Cooking is not my favorite things to do. :) However, I do like to make sugar cookies at Christmas time. It's fun to roll the dough, use fun cookie cutters, and it's especially fun to take time to frost the cookies with colorful icing and a variety of sprinkles.
Is there something special that you make at this time of year that's part of your family tradition?
I do not like to cook at any time of year. I always love to eat anytime of the year. I love going out and seeing the festive holiday decorations in the community. It is just the best to see all of the lights and to share that with my family. There are two pine trees in the avenues that are lite up from top to bottom and they are stunning. These two trees are probably my favorite decorations in the area.
ReplyDeleteI need an address for these pine trees!!
DeleteWhen we were first married and when our kids were really little the only decorations on our tree were gingerbread ornaments that we made. We did this for years until the kids got to big and busy. I have been waiting for grandchildren just so I could do this again and now that my granddaughter is 2 we are going to bake gingerbread ornaments again this year. I found a great new cookie cutter that makes a minature gingerbread house and can't wait to try it out.
ReplyDeleteThose cookies in the illustration are just scrumptious looking! They are inspiring me to find my (of course) Swiss/German traditional Christmas cookie recipes (Weihnachtsplatzchen): Basler Laekerli, Springerle, Spitzbuebe, Spritz, Stollen, Lebkuchen and many more. (I am second generation in this country.)
ReplyDeleteHave you lost count of your cook books, like me? It takes so much time to look for a recipe. Even when I look in my special recipe box, I find it takes too long.
When I made Linzer cookies for the staff birthday party last Friday, I just went to the internet for a recipe. WHAT DID WE DO BEFORE THE INTERNET?
As a child I loved the Pound Cake my mother made - from a recipe she got on a trip to North Carolina. Now we make about 80 small loaf sized cakes, and take them to neighbors and friends, singing them a Christmas carol from their front porch.
ReplyDeleteI also loved the shortbread made by the Scottswoman who came to help with the laundry. Years later -after she had passed away - I asked her daughter if she had her mother's recipe. She said her mother never followed a written recipe or used measuring cups and spoons. She made her shortbread using a handful of this and a pinch of that, until the mixture felt right to her. But I found a recipe that I liked in one of my cookbooks, and taught my family how to shortbread the way I like it. I also enjoy good eggnog (but I haven't found any realy good stuff for many years), and cook a good prime-rib roast for our Christmas diner.
OH! Shortbread! Grandma MacKay's shortbread!
DeleteMy mother was the ultimate cook. She made the holidays really fun. She would start baking for the holidays almost as soon as Thanksgiving was over. We did traditional things like making sugar cookies. One year we even hung them on the Christmas tree as ornaments. They looked really cool but it you tried to sneak one off the tree to eat....Yea, not so tasty anymore. Because my mom was Dutch, we celebrated St. Nicholas Day on December 5th. We would put out our shoes to be filled with candy and sometimes some money by St. Nicholas OR if we hadn't been so good we would get a lump of coal from Black Pete. That didn't really happen in my house. My mom was too nice.
ReplyDeleteMy mom and her friend would always make chocolates, too. I would come home from school to find the house almost frigid because they had to have the right temperature for the chocolate.
I am really sorry to say that I did not carry on many of my mom's traditions. I have always been a working mom and it was really hard after working all day to spend the time doing all the baking. EXCUSES, EXCUSES, EXCUSES!!! The only thing I think my own children would remember would be making the sugar cookies and decorating them. I think I failed in the tradition department.
I occasionally make sugar cookies with holiday decorations, but I'm a lousy baker so they often end up used as paper weights and I serve Costco delights.
ReplyDeleteThe Clayton family loves rolls. We have them at all family celebrations but especially at Christmas. My sister was given a recipe by one of her church leaders for monkey bread when she was a teenager. My family made these every Thanksgiving and Christmas. My sister still does. We like to arrange them in a circle so they look like a wreath. I have not made them for my own family because I never get assigned the rolls to bring for our holiday gatherings. I think I will make them anyway this year.
ReplyDeleteAnother recipe I have tried and failed miserably at is making divinity. My husband's grandmother was famous for always having a whole table full of homemade candies. This year I hope to have one of my Aunts help me make it.
Sugar cookies are a favorite tradition of mine as well. Mrs. Goldthorpe who lived up the street from me as a child gave my mom the recipe and they're the BEST! I always think of Mrs. Goldthorpe when I make them. And as for fruitcake, I dislike them terribly...except for the one my neighbor across the street makes and it's delicious!
ReplyDeleteI am going to look for those pine trees too. I love to drive around and look at people's lights. I got the Kneader's recipe for gingerbread men from the newspaper a few years ago. I probably would make gingerbread men but I am tweeting, wikiing, blogging, iPading, reading, and prepping for classes so I will go buy them. They are really big cookies. They make mummy cookies from the same mold and receipe. they just draw white lines like a mummy.
ReplyDeleteJill, this is my favorite gingerbread recipe & I have misplaced it :'( Could you post it here?
DeleteJill, this is my favorite gingerbread recipe & I have misplaced it :'( Could you post it here?
DeleteMy family has continued the Danish tradition of serving rice pudding at the Christmas Eve dinner. It is made with cream, whipping cream, almond paste, slivered almonds and a scant amount of rice :). Somewhere in the pudding is one whole, shelled almond and the person who finds it in his/her dish wins a solid chocolate Santa! My family doesn't like the pudding much but digs around in their dishes just the same. (P.S. If served in the kitchen, the cook can rig the winner - usually a guest or the youngest child)
ReplyDeleteThis is the only tradition I have kept from my youth. We now open presents on Christmas Day instead of the night before and don't serve red cabbage at the festive dinner.