Christmas Cookies

Christmas cookies. 

I just finished baking six dozen cookies for my husband's co-workers for Christmas. I used my son-in-law's family recipe for Molasses Crinkles which have become a favorite of our family as well. 

As I was baking I couldn't help but reminisce about Christmas cookie baking from days gone by. One Christmas my mother divided my sisters and I into Christmas cookie baking teams. I guess she figured that we could divide and conquer several recipes at once. Unfortunately for one team all the ingredients were dumped into the bowl at once without following the directions and resulted in a huge cookie fail. All I can say is thank goodness I wasn't on that team. 

Once one of my younger sisters decided on a whim to bake sugar cookies. On first inspection they looked quite tasty, but after biting into them something wasn't quite right. Apparently, they had been sprinkled with salt instead of sugar, an easy mistake I suppose. However, I think my sister might have actually been ahead of her time when it came to the whole salty/sweet trend of today. 

My daughter and I used to claim that although we didn't do a lot of actual baking, when it came to Christmas goodies we were famous for our variety of chocolate dipped treats. Either way we always had a lot of fun getting things ready for the holidays. Now that she doesn't live quite so close by it has become more of a challenge when it comes to this confectionery tradition. 

However, along with all the other memorable traditions of Christmas, listening to Christmas music and baking cookies made for a fun morning yesterday.