The rolling pin is back at the rear of the cabinet, the cookie sheets are in their designated space, and the recipes have been returned to their box. Cookie season is officially over.
Recently, I was tasked to make Christmas cookies for a group I belong to. Now I can find my way around the kitchen pretty easily so it wasn’t a chore and there is barely a cookie I don’t love except snickerdoodles—a hard pass for me, but it made me wonder.
Do people still make Christmas cookies? Have healthier eating habits, a decrease in social connections for many people, and a lack of family nearby stifled this tradition? So, I posed the question to my Facebook friends. Do you still make Christmas cookies from scratch?
A resounding YES!
One friend said “Guilty.” Someone asked “Who doesn’t?” Numerous folks screamed “ME” You’d think I had asked “Who wants Arizona weather this holiday season?” That should also be a yes. Even my friend who describes her aqua KitchenAid mixer as kitchen jewelry makes Christmas cookies. By the way, I think that’s one of the best descriptions I’ve ever heard.
When I finished my fifth batch of cookies, I realized there are really Five Rules for Making Christmas Cookies.
- They have to be made from scratch. None of this dough in a roll that you slice and bake. Nope. Not at Christmas.
- You must use a family recipe. Bonus if it’s covered with smudged fingerprints.
- A mess is required. Every inch of counter space and intrusion onto kitchen and dining room tables is allowed. Sadly, there are no elves to clean up.
- You must share more that you keep for yourself. I know. That’s tough.
- A lump in the throat and a tear in the eye is part of the experience. From your own memories or for the memories you are creating.
Making and receiving cookies are a tradition that has stood the test of time since the middle-ages. We bake to share a plate of joy with a neighbor, co-workers, or the mailman. We bake to fill the kitchen with smells of years gone by. We bake to honor our mothers and grandmothers whose recipes we’ve inherited.
Forget the fat and sugar in each tasty morsel, and relish the calm and peace that comes out of the oven with each sheet of cookies. And think of the kindness you’ll be sharing.
Do you have a favorite cookie you like to make at the holidays? Does it have any family history?
I love this (and thanks for the kitchen jewelry compliment)! My only rule with Xmas cookies is that I call BOGUS COOKIE if you try to pass off cookies you can make any time of year as Xmas Cookies. You cannot claim chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin or peanut butter as special. Well, maybe if you stick a Hershey Kiss on top of a little peanut butter cookie. But that’s IT. My favorite is the iced cutout sugar cookie that you and Kathy gamely attacked. That’s WORK, man. That’s Xmas dedication. Kudos. But one of my favorites, and a long tradition in my partly-Italian family, are pizzelle waffle cookies. Now, I think using the traditional anise flavoring is the only way to go, but my grandmother didn’t care for anise so she’d make vanilla (yawn), lemon (meh) and chocolate (barely acceptable). I’m mentioning this in case anyone hates anise or licorice. There are options. Lesser options, IMO. but options, nevertheless. The recipe I use yields about six dozen cookies which means spending a LONG time pressing and timing each pair (must have an iron that makes two at a time). You go from cooking, putting the hot waffles on a rack to cool, press the next two, move two cooled cookies from the rack to a plate, freeing up rack space, repeat. Not a task for sissies, calling for concentration and split second timing.. And here’s a tip if you want to keep them fresh and crispy: wrap small stacks in foil, or keep them in an airtight tin. Plastic bags make them soft. No one wants a limp pizzelle, amiright? So there you go. Thank you for asking and now that I’ve written so much, I don’t feel remotely inspired to write on my own blog. Happy holidays, chicas!
My favorites are black and white snowballs with lots of nuts. Some call them wedding cookies.
My mom sent Christmas cookies to me at Christmas time when I was in the Air Force stationed in Turkey and West Berlin in the 1970s. For some weird rationale, getting married meant you had to make your own.
Today, I’ve been told my several folks that a mailing cookies results in crumbs. I loved getting the decorated cookies with a limb missing or the candy canes with the cinnamon morsel dried off and upturning the box and eating the crumbs with a spoon I’m married still but don’t have a kitchen and still no handmade cookies again this year.
Always fun to read your thoughts.
I love Christmas cookies but NEVER make cutouts. Just a good shortbread for me. And of course, Christmas crack.
Loved reading your take on Christmas Cookies – spot on! Totally agree that the recipe card must have smudges from many past uses!