It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas….

I may not have picked the best year to start a Christmas Cookie tradition, but the good news is that every other year will seem easier, right? (That’s what I tell myself about picking a bad year to finally join the church choir and do the Christmas musical (which, by the way, is called Christmas Is Forever and is next weekend and for more information on times and such click here))

Keith and I both wanted me to do Christmas Cookies. It was a tradition in Keith’s family (and still is – his mom makes great cookies), plus we just like cookies. So far we’ve made three batches. The first was Lemon Supreme cookies, and they were super easy. You just use

• one box of cake mix (you can use any kind – I just used Lemon Supreme)
• two eggs
• 1/4 cup oil or butter (we used butter)

Blend, put on the cookie sheet, bake at 375 for about 10 minutes.

Using butter they were firm enough that I think next time I will try making them in the cookie press or making cutouts. I just rolled into balls and flattened this time, and they tasted a bit like lemon sugar cookies. Yum! They’re all gone. Next year I totally need to clear out enough room in the freezer to store cookies there for greater chance of making it to Christmas.

Then we made Peanut Butter Fudgies, a Dohlchester favorite. I contend these are candies, not cookies, but in Keith’s family they were called “No Bake Cookies”, so I’ll count them.

Most fun of all was our most recent cookies (made on the day of the first snow of the season, not that any of it stuck). They were from a mix, but oh so fun (and yummy). Kaitlyn and I made Gingerbread Men (and Angels)! Kaitlyn always loves to help cook, especially taste testing (she has to fight Keith for beaters or spoons, though). This was our first cookie cutouts since she was old enough to help and she thought cookie cutting was very exciting! She called the gingerbread men “gentlemen” and the angels “ladies”. We didn’t get to decorate them, this time, but we’ll add that to our cookie wishlist for later.

On our “Cookie Wishlist” for the rest of this season? My Grandma’s Molasses Cookies, spritz cookies, peanut butter sandwiches (like homemade Girl Scout Tagalongs), thin mints (like homemade Girl Scout… well, you can guess), chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter Hershey kissed cookies, peanut butter cup cookies, decorated sugar cookies, and chocolate covered pretzels (ok, also not cookies, but falls under “Holiday Baking”).

Cookies aren’t the only thing making our house look Christmasy. My super-wonderful husband got all of the ornaments and whatnot out, put up both trees (my white-light, red-glass-ball, white-thread-crochet, and glass ornamented tree with a thread crochet angel topper and his blinking-white-light, fun-ornament, light-up-star-topped tree). He set out two of our Nativities. He hung the stockings and wreaths. All that was left was the “family” ornaments. Kaitlyn loved looking at the tree and helping pick up the ornaments but not putting them on the prickly tree. She also loved (or at least indulged me) listening to stories about the ornaments.

The ones I got when I visited Tante Suzanne in Germany. The one’s Keith and I got on our honeymoon in Italy. The one from my childhood church’s 125th anniversary celebration. The one celebrating our church’s 40th anniversary. Ones with names on them. Police ornaments. The white thread ornament from the year Keith and I were dating when I traded him one red bow from his tree for one of the stars I had crocheted for my tree (to this year “my” tree has that bow and “his” tree has the star). Ornaments from vacations we’ve taken, from the State Fair, and from ChesterFest. Ornaments make great souvenirs from trips, because you get to pull out the memories and stories every year.