Christmas Cookie Hell...hell...hell...hell

They are going to be the death of me people. We decided we were going to do a bit of baking. I am used to doing quite a bit of baking around this time of year, but just didn't feel strong enough and didn't want loads of cookies around to tempt any of us for weeks before Christmas. Well, I MISS the baking :( I decided that maybe I could make my least favorites and then wouldn't be as tempted but could still have a little fun so we decided to make our traditional "Bat Balls" (basically chocolate rum balls), peanut butter blossoms, and erik is making his spritz cookies.

Erik went shopping Sunday. Tanner tore into a box of nilla wafers (which is an ingredient used in the bat balls...btw, if I haven't mentioned before why they are called bat balls...tanner called them that because he didn't know the real name for them, but remembered the bottle of rum had a bat on it ;) and I happened to see it. It's that time of the month so my will power is at its weakest and my appetite at its worst so before I knew it, I had inhaled 7. Now that is MUCH less than I would have binged on in the past, but later I went back for 7 more AND had about 5 chocolate kisses ZOMG! Guess the binge eater is alive and well inside me after all :S I immediately texted erik and told him to hide them from me when he got home (which he did) and we've put off the actual baking until tomorrow.

Last night, we went to a friend's to have her color my hair, but we ended up getting side tracked making sugar cookies and decorating them. Those are Tanner's in the picture up there...I joked that it looked like a sugar cookie crime scene. It was loads of fun, we had a few gingerbread zombies, gingerbread inmates (in orange jumpsuits and numbers across their chest, as well as several very flower-looking snowflakes. Throughout the whole process, I had 2-3 unfrosted cookies and later when we got home I had two more. I knew I had to get a handle on this. Otherwise, I've been eating the way I should and I'm sure that even with the crap I've allowed, I'm still well under 2000 calories a day, but its the BEHAVIOR that worries me. I'm even questioning whether to do the baking tomorrow or leave it all until the day before Christmas so the temptation isn't around as long.

Today, I decided that I was just going to NOT allow myself to graze which is basically how I managed to consume so much crap over the last few days. I'm allowing myself three meals and two snacks and if ONE of those snacks is a cookie...that is all its going to be ONE cookie. Today I had one cookie and managed not to inhale the rest, but it wasn't easy!

I'm down to 325/327 (been going up and down between these two numbers the last week or so) and I really want to be at 317 by the end of the month so trying to keep that in mind when the cravings get horrible.

How are you guys handling all the treats? Avoidance, will power, stapling your mouth shut? Please, spill your secrets!