Christmas Sugar Cookies

Christmas sugar cookies have been a tradition in my family for as long as I can remember. As children, my younger sister and I would always find ourselves in the kitchen around this time of year, making a genuine mess of everything we touched. My mom would mix up a batch of homemade dough and help us roll it out as we got flour all over our cheeks, our hair, and the kitchen table. The cookie cutters we used then and now are the same. The candy cane, sleigh, rocking horse, reindeer, stockings, and tree always leave their mark in the dough.

My mom would let us cut out the cookies, subtly suppressing a sigh when we'd space the cutters so far from one another she'd certainly have to roll out the dough dozens more times.

My sister and I would often tire long before the cookies were finished being rolled, cut, and baked. My mother never said a word when we'd leave her with a mess and run off for an hour while she finished up.

Yet, she'd always call us back to the table, with colorful, newly mixed batches of powdered sugar glaze to greet us. I loved decorating cookies even then, spending extra time to make sure I stayed in the lines and the frosting was just so. My sister loved to cover the cookies as quickly as possible. Often the glaze dripped onto the table long after she abandoned one cookie for another. We were opposite in our decorating approaches, yet our styles complimented one another. She would get the bulk of the cookies done while I concentrated so closely on a select few.

Even as my sister and I have both grown and now find ourselves living in different places, we try to get together to decorate sugar cookies every year, no exceptions. Though the sugar cookie recipe we use has changed and our powdered sugar glaze has been swapped for royal icing, our tradition holds fast. Every year we pull out the same cookie cutters, buried deep in the bottom drawer beneath the straws, napkins, and old party plates. Every year we are reminded that the dough never comes out of the prettiest Christmas tree cutter, rendering it useless. Every year we discover the crocodile cookie cutter hidden in the Christmas-themed assortment and make a few for good luck.

These are the cookies we make every year. These are the cookies that define our holiday traditions. These are the sweet, buttery cookies that bring us closer together.

The winners of the homemade holiday cookie giveaway (and these sweet sugar cookies!) are:

Jennifer Cannon
Those cookies look delicious! My most favorite cookie for Christmas are butter cookies and sugar cookies. I have many wonderful memories of making them with my mother and grandmother....now I am creating new ones by making them with my 2 wonderful girls!

Jess D.
Great giveaway idea! My favorite holiday cookies are what my Grandma calls Chocolate Crinkle cookies. The "crinkle" comes from rolling the chocolate dough in powdered sugar before baking - so cute. She makes them every year and they are just simply amazing!

Crista
Sometime in the seventies my mother bought a set of number cookie cutters, 0 through 9. On the back of the package were two recipes, one for gingerbread cookies and one for sugar cookies. To this day, we still use those two recipes for our annual holiday baking. They are basic, but they are also the best ever!

Be on the lookout for an email from me, ladies!

In other exciting news, Intervistato.com, an Italian/English website that dedicates itself to interviewing and learning more about fascinating people in interesting fields, asked me to do a short interview! How could I say no? Simply being asked was remarkably flattering.

If you want to hear about everything from my blog's beginnings to food photography and recipe inspiration from my own perspective, tune in!

Comments

[thelittleloaf]

Congratulations on the interview! And your cookies look absolutely gorgeous - they are so beautifully decorated, but then I'd expect nothing less from you. Reading this post has made me feel very festive :-)

[Katrina @ Warm Vanilla Sugar]

These are absolutely lovely.

[sara]

So pretty! I decorated cookies last night and although they didn't turn out as gorgeous as yours, they totally put me in the holiday spirit! :)

[Elizabeth]

These look delicious!

[Blog is the New Black]

Wish I had the patience to decroate sugar cookies so nicely! These look fabulous!

[Maria Petrescu]

We were extremely glad to have you on Intervistato.com! Thank you very much for your time :)

[Poster Printing]

These are wonderful and looks yummy too! I admire your patience and diligence! -Sarah-

[Laura (Blogging Over Thyme)]

The interview is great (congrats!). I love reading your posts and recipes, they almost always remind me of a similar tradition at my house. My older sister and I would always make sugar cookies during the holidays too! Although we never upgraded to royal icing and stuck with powdered sugar icing instead. I would make sure to bake the cookies until JUST cooked, so they would be very soft and chewy, addicting. So buttery and delicious. We would always add a bit of lemon zest to our cookies and icing (as well as a little lemon juice) and it was really good!

These cookies are beautiful. When the heck do you find the time to make all these beautiful things?!

[Simply Tia]

They're very pretty. Almost too pretty to eat! I bet these taste GREAT too!

[April]

I would love to know how you get the "base" icing on so nicely. That has always been my struggle with sugar cookies.

[Sunshine]

Wonderful interview. Reading your blog (and listening to the interview) are pushing me closer (ever so slowly) towards a change to some sort of food "thing". I wish I knew what that food thing was, but I'll suss it out eventually. Thanks!