It's funny how the seemingly small and insignificant things take on a life of their own. When I first made Christmas cookies as a young mom, I naturally fell back on my mother's usual recipe. These cookies embody the Christmas Spirit for me. The sugar cookies are unusual in that they are sweetened with honey instead of sugar and the dash of lemon flavoring adds a delightful flair. The cut-out cookies are perfect targets for helpful toddler hands, since the dough is thick and stiff. It's easy to apply cookie cutters, and it even forgives the uneven rolling of inexperienced cooks.
I remember enjoying the process of icing the cookies when I was little. Mom decreed that the stars would be yellow, trees green, and bells red. Snowmen, angels, and reindeer were always coated with white. Candles tasted best of all, since they were the only multi-colored cookie with red and green icing topped by a bright yellow flame. When my children picked up icing knives, food coloring boxes had expanded to include bottles of blue. What possibilities!
Away from my mother's slightly controlling ideas about proper cookie color schemes and combined with my children's creative artistic flair, icing the Christmas cookies became a Production with a capital “P.” It now required all of the bowls in the house to mix various tints, several spoons and knives for each color, and toothpicks for adding fine detail to cookie designs. Red, green, yellow and white were joined by blue, black, orange, purple and pink. Snowmen sprouted faces and buttons, and plain green trees suddenly glowed with tinsel can decorations made from confectioner's sugar. And of course, icing cookies went from a thirty-minute chore to an hours-long affair that spread icing from floor to ceiling. The cookies were masterpieces; each beautifully unique as its creator. No two were ever the same and sometimes it seemed a shame to bite them.
Now my girls are nearly grown, and I sort of thought that the cookie-icing ritual was winding down. This year, I mixed dough unaided for the first time in decades. I was feeling harried, so my youngest daughter rolled, cut out and baked the cookies while I was at work last week. But then it came time for icing. Once again the family gathered around the table, armed with bottles of food coloring and mounds of sugar. The golden-brown cookies took on lives and personalities-each with its won story. The gingerbread man dressed in a tux for his holiday wedding. The woman in the green dress was his cookie bride. That stocking over there had a frosted hole in the tow, and the lopsided star chose to be blue with yellow polka dots to show that even the less-than-perfect cookies have flair and style.
More importantly, the family joined together for the project. Gathered around the table like that, if felt as if time stood still for a little bit. Everyone put their cares and fuss aside for a few moments and just enjoyed one another's company. Traditions like these are vital to the weave of family life. They hold families together. My Christmas wish for you is that you and your loved ones find or make a tradition this year. Let it draw you together time and time again, and let it light up your lives with joy.
