Sweet Christmas Traditions

Well, it's been three years since I made Christmas sugar cookies.  Remember my last sugar cookie attempt back here?  Right, maybe that's best forgotten.

This year was a whole new ballgame.  It was fun.  There were absolutely no burned cookies.  And very minimal crying (which was not due to cookie baking.)

Because no cookie baking was done in my home.  Hallelujah!  I mentioned my not-so warm & fuzzy feelings about sugar cookies to a friend several weeks before Christmas.  So she volunteered to make them and bring them over to decorate.  I was not about to let that opportunity pass me by.

I have no trouble with frosting or making a sticky mess on my table.  Just the rolling and the cutting and the burning.  So this was the perfect set up.  My friend was happy to skip the frosting and colors and sprinkles.  It was good for everyone.  Especially the kidlets.

I was impressed with their attention to detail and how much they really enjoyed decorating the cookies.  Maybe I should rethink the 'every three year' time frame.  Even if it does mean that I lose whole bottles of colored sugar when I don't pay close enough attention to the toddler.

I have it on good authority that Santa enjoyed his cookies this year.  Even if they were a touch stale because we made them 4 days before Christmas.  But considering how many millions of cookies he consumes on one night, I think he'll let my 5 stale ones slide.

Who has time to make cookies on Christmas Eve, anyway?  Not us, certainly.  We were too busy making a gingerbread house, enjoying the first snow we've seen on our own property for 8 years (more on that later), and getting ready for our annual nativity play.  Oh, and Shaggy kept running off with his airgun to try to shoot squirrels.  Perfectly normal Christmas tradition, right?

Or not.

We got smarter with the gingerbread making this year, too.  We had K make the dough and we helped her bake it all the night before.  Which just left the fun stuff for Christmas Eve.

Everybody helped.

I loved being able to hand off that frosting bag to other capable decorators whenever I needed a break. 

I guess all these years of cake decorating are starting to pay off.  I seem to be inadvertently training my replacements.

Which is always a good policy.

And I have to mention once again how much I love my gingerbread pan.  All you have to do is press the dough in and bake.  No rolling.  No worrying about mismatched walls and roof.  And it even comes with all the cute accessories.  One of these years I might think to take a picture of it.  But this is not that year.

We've come a long way from our 'just buy a kit' days.  But sadly, most of us still don't particularly care for gingerbread.  I wonder if my trusty pan will work well with sugar cookie dough . . .