My mom's gift is making special days memorable. She knows just what to do and whatever she does is punctuated by an infectious laugh and a twinkle in her eye. Step aside Santa! The Christmas season in our house was always filled with homemade cinnamon rolls, Swedish pancakes (covered in powdered sugar and lemon juice) and, of course, her special decorated cookies.
My mom would spend hours making cookies; snickerdoodles, haystacks, ribbon cookies and, our favorite, decorated cookies made from Aunt Chick's Classic Cookie cutters. There were always plenty of decorated stockings, holly leaves, stars, snowmen, Christmas trees and SANTAS! We spent hours decorating those cookies. Many people wait for Thanksgiving to be over to mark the beginning of the Christmas season. We wait for mom's Christmas cookies. I do not know how she always gets them to us on time.
No Christmas cookie story in our household can be told without sharing what happened one Christmas. We had this old, cantankerous dog named Butch. He would sleep under my covers at my feet. If I moved an inch, he would take serious offense and nip my toes. When my friends came over to the house, he would bark unceasingly at them. They never called him Butch. They had "special" names for him. It can't be stressed enough how much my buddies disliked this little dog. Years later, when I was at college and played intramural sports, our team was called, "Ding Dong, Butch is Dead." My dog was famous. The table is now set, so to speak.
One year, after spending hours decorating cookies, our family left the house for a bit. We came home to an empty cookie plate and a mystery, the Great Cookie Caper. Every last decorated cookie was gone! There was not even a crumb left on the plate. Santa comes at night so he was quickly eliminated as the culprit. The doors and windows all seemed secure so we also eliminated some hungry burglar. We all looked at Butch. The thing is, he was so small and there is no way he could eat every single cookie. We could not figure out how he even made it to the top of the table. Hmmm, a discovery, what is that over there in the corner? A cookie. In an other corner was another cookie, and so it went. Butch was smart, like a fox. He ate what he could, then hid all of the other cookies to be consumed later as stealthy, tasty treats. I loved that dog!
Mom still makes sure we get our Christmas cookies all the way from Washington. Christmas would not be the same without her beautiful cookies!
Actually, as I look around the house, I see so many other added touches from mom and my step dad; a resplendent angel, the cutest wood candy canes ever, several cute tree decorations and our little Matthew's Santa rocker. Ha, Matthew is a fine, young man these days. The little rocker has been handed down to his son, Russell. Funny thing about traditions, you really don't realize they are traditions until they become traditions.
My baking starts today. My tradition starts with mom's haystacks. There are only three ingredients; chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and chow main noodles. They are delicious! I do leave the decorated cookies to mom. She did not hand down the cookie painting gene to me.
Thank you mom, Christmas would not be Christmas without all you and Frank have created. Just look at what you two have started!
Thank you, Carol Williams and Anna Banana Kruchten CRS CRB, Phoenix Broker for this month's ActiveRain challenge. It has brought back some great memories!
