Christmas Traditions Part One - Grandma's Sugar Cookies

Many of my family's Christmas traditions originated at my Grandma's house in Missouri, so it seems a logical place to start a short series on Christmas traditions. Having grown up in a city in West Texas, Grandma's small town of around 1,000 in Missouri was a major change for us as kids, and we loved it. There was snow and a big hill in the front yard, and we rode everything from sleds to trash can lids to broken lawnmowers down that hill. We would romp around the woods near her house looking at the snowy trees and frozen creeks while searching for the perfect Christmas tree. Every Christmas we cut down our own tree when we visited Grandma. Dad would help us pick out a big enough cedar tree that we could decorate it while at the same time still manage to get it back to the house. Once home, we would set it up on a small table in front of the big front window and Grandma would bring out the decorations. We started with some colored lights all around then added various old colored balls and homemade ornaments. We would then sit down with construction paper and a bowl of Grandma's flour paste and make a paper chain garland for the tree. Finally, Grandma would top off the tree with a big plastic star.

Grandma died when I was thirteen, but our family has continued her tree traditions with "Grandma's tree". We have almost always had a fake tree, but after Grandma died we began setting up another tree, this one real, out in the game room. We have not been able to put it up every year, but when we do the whole family gathers together one evening to decorate the tree with all of Grandma's old ornaments as well as the ornaments my brothers and I made as kids in school. There is no longer a paper chain garland, but we do still top the tree with the same star, and a small illuminated Santa from my dad's childhood sits under the tree. It's a special way we can continue to celebrate the less commercialized holidays we often spent in Missouri.

Another Christmas tradition at Grandma's was sugar cookies for Santa. On Christmas Eve Grandma would make a big batch of sugar cookie dough and set Michael, Robby, and I, sometimes along with our cousins (her nephews) Josh and Joey, around her kitchen table, cover it in flour, and give each of us a large ball of dough. We would each roll out our dough and cut out any shapes we wanted. As I sat and reminisced with my mom about those Christmas Eves, she remembered watching us strain with the rolling pin to roll the dough out as thin as possible. I remembered most vividly one Christmas where Michael and Josh ended up covered, head to toe, in flour. Mom laughed as she remembered all the flour we often incorporated into our dough, yielding completely inedible cookies. As kids, we never realized this, as every Christmas morning our cookies had disappeared, apparently eaten by Santa (Mom revealed that they had to throw them away most years for fear of breaking a tooth). Grandma would finish off the dough, and we would put them in the oven to bake. After they cooled, we would ice them with colored royal icing and set them on a plate for Santa before hurrying off to bed.

Over the years, we have sadly lost Grandma's cookie recipe, but after trying many different ones we have found one fairly similar, and I have included it below. Making the cookies always reminds me of Grandma and gives me the joy that Christmas can only give to small children.

Fancy Decorated Cookies (from McCormick's Spices of the World cookbook)

Ingredients:

½ cup butter
¾ cup sugar
1 egg
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and beat hard. Sift flour, then measure and sift again with baking powder and salt. Stir into creamed mixture. (This makes a soft dough to work with. If you prefer a stiffer dough add 2 to 4 tablespoons flour.) Chill dough at least one hour. Roll out thin on a floured surface, working with only part of the dough at one time. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters. Place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake at 350ºF for 6 to 8 minutes. Remove immediately to cooling rack. Once cool, ice with royal icing. Makes approximately 7 dozen 2-inch cookies.

Royal Icing (from AllRecipes.com)

Ingredients:

3 cups confectioners' sugar
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
2 egg whites, beaten

In a bowl, sift together confectioners' sugar and cream of tartar. Using an electric mixer, beat sugar mixture into egg whites for about 5 minutes until mixture is thick enough to hold its shape.

Citations:
McCormick Test Kitchens, "Spices of the World." McCormick & Co.
Veronica "Royal Icing III." AllRecipes.com