Y'all wanted another rave, I know. But - shocking I know - Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade Holiday Special was almost good. At the 30-minute mark, she hadn't changed outfits even once, which I felt was beyond restrained for the queen of costume changes. Many of her dishes I might have even made, myself. Crazy. She might have convinced me to take my electronic signature off the Stop Sandra Lee petition if it hadn't been for the over-the-top decor and the fact that she rented a mansion in Whistler, British Columbia for her party.

It's a great family holiday. She has all her siblings and nieces and nephews, plus her best friend, around the table. Notably missing: the rich husband. Guess that divorce is going through.

For your viewing and cooking pleasure, I rated each recipe with a Zagat's-style score, using three categories: H for Homemade quotient (how many from-scratch ingredients); T for Taste rating (my completely subjective opinion on how it would taste, taking points off for using ingredients that are overly processed or needlessly filled with unhealthy ingredients); and S for Sandra Style (how good she looks, making it). A perfect score would be 30. Would any recipe break 20?

Dinner roll wreath. Score=17 (5H-3T-9S)
This was lovely, and Sandra used several different fresh herbs to decorate the rolls. It was lovely. Of course, those packaged dinner rolls tend to be filled with tons of preservatives and transfatty acids - and typically aren't all that tasty. Plus the ranch dressing packets tend to include lots of anti-clumping agents and other chemicals that taste yucky when baked.

Peppercorn-crusted prime rib. Score=19 (7H-9T-3S)
Beef prime rib. Whole garlic cloves. Lots of peppercorns. Sounds good so far. But... Italian seasoning packet? Oh sweetie. You're going to spend $50-some on a hunk of amazingly delicious meat, and add in a seasoning packet? Would it have been so hard to take two, three different spices? You could have even just used pepper. I'm sure it didn't affect the underlying meat much, though, so I'm giving it a pretty high taste score. But Sandra just doesn't look right roasting large hunks of meat.

White hot chocolate. Score=27 (8H-9T-9S)
Take heavy cream. Melt together with white chocolate chips. Add half and half. Stir in liqueur and vanilla or peppermint extract. Top with whipped topping (took a couple of points off for that, would take more off if it was non-dairy - she didn't say) and crushed candy canes. Yum! I'm making this as soon as I run to the store and get some cream. But why serve hot chocolate in wine glasses? Especially when you can just buy clear glass mugs?

Salmon cream cheese mold. Score=26 (9H-10T-7S)
Sandra gives you the option here of using separate salmon and cream cheese rather than just buying storebought smoked salmon cream cheese. If you go that route, this product has zero premade ingredients (well, except for the crackers - but most cooks would buy packaged crackers - yes, including this one). Wow, Sandra. I'm impressed. Of course she looks silly calling the sour cream coating "icing" for her dip, and then drowns the stuff in fresh dill (yum, but, looks like just a pile of dill).

Semi-homemade gifts: Cookies with red icing. Score=5 (1H-2T-3S)
This might have been a good idea. No, strike that. This was awful from the first frame. Take fudge-covered cookies (which can be good, but are terrible for you). Sift together powdered sugar and merinque powder (what, just so she'd have another ingredient?). Add an entire bottle of food coloring. Drizzle, let dry. Please, oh, please, if you're going to go to this much work to make fake homemade cookies? Just make real homemade cookies.

Semi-homemade gifts: Hannukah merinques. Score=19 (2H-7T-10S)
This is Sandra's tour-de-force - a Hannukah cookie that "looks like a baby dreidl!" It would be pretty tasty, as it uses the storebought merinque cookies (the ones at Trader Joe's are made with healthy ingredients, not much more than egg whites, sugar and vanilla). I'm taking some points off for using that storebought icing, which is like a heart attack in a tub. There are no from-scratch ingredients, but Sandra colors the icing blue, rolls the cookies in blue sugar, then goes to the extreme of painting a stripe on each cookie, you know, to make it more blue and all.

Ornament sugar cookies. Score=19 (5H-5T-9S)
Oh, you had to use the sugar cookie mix, added flour, cream cheese, eggs and vanilla. This was a typically ridiculous Sandra Lee recipe, because, what are you saving by using sugar cookie mix? You don't have to cream butter - but your trade-off is transfatty acids. For that five minutes of saved time, you're trading off both taste and health. Then she goes and suggests you make icing from scratch - Sandra? You're actually going to get out the confectioner's sugar! Bravo. The best part of this is how she protects her manicure as she presses the cookie cutters into the dough. Priceless.

Macaroon Christmas tree. Score=11 (1H-2T-8S)
I'd never, no never, make this. It might be tasty, but it's terrifically messy and... why go to so much trouble for something that no one's going to risk getting their holiday duds all mucky to eat? And there are absolutely zero home-made ingredients. But I have to give Sandra double points for the fake snow outside her "window" as she "cooked" this. I wonder if it's made from instant mashed potatoes? That would be oh-so-appropriate.

Sugar cone angels. Score=13 (1H-2T-10S)
Take an ice cream cone, the pointy sugar variety. Cover in icing, let dry. Dip in colored icing. make balls from storebought marzipan for the heads. Pipe tiny little icing dots all over. Using white chocolate for glue, stick on colored coconut as hair and a vanilla wafer halo. Use edible markers to make "pretty blue eyes" and "sweet little mouth" and "nice rosy cheeks." Dip white-chocolate-covered pretzels in more white chocolate, apply on back as wings. "So easy!" says Sandra. Yeah, whatever. Call me in five hours when your never-to-be-eaten angel cones are done and I'll have made three or four batches of cookies from scratch.

Sandra's Eggnog. Score=14 (2H-7T-5S)
Take storebought eggnog, add dark rum and white chocolate liqueur. That's her "secret." Sandra, I hate to break it to you, but you've just given away your secret to millions thousands of people. She tops it all off with pumpkin pie spice. It sounds yummy, but too sweet. I can't knock you for using storebought eggnog - making your own eggnog is both potentially sick-making (those unpasteurized egg yolks) and too much trouble when you can get great stuff from the store. Problem is, add in white chocolate liqueur and you've got concentrated sugar upon richness upon sweetness - I'd be able to drink about one tablespoonful.

Now that I've been obsessing over Sandra Lee for the past six weeks, I'm starting to feel a little sorry for her. She tries, really she does, and her rich husband doesn't care a whit. I wonder if she sent him a big package of red-striped fudge-covered cookies for Christmas? I hope so. I also hope she sent him the bill for the mansion in BC. Will you invite me next time Sandra? I won't help you make sugar cone angels, but I will introduce you to my favorite walnut spice cookies. And maybe I can convert you to my fully-homemade ways.