Bird nests, snowballs, date frying pan, sugar, and spritz were the many varieties of cookies that would appear on the Christmas Day cookie platter at our house when I was a kid. Sometime later, caramel bars would be added to the list of baked cookies that must be made before the big day. Mom’s plans probably included an order for baking, as some of these cookies freeze better than others. Mom must plan strategically to get them all made, squirrel away adequate quantities for the Christmas Day platter, while leaving enough available for school lunches and daily dessert.
My favorite cookie baking memories are related to the making of sugar cookies.
There were five of us kids all wanting a chance to decorate cookies. I imagine Mom wanted to decorate some herself so that they were presentable for the Christmas Day platter. My mom was quite a perfectionist when it came to baking. This is a trait we girls seem to have inherited and it has trickled down to a few granddaughters as well. But I digress. Five children each wanting a dozen or two cookies to decorate, quickly amounts to more than eight dozen cookies.
The job of rolling the dough, and transferring cookies to the baking sheet, often remained in Mom’s capable hands. Mom insisted on a consistent thickness and rolling the dough too many times would make the cookies tough. When we got older we were allowed to attempt rolling. We were reminded to place the cutters close so you get a lot of cookies each time you rolled the dough. “Sugar cookies are piddly,” Mom often said. Make the dough, roll the dough, cut the dough, transfer the dough, decorate the dough, bake the dough, …. you see, Piddly!
We were always allowed to choose the cookie shapes and the manner in which we wanted to decorate. There are two schools of thought on decorating sugar cookies. For years, our sugar cookies were sprinkled with white and colored sugar before baking. Christmas tree shapes usually had a silver ball at the top. (I now know these are called silver dragees) Sometimes we went crazy with the silver balls, which were hard as a rock, and the cookies became almost impossible to eat. The second way to decorate is to bake, cool, cover with white frosting, and then decorate with colored sugar. This is my preferred method today.
Each child had a cookie tin. When the cookies were completed, and thoroughly cooled, we placed our special creations into our tins. For the next few evenings, we kids would beg our dad to “eat one of mine.” Dad wisely avoided the cookies covered in silver balls. Was choosing one of our creations for consumption, in some small way, acceptance of us and our unique gifts?
Food..…it was such a symbol of love at our house. Dad worked literally sun-up to sun-down (and often more) to provide for our family. Mom spent most of her days cooking and baking for our family of seven. Guests were always offered to stay and eat with us, or have a cup of coffee and a few cookies. Did not Jesus call himself the Bread of Life? Jesus then is our food for life and what great love that he would give himself so that we might truly live. Without fully intending it, my parents were modeling love and life through their daily lives and being God’s living example of love for me and my siblings. Today, I thank God for that type of childhood and that type of family.
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