and two hours and $174 later we were back home to begin our task.

It would be great. We'd plug in the Miracle on 34th Street video, mix up the ingredients (translation: eat the dough), bake the cookies (translation: eat the cookies warm from the oven) and the Molly Maids could clean up after us when they came on Monday.

It sounded like the perfect plan. Of course, that was before the flour thing, and before we realized that the Molly Maids don't come until next Monday!

Now, flour is a critical cookie ingredient. However, in the wrong hands it can also become a weapon.

"Let's see. The recipe calls for two cups of flour," said the oldest, "and here's a little for you, too." With that, he dusts the 20-year-old with a face full of Gold Medal.

Now, if you've spent any time at all around a bunch of guys, you know their adolescent credo— "do unto me, and I'm going to get you back." The youngest wouldn't rest until he got his revenge.

So when he got his chance, Kevin grabbed a handful of the white stuff, and Mike suddenly resembled Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Being the mature father figure that I am, I stepped in in a paternal attempt to restore order. Big mistake. You guessed it ... I got it from both sides.

Now, if you've spent any time at all around 53-year-old guys, you know they've never outgrown that adolescent credo.

Needless to say, the three of us were whiter than Frosty the Snowman, and the kitchen looked like it had been hit by a North Pole blizzard. We could actually ski in the gentle dusting of white powder on the kitchen floor.

The flour thing got a little weird, but the cookies were progressing nicely. For a while, anyway.

Unfortunately, the recipe called for the dough to be rolled into balls—and for the guys in our family, a ball equals just one thing ... a game. So I did a down and out from the refrigerator to the stove, and Mike hit me with a beauty of a pass.

Fortunately, I caught mine.

Unfortunately, Kevin's hands weren't quite as dependable as old reliable's, and he dropped his pass.

Fortunately, there was enough flour on the floor already so the dough didn't stick to the linoleum.

Unfortunately, the dough ball rolled into the corner and picked up a little dog hair.

Fortunately, we were able to blend it in as part of the Santa's beard in the cutout cookies. With a little well-placed coconut, no one would ever know.

Believe it or not, we had cookies cooling on the counter long before Judge Harper's "miracle" ruling that Kris Kringle was indeed the one and only Santa Claus.

Surprisingly, the cookies came out tasting pretty good (of course, the boys and I will eat anything that's covered with sprinkles, chocolate chips and coconut).

It was a beautiful sight, we were happy that night ... our kitchen was a winter wonderland!

And the cookies came out just right. Especially the Santa cookies ... they were doggone good!