Traditional Christmas Cookie Making

Every year growing up my mom made Christmas cookies. Of course she would let us (Karen, Jay and myself) help. It was so much fun. I want to share the Christmas cookie making tradition with my boys and have for the past few years, but it never seems to turn out like I remember as a child.

I remember being so excited when it was time to make the cookies. Mommy would make the dough in the kitchen and bring it to the table for us to cut out the cookies. Once the cookies were baked and cooled she would bring them back to us to decorate. We would have a variety of frosting colors and all sorts of sprinkles and candy. It seemed like we made hundreds of cookies, but thinking back I'm sure it wasn't that many. The dining room would be a mess...flour, frosting and sprinkles everywhere, but I don't remember my mom ever yelling or being upset about the mess.

Fast forward to today......

I admit, I am not a very patient mom. I get frustrated easily. I have all these great ideas or images of being this great mom, but I never seem able to fulfill them. We started making the cookies, and not even 5 minutes into it, they start arguing about who was going to do what, who was standing in the way, who was pushing who out of way and so forth. It didn't take long for me to lose the little patience I had. I don't remember us fighting or arguing during our Christmas cookie making sessions, or maybe I just blocked them out, who knows. I just remember a happy time. Hopefully my boys will have selective memory and only remember happy times too.

Here's our ingredients, including sprinkles, candies and cookie cutters, etc.

Ezekiel mixing the dough.

Elijah's turn

Watching the cookies bake.

OK, what is wrong with this picture, besides the jacked up candy cane cookies? Notice any cut out cookies? No? Um yeah....I lost patience before those were made. There's always next year, right?