“When We Were Little” Wednesday

When I was little, my sisters and I loved to help my mom with her Christmas baking. She always made what she called “spritz cookies,” which may or may not be a name she made up. (We’re kind of known for that.) She’d make Christmas tree-shaped cookies, wreath-shaped cookies, camel-shaped cookies….all using her cookie press. Most of them would have almond flavoring, and they were so good. (The smell of almond extract and butter Crisco still takes me back.)

My sisters’ and my job would be to decorate. If I remember correctly, the wreaths were decorated with red hots at the top, like the bow would be on a real one, and the Christmas trees would have silver balls. I loved the silver balls….but Mom just told me recently that she’s had to stop using those because she found out they weren’t meant for human consumption. Oops. (That might explain a lot, now that I think about it.)

Last week Mom sent a message to Leah asking if she could come and help bake cookies that day. That afternoon, after Leah’s nap, we headed to Mom’s house for some multi-generational baking. We resumed our usual roles, and I also got to help make some other things, too. (Doodads….or haystacks, as I think most people call them.) Here are some scenes from that day, as captured by my dad while he was waiting on hot cookies he could snack on.

from top: Mom pressing the cookies while I decorate them; Leah stepping in to tell me how it’s done; cookies fresh from the oven; mixing up the doodads; Leah wanting white chocolate, tasting white chocolate, and declaring white chocolate to be very good; scooping out the doodads; an exhausted (and sugar-crashed) Leah takes a nap.