Cookie Creations

Early in December, Ryan surprised me by asking if we were going to "do cookies" this year.  I was somewhat surprised by his request... a bit amazed that he remembered... and with a warmed heart, I quickly responded that it was a wonderful idea.

I baked up the cookies ahead of time, and a few days later we took advantage of one of Evan's naps and dove into the decorating.  I gave Ryan some simple instructions, and then started dipping cookies in the glaze frosting.  At times he needed reminders that "a little bit of decoration all over the cookie is better than a lot all in one place".  He stuck with it throughout the entire batch, diligently decorating each one.

This "cookie tradition" stems from my great-grandfather (who was a baker).  The recipe for the cookies and the glaze frosting is unchanged, and making/decorating the cookies as a family has been a tradition now for 5 generations.  Ryan and I had decided that we would ship cookies to Papa Thom & Grandma Dar as this is one of the first years they weren't able to participate in this long-standing family tradition.  We also decided to send some to Grandma & Grandpa Soldner as I learned that they would not be able to participate in the tradition this year either.  At one point during our decorating, Ryan picked out a couple of cookies for Papa Thom and Grandma Dar, and decorated them especially for them.  He then did the same for Grandma & Grandpa Soldner.  We wrapped those cookies separately as they were made special just for them.

We both had a lot of fun, and there was something a little magical about passing on this tradition to the next generation.

I posted some pictures of our cookie traditions in the Hymas Photos section.