Christmas Cookie Tradition

After reading about various ones making Christmas cookies, I began to think about Christmas when I was a child.  One of my most favorite activities as to make cookies that we would cut out and decorate.   We called the cookies sugar cookies, but now I would call them "plain cookies". Also my mom would mix a cookie dough that was somewhat like a gingerbread or spice cookie.  I just remember that the cookie dough was brown in color and had a very delicious spicy smell.   My mother would mix up at least 4 colors of icing--red, yellow, green, and blue.  The red was more a pink color. There were also different flavors put into the icing.  I can remember mint, lemon, and cherry--I think.  There may have been some other flavor as well.  We had several items to use for decorations--chocolate chips, red hots, green and red sprinkles, little silver sugar balls, gum drops,   some sort of flat round sprinkles, and another type of sprinkle that was long  and cylindrical in shape and consisted of all colors.  Seems those had a chocolate flavor. We would cut out bells, stars, Christmas trees, and gingerbread men. If there were other shapes, I can't remember them.  The baking, icing, and decorating would take a good portion of an afternoon or morning.  I can remember my two older brothers participating in this activity in their younger years, and then it became something just my mom and I would do.  I loved using all the pretty colors of icing and decorations.  Even though my mom made divinity, fudge, peanut brittle, peanut patties, and sometimes fruit cake, I loved making cookies the best of all.

I still make "plain Christmas" cookies, but no longer do any decorating.  All my children preferred them without icing and decorations as did Brian.  The activity was still lots of fun and a Christmas tradition.  As my children got older, they mixed, cut out, and baked the cookies all by themselves.  The tradition has now become something Holly and Maddy do.  It is so neat to see traditions passed down and enjoyed.