Cookies for Dinner

I suppose I could do something constructive with my day, like pick up my gold sandals that have been sitting by the kitchen table for the past week, or pay bills, or do a load of laundry. Can you tell that it is my day off?

Instead, I am waxing nostalgic and making Christmas cookies. The holidays, like I mentioned in an earlier post, can bring out the best and worst in people. Many people look forward to the comfort that tradition brings, others dread the anticipation and anxiety that comes with "if we don't do this it is not (insert random holiday here.)" Stress, hand wringing, and hair twisting ensue and you might as well say, "Baby Jesus cannot come if we don't make pistachio jell-o salad with the little marshmallows for Christmas dinner." Hello, He's already arrived and is standing right next to you in his omnisicient, omnipresent glory. What part of "Lo, I am with you always, until the very end of the age." don't you understand? I admit, I still struggle with it, especially when I am making Christmas cookies by myself.

I could probably survive Christmas with a box of cookies from the Keebler elves, but it just wouldn't be the same. I will readily admit I survived Thanksgiving without the requisite Turkey Day appetizers of vegetable dill dip and a shrimp mold made with tomato soup and cream cheese; however, I did loudly complain about it to two people: my mother and The Rev. I normally don't label my family traditions with a value, but Christmas cookies were such a part of my childhood that it would not feel the same if I didn't make a batch of Animal Cookies or press Springerle. I have the dough for the Animal Cookies chilling in the fridge right now, and this afternoon I will cut them out with cookie cutters that are just like my mom's. I found them on ebay, and I hope she knows that I think of her every time I use the one shaped like a Christmas tree. Later tonight, they will get frosted and sprinkled with colored sugar. They will sit in a holiday tin and I will probably eat no more than two this entire holiday season, but they will make me recall frosting cookies at the kitchen table when I was little, my mother's hands covered in flour, the little kid anticipation of wrapped presents under a tree, the security of home.