Christmas Memories

While baking Christmas cookies, I was listening to Garrison Keillor's CD, "Now it is Christmas Again" and he said something to the effect that the holidays are a time to gather together family, friends and memories. My "traditional" holiday cookies bring special memories to me. Pictured above are Sally Ann cookies. A few years ago when I was still working, some co-workers and I searched for a cookie recipe like the Aunt Sally cookies we remembered from our youth. (Great big Spam can shaped mollasses cookies with a thick, hard frosting). These cookies were the closest, but I told my co-workers, "but they're not hard." They looked at each other and said Aunt Sally cookies weren't hard. Mine were! Maybe it was a situation similar to the memories my children have of the special, stale potato chips they had at Grandma's house.

I did cut down on my baking this year, but two other cookies I had to make and also with special memories are the Spritz (my grandmother's recipe, but her's were always shaped like "S's") and Working Girl Cookies. The Working Girl cookies use the egg whites left over from the yolks in the Spritz and are essentially a meringue with mint flavored chips. The name comes from the fact that you put them in the oven, turn off the heat and let them sit all day or all night. It is a recipe of my aunt's. I just saw a similar meringue cookie recipe using crushed candy cane. I might try that next year as it is impossible to find the mint flavored chocolate chips.