Christmas Cookies 

With a lot of people posting on FB their favorite Christmas cookies, it got me thinking about helping my Mom bake Christmas cookies for our home.  Who doesn't remember either baking Chrstmas cookies with a parent or just the wonderful smell of baking cookies in the oven? Or the rarely oder of burnt cookies coming out of the oven, but that was OK, because of all the laughing and joy of baking with your mom, mostly it was just my sister and I helping.  Mom would bake about 2 to 3 weeks before Christmas, it seemed to always be on a weekend, it was one of signs that Christmas was really on it's way.  Mom didn't bake much, but we always made a bunch of cookies for Christmas. 

We stuck to the traditional cookies, butter spritz cookies, one of my favorites because they required food color and the cookie press.  The Christmas trees tasted like peppermint and green, Wreaths and camels tasted like sugared butter.  All of them were decorated with sprinkles, most ended up on the cookies, but some always found their way into our mouths.  The wreaths had sprinkles and a cherry in the middle.

One of my sister's favorites (if memory serves me) were date bars, she'd help with those, me not so much. Date bars are a lot lot coffee, they smell better then they

taste.  

A couple of my other favorites are lady pecan fingers, even though I'm not fond of nuts in my food. Maybe it's the fact that they're basically butter, powdered sugar and pecans. The other is divinity, even though it's actually a candy, but then who doesn't like a candy that is a cross between baked meringue and frosting?  

I'm not sure why I never really started my own baking Christmas cookie tradition. I did follow my Mom's tradition of putting up a tree the day after Thanksgivingfor a long time.