Baking Christmas cookies is an important tradition in our house. At some point everybody gets involved. It gives me a chance to spend quality time with all of them. All my adult kids and grandkids have their favorite cookies to help with. Out of all of them only one wants to try something new every year, the rest stick to same recipe year after year.
My oldest granddaughter is about to turn sixteen. She finds a new recipe every year for us to try. She flips through cookbooks and magazines. It makes it an adventure when we have to find ingredients we have never heard of in the grocery store. She is no longer a little girl. I am so proud when I get a glimpse of the woman she is on her way to be. Now when we make cookies we talk about college and her goals for the future. This year we made what she called snow crackles. They not only tasted great, they were so much fun to make. She definitely made Santa’s nice list this year.
Jackie is thirteen and pure teenager. She has always made cutout sugar cookies. It surprises me that she jumps whole heartily into decorating the cookies stars and snowmen. She lines the tables with her icings and sprinkles. We didn’t talk much while we did the cookies last year so I was surprise that she reminded me like every year that we still needed to make the food for the reindeer. I really didn’t think she was into the holiday spirit, as she is the one that always avoids spending time with me. I was so glad to see that Christmas even sneaks into the heart of my too cool girl.
The boys both have their favorite cookies to eat. They lose interest in baking pretty quickly so for the most part they drop the dough on the cookie sheet after I have mixed it. They do however have a job they take very seriously. They mail letters to Santa for the family. It is a major event for them every year. The day we go to the post office I collect all the children’s letter to Santa and the boys put them in their special mail bag. It is funny watching them, as tall as the big blue mailboxes are, I always think back to years ago how I had to hold them so they could drop the letters in and then over the years they finally could do it on their own by standing on their tip toes. Now they can easily reach the mail box. Soon they will be too old for writing letters to Santa. They really do grow up too quickly!
My youngest little granddaughter loves gingerbread cookies. She, more than any of my other grandkids, likes to cook and bake. She likes to take her time while decorating the cookies. I love that she eats her mistakes! If a gingerbread man loses an arm then she eats it. She almost needs no help at all from me. It makes me so pleased that I could pass down my love of cooking to her. I tell her every year that baking cookies is a sweet way to get on Santa’s list.
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