Christmas Cookie Tradition

For quite a few years, I lived close to Mom and Dad in Tennessee. They moved down in the mid 80's, having found a cabin that they fell in love with, on a hillside overlooking the Cumberland River. A year or two after they left the Midwest, I followed. It became a Christmas ritual for Mom and me to get together to bake butter cookies and decorate them. Even after I moved back to the Midwest, the kids and I continued the tradition of baking butter cookies and frosting them with all kinds of designs. This year, though, the baking got pushed to the side and I wasn't sure any cookies were going to be made.

Yesterday, I found the energy to get started on them. I mixed up the dough, covered it, and let it sit until this afternoon. Once all the hoopla of the day was over, I spent some time rolling the dough, cutting the shapes, baking, then decorating. Nothing fancy by any means, but just going through the motions brought back lots of wonderful memories of being in the kitchen with Mom, talking, laughing, watching the kids make a mess, and then eating all the cookies almost as fast as they were decorated.

Christmas cookies

Comments

J said…
I am glad you pulled together the energy to bake the cookies.

I like to consider things like this a communion of sorts... your spirit meeting hers in the realm of memory, and enjoying things that were so special to you together.
December 27, 2011 at 2:18 PM
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