Half Cent Cookies

I could always tell when Christmas was coming. I could tell because the house began to smell wonderful - like vanilla and almond and peppermint - all the tantalizing scents of baking cookies! Every year, the first Saturday after Thanksgiving, Mom got out her big mixing bowl, the rubber spatula, the cookie sheets and wax paper, the bags of flour and sugar and sprinkles.

And of course, the dozens of red plastic and metal shape cookie cutters. There were cookie cutters that looked like Christmas stockings bulging with presents, like stars and Christmas trees and Santa Claus in all kinds of poses, like reindeer, and a church, and a wreath, a big bow, a snowman, a tin soldier, a nutcracker, a candle, a tree ornament, a present - every kind of Christmas shape you can imagine.

I loved the red plastic ones best - you can see right through them. I used to hold them up to the light and look through them, turning the whole room red. Of course, they were the ones most difficult to work with because they had a lot of detail and the little pieces of plastic that formed the "picture" on the cookie also caused the dough to stick to the cutter.

I loved helping. Mom usually let us climb up on chairs and help measure the ingredients. I loved sifting flour in swirls of snowy white, filling the one cup dry ingredient measuring cup with the sifted flour, tapping it down to make sure there were no unfilled pockets, pulling a knife across the top to make sure we had one cup and no extra mounded up above the rim.

Mom ran the mixer, beating together the butter (or in our case, margarine), milk, food coloring, flavoring and other liquid ingredients, then adding the sugar. Slowly she shook the flour into the mix and pushed it toward the beaters with the rubber spatula. The motor whined lower pitches until the flour mixed in. Mom used a different color for each flavor of dough. White was vanilla (my favorite), green was almond, red was peppermint, blue was orange, yellow was lemon.

After mixing each batch, Mom would wrap the dough in wax paper and set it in the refrigerator overnight to chill. On Saturday, we worked with one colored batch at a time. Mom would flour the big wooden cutting board and her wooden rolling pin, then roll a ball of dough flat with the rolling pin until it was about a quarter of an inch thick. She showed us how to place the cookie cutters on the sheet of dough so close to each other that there was barely room in between, and no waste of the dough.

After setting all the cookie cutters in place - what a festive board of red and silver - she would carefully lift each cutter with the spatula and place it on a cookie sheet. Sometimes the dough stuck in the cookie cutter, and Mom would gently shake the cutter until the dough came out. Sometimes the cutter just wouldn't let go, and Mom would have to dig the dough out, wad it back into the dough ball, wash the cutter and flour it. After the cookies were removed, Mom would wad up the scraps and roll it out again, using every bit of the dough until all she had left was a small lump that would get baked for taste testing purposes.

Into the oven we placed each sheet of perfect cookie shapes, then set the timer. Once the oven was up to temperature, it didn't take long for a batch to cook to a wonderful golden puff. The aroma of cookie caressed the air with delicate scents, making your mouth water and your tummy rumble in anticipation. (There are actually cookie dough scented candles!)

Mom carefully removed the trays from the oven with her handmade potholders and scooped the baked confections onto wax paper to cool. We wanted to gobble one down right away, but we had to wait until they cooled. Meanwhile, another tray went into the oven. After we had a few batches that were cool enough, we frosted and decorated some of them. Mom didn't have a lot of patience for us to get too artistic, but my sister and I managed to at least ensure that the gingerbread boys and girls had eyes and buttons and that the tree ornament cookies got lots of sparkly glittery non pareils.

After the frosting hardened, Mom packed round aluminum pie plates with a dozen or so cookies, locked them in with Saran Wrap and tin foil, and tucked them in the freezer. In a few weeks when our church group went Christmas caroling to shut-ins, we would present each person with a tin filled with the delightful cheery edible tokens of Christmas joy.

And of course, we were allowed to sample! Christmas cookies appeared in our school lunch sacks and the cookie jar in the kitchen would have a full belly for a bit. I came to dearly love cookie baking. Not the long hot work that made your back ache and your arms tired. Not the precision decorating which I was not patient about. Not the self control required to pack away most of the treats for someone else. What I relished was the time my siblings and I spent with Mom doing something that ushered in a joyous celebration.

Cookies don't seem much related to the birth of the Savior of the world. But for me, cookie baking marked the beginning of a happy season when everyone seemed more cheerful and when the special events made life come alive. There was a sense that all was right with the world.

I never baked cookies with my children, and I regret cheating them of the experience. In this day and age of watching your weight and store bought treats and hectic schedules, it seems out of place. The churches I attend don't carol to shut-ins any more. I am sad to lose this great activity and am still thinking about how to create the sense of togetherness and security and community it once provided.

Meanwhile, a few Christmases ago, Mom made all of us kids a quilt. In the center of each red or green square is a cookie cutter shape embroidered in compete detail! What a wonderful reminder of our special times together. I treasure this quilt and display it every Christmas as a reminder that I ought to be reaching out to the lonely and less fortunate especially during Christmas.