on making christmas cookies

This post is dedicated to Ticker.  The name of his really cool blog
is jus' saying - so go over and check it out.  Ticker usually posts
really hard stuff that he believes will bring Obama down but what
I like best about Ticker's blog are his Sunday Faith Posts - when
he puts up Faith Music with a Beat and that has meaningful lyrics.
Right now he is posting Christmas Cookie recipes of his own and I
believe a really good lemon cookie recipe.


So Ticker - this one's for you...
~~~

It's been at least ten years ago when I decided to go all out and make
thirteen different kinds of Christmas Cookies.  I bought all the ingredients
at once - cost me eighty bucks -and in those days that was a lot.

I also bought a bunch of decorative tins to put the cookies in and then I
gave them away.

In the old place we had a kitchen area with a nice long bar - but we never
used it.  But my two daughters had a number of boy/girl parties down there
and I would sit in the family room in my red and black plaid flannel nightgown
outfit and all the young hot teenage boys would have to walk past me watching
tv before they could descend into the basement for the party.

These young guys were so nice and polite and they would say, 'Hi Mrs. Hanes
how are you' as they walked past me and sometimes we would chat about the
clock hanging over the fireplace.

That clock is a collector's item - wood, shaped like the state of Indiana - but what
it was all about was the 1987 NCAA Chamiponships when IU won because of  'the
shot' by Keith Smart which Bob Knight blew off in the postgame interview instead
giving all the credit to hotshot Steve Alford - and where is he now really.  But hey
I will not go into that cause Bob Knight is on my no hit list (see my post about my
no hit list).
~~~

Here is the list - in its entirety - of  the cookies I baked that Christmas:

   1.  candy cane cookies

   2.  gingerbread boys

   3.  mexican wedding cakes aka russian teacakes

   4.  date pinwheels

   5.  cherry blinks

   6.  mary's sugar cookies otherwise known as merry christmas cookies

   7.  chocolate crinkles

   8.  snickerdoodles

   9.   thumbprint cookies

  10.  dreambars

  11.  peanut butter cookies

  12.  chocolate chip cookies

  13.  oatmeal cookies
~~~

~1& 2 are both very - no i would say extremely - hard to make.  DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MAKE THESE
COOKIES.  The candy cane cookies are impressive but you can go insane twisting the red and white dough
into the shape of a candy cane before the dough dries out.  And the gingerbread boys - I mean men - are also very impressive with red hots for the eyes and a raisin nose.  The problem lies in getting the right amount of flour and if you put too much flour in it takes forever to mix it up and well these are the only ones I would NEVER make again..

 ~3, 5 & 9 - good.  not that hard really.  The Mexican Wedding cakes are an all time favorite of mine.

~4 - the date pinwheel is a must for every Christmas cookie tin give away.  You roll out the dough, spread the date filling over the dough, roll it up, refrigerate and then cut into cookies and bake.  These cookies gave
me kind of a good feeling after I did them because well they are nice looking and doable.

~6 - the secret behind making suger cookies for Christmas is not to try to decorate them like the pictures in martha stewart's living magazine - cause folks - it's too time consming and they are never gonna look like hers.  I learned to frost them with green or red icing - both really - and use sprinkles on top.  Be sure to let
the frosting dry before stacking them.

~7 - I never really liked snickerdoodles but my sister always made them so I did too.  I think a lot of people like them -and they are easy - just not Christmasy-looking.

~8 -  chocolate crinkles are attractive but the first time I made them the were flat so I tried again and it worked.  I  think they are worth a try.

~10 - dreambars are not really Christmas cookies but they went over really big with my family.  I may make them again this year for Christmas.

~11, 12 & 13 are also not Christmas cookies but rather fillers for the tins and people always like them.
~~~






recipes available upon request