Christmas Cookies

Posting this on the third day of the new year, but it's still Christmas, day number ten, so it's really not late.

I was thinking the other day about another tradition we had as kids. The annual begging to decorate Christmas cookies.

When I was little, I begged and begged to be the one to decorate cookies. And one year, it finally happened, and my big brother was more than happy to relinquish the task. Such excitement as Mom began baking her delicious Christmas cookies. Cookies of all kinds and shapes, including the best sugar cookies I've ever had.

Sugar cookies in the shape of Jolly Ol' Saint Nick, of trees, stars, and wreathes! My mom figured out that a donut cutter made PERFECT wreath-shaped cookies. To top them off, Mom would make a confectioner sugar frosting in all possible colors I'd need.

Part of decorating cookies is tasting them. And licking your fingers, of course! After about an hour of it, the sugar got to be too much and I was begging to stop, but of course, I had to finish them.

A few years later, my little brother took over the task, and loved the whole process. But he figured out that it was better to drink that cool glass of water rather than to lick the frosting, and he was the only one of the three of us that didn't get sick over the whole thing.