Each year I scan through the recipes in a recipe book my mother hand wrote for me when I got married. I had all of my favorite things she used to make for me and my sisters when we were growing up, and I have to admit, the Christmas cookie section is the biggest (and my favorite).
I remember coming home from school each day a few weeks before Christmas vacation started and my mother would be in our old farmhouse kitchen baking away.
There were the tea cookies that her Aunt Hazel made for her.
You use almond extract in the dough and it is still one of my favorite scents. I usually go for the chocolatey stuff, but these are one of the best cookies I’ve ever had.
There were the ever-popular kiss cookies — or as some people call them, peanut butter blossoms.
She’d make old-fashioned molasses cookies and use a coffee can as the cookie cutter, something my father’s grandmother used to make.
And my favorite were the magic bars: layers of chocolate, coconut, graham crackers, and toasted walnuts.
The raspberry snow bars were my second favorite since I’ve always had a thing for berries and the Italian wedding cookies coated in powdered sugar weren’t so easy to sneak.
We never had store-bought cookies in our house — just delicious homemade ones.
And when my siblings and I all grew up and moved out, it was one of the things I missed the most. We all started baking our own, of course, but my mother had made so many different kinds it was hard to find the time to make them all since we were working full time.
We started having a cookie swap as a way to spread the cheer (and the sugar). One person hosts and we all bring whatever we feel like.
There have been years when my entire kitchen island has been filled with at least 1,000 cookies. We had times when we did a craft project after we exchanged our treats. Sometimes we decide to make something together, like the year we made peanut butter balls and all laughed so hard trying to get them just so, I almost peed myself right in the kitchen.
We serve tea, we talk, we eat. The one thing we always do is let the cookies remind us of our childhood.
At the mere sight of those Italian wedding cookies, I remember trying to stuff one in my mouth after I was told I had enough and the plume of powdered sugar that came out of my mouth when my mother caught me.
The molasses cookies remind me of my father sitting in his leather recliner watching the news with his stack of three cookies and a glass of milk.
The Kiss cookies were always eaten in a particular way: all the peanut butter part was munched away and the kiss was saved for last.
This Friday we will be doing our annual cookie swap, and I can’t wait.
I have no idea what my mother, Aunt, and siblings will bring. We decided this year the element of surprise will be fun.
I do know one thing though: Our freezers and our hearts will be full.
