So, it was Dec. 17 a few years ago, and I am finally finishing the last of my Christmas cookies. The oven is all preheated, and the first two pans of Classic Peanut Butter Cookies go in, and I wait......and wait......and wait. "What is taking these cookies so long to bake?" I ask myself. It turns out that you cannot bake cookies with a dead oven! Who knew? So, I get on the phone, call a friend whose oven is still warm from her own Christmas cookies, and load up the cargo area of my car with three parchment lined pans of cookie dough balls and take off for my friend's house. And as I'm rolling along, I hear the sound of parchment sliding all over the back of the car. Somehow, I managed to salvage almost all of the cookies, but yikes! it's a week before Christmas, and I have no oven! So off I went, baked cookies and all, to purchase a new stove. Disaster averted! Christmas saved! You'd think the story would end here, no? Au contraire! Because the same thing happened the week before Christmas last year, only this time my husband and I were able to get the part and fix the oven. Unfortunately, having taken the oven door off, we could not get it back on again, so our own personal "gorilla" (our son), had to come over and wrestle the oven door back on. Another Christmas saved! If it ever happens again I'm hanging a sign outside my kitchen that says "Out of business."

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