I Sure Do Like Those Christmas Cookies, Babe!

It’s a part of me I’ve kept hidden from you until now.

But the truth is, I have over 200 cookie cutters.

I know I showed you my Thanksgiving cookies last week, but you don’t know it’s really a serious habit. I also have been known to bake cookies for President’s Day, Groundhog’s Day and National Pick-up Truck Day.

It makes an unspeakable mess.

Mixing, refrigerating, cutting, baking, decorating, drying.

Usually four days of work for over 300 Christmas Cookies.

And if there’s any humidity in the air, like we sometimes have along the Gulf Coast, even in the winter, you can kiss your smooth royal icing goodbye.

I’ve been known to crank up the air conditioner to accommodate my cookie baking habit.

I actually enlarged this photo and gave it to an awesome teenage girl I know, named “Joy.”

Drying in the kitchen.

(sorry, can’t cook dinner – too many cookies in the way!)

Sometimes, I bag them up to give as gifts.

Other times, I just sit and eat every one of them myself.

And the finished product?

So fun.

My Great Grandmother stood me on a chair at her kitchen counter and we baked these cookies.

Then my Grandmother, then my Mom.

Remember how you gasped when I told you I own 200 cookie cutters? ( I heard you).

Well,  my Mother has over 400.

Did I mention that we love to bake cookies?

Here are a few of my cutters under the cake dome.

In years past, I’ve also tied red bows onto both cutters and real cookies to a

Christmas tree in the kitchen.

Then, Lois the beagle ate the low hanging cookies. She even ate the red bows.

I also hung snowflake cookies from the kitchen chandelier.

Oooo! Magical – sugary – sweetness!

And the song we love to sing at Christmas?

Well, here it is . . .

by

George Strait