Christmas Traditions| Christmas Break and Cookies

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One of my favorite memories growing up is our kitchen covered in flour, my mom busily working on several different things, and me, cutting out cookies, pouring flour into the mixing bowl or cracking open an egg.  Sigh.

Perhaps it’s because of these wonderful memories that I really enjoy baking.  Cooking, not so much.  I don’t like the planning and the cutting and the saucing and the other things that go along with cooking… plus, it only last for like 15 minutes and then all that work is gonzo!… but I digress.

December, in our home, is cookies-bread-and-other-things-we-don’t-usually-eat-MONTH.  I bake butter cookies (family recipe), gingerbread cookies (Good Housekeeiping Cookbook), forgotten cookies (family recipe), oatmeal raisin cookies (Quaker Oats box top recipe) and Stollen (Good Housekeeiping Cookbook),, which is a yeast-based German Christmas bread, that I love.  All these smells and flavors bring me back to when I was a small girl, sitting in the kitchen eating as much cookie dough as cookies.  I love making it a point to make it “feel” like Christmas.

I’ve been known to start putting up decorations in Novemeber (after Halloween), just to let the Christmas Spirit know that it’s welcome here.  This year, I didn’t really get moving until after Thanksgiving because everything takes about 1000 times as long.  And the baking is a long, very long process that I’m still in the middle of and might end up continuing into the New Year.

This week I made Stollen.  I thought that I had all the ingredients and, of course, didn’t do a thourough double check before getting started.  So, I ran out the the store and bought what I needed… plus a couple of stocking stuffers.  When I got home and started putting everything together, I realized that there were 3 more ingredients that I needed!!!  Are you kidding me?  Is this really happening?  Where, may I ask, is my brain? To tell you the truth, I never came with a complete one.

Anyway, I got home and finished the first batch, only to realize way too late that I forgot SEVERAL key ingredients… like eggs and sugar!

Oh well.

I made a second batch a double batch and hopefully redeemed myself, but we’ll see.  Not that it really matters… I’m the only one who really likes it around here.  Although, I’ll send my dad a loaf (if it turned out okay).

So, what Traditions do you hope to pass on to your children?  Making any new ones?  Spill it!

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Joy is the Co-founder of Scottsdale Moms Blog and absolutely loves living in Scottsdale with her hubby Kevin and their daughter Reagan (born August 2009) and one on the way.  She is a lover of nature, a research analyst on all things related to life, a home manager, a crafty art-eest, Chief Marketing Officer for Cactus CrossFit, mommy, daughter and friend.  You are always welcome to e-mail Joy at [email protected].

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Joy Cherrick
Joy is the Co-founder of Scottsdale Moms Blog and absolutely loves living in Scottsdale with her hubby Kevin, their daughter Reagan (born August 2009) and their sons Elliot (born May 2011) and David (born December 2012). She is a lover of nature, a research analyst on all things related to life, a home manager, a home educator, a crafty art-eest, mommy, daughter and friend.

2 COMMENTS

  1. My husband’s grandmother used to make pierogies every year for Christmas. Last year she was really too old to make them, so we didn’t have any. This past June, she passed away. My husband said to me a few nights ago that we were going to carry on the pierogie tradition so our kids could keep it going as well! I just hope they like them also! Haha!

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