Christmas Break, Day 4

Well, plans for Clarksville were canceled due to illness (not mine!).

Since I had errands to carry out in Jackson, I was off early to begin.

There was surprisingly little traffic and the stores were not very crowded! YAY for that.

I managed to return one item at Bed, Bath and Beyond, give the Grinch and Max a new home, ship my 7 boxes of trash to New Jersey, complete all of my grocery shopping, and arrive back home by 1:00!



My Christmas activity for today was to make cookies! A few months ago, while visiting my MIL in Alabama, I purchased this cookie press for $1.25. Since I make these cookies only at Christmas, I had to wait until now to use it. Here is what I started with...several new cookies shape choices!







I made my cookie dough...not using my mother's recipe, but one that I found that I like the consistency of better. I also use almond extract to make it taste a bit more interesting!



As a child, I remember spending what seemed like hours decorating cookies with all sorts of decorations: sprinkles, M&M's, chocolate chips, red hots, probably more.


I typically use M&M's and colored sugars.
Mostly because they make the cookies look pretty. I don't like a lot of sugary candies on my cookies. They don't take long to bake, so by the time the first tray is finished baking, I have the other tray ready to enter the oven.





Each recipe takes TWO sticks of butter, so they are very rich. I make a double batch each time, and I manage to get 4 trays of cookies, about 8 dozen cookies.

One of my favorite traditions as a child was that if any of the cookies broke when we took them off the tray, we could eat them. I think my father may have started that one!

Of course, there were a few breaks this year (as always), so I had a chance to test the cookies! YUM.

I also remember my mother baking numerous batches of cookies in the weeks before Christmas. She would always 'hide' them from my father. They were always stored in the old Tupperware cake container (upside down like a bowl with a lid). It was Dad's mission to find the cookies and eat them before Christmas!