Not my cookies
Okay, I’m THAT person. The one who does not bake Christmas cookies. It’s not that I don’t bake, because I do. It’s just that I’m not any good at baking cute, decorative cookies. My cookies are all gobs of dough flopped down on a cookie sheet. They taste great (if the rate at which they disappear is any indicator,) but they don’t look like anything special.
I used to at least make an attempt to bake Christmas cookies, by taking the ordinary cookies I usually make and adding red and green to them. You know – sprinkle red and green sugar on top of the Snickerdoodles and they instantly become Christmas Snickerdoodles. Or put red and green M & Ms in the chocolate chip cookies instead of chocolate
Mine are more like this.
chips, and voilà – Christmas cookies. I figure red and green sugar and M & Ms were invented just for people like me – the Christmas baking impaired. But they never really looked all that great and nobody was fooled – they technically were not Christmas cookies.
So then I created a better plan to make people think that I baked Christmas cookies, which involves large quantities of red jam and powdered sugar. You know, red for Christmas, and powdered sugar for snow of course. What’s not Christmasy about that?
Mine are NEVER like this.
Here was my plan. Two days before Christmas when I started to feel inadequate because there were no actual Christmas cookies in my house, my cookie plan escalates to Defcon 2. I’d make almond sandies, which of course are rolled in powdered snow, er sugar. Then a batch of jam thumbprints, with red jam, natch. Then the pièce de résistance – I would arrange this assortment on a CHRISTMAS PLATE, add some fudge, which everyone knows is a Christmas food, and there I’d have it – Christmas cookies. The white, the red, the festive plate, everyone was fooled into thinking I was a Christmas cookie baker after all.
What about your Christmas baking experiences? Are you one of those people who starts at Thanksgiving, baking ten different kinds of Christmas cookies, each one more complex than the previous? Or do you buy the big bag of red and green sprinkled cookies at Costco? Or are you THAT person – the one who makes the elaborate ginger bread village with mansions, shopping malls and Santa’s workshop?
Merry Christmas everyone!
© Huffygirl 2012
(Originally posted 12-23-2010)
Huffygirl's Blog 
OH yes! I’ve been making lists ever since Thanksgiving of the (fiddly, fussy, time-consuming) cookies I intended to bake. This morning – yes, Christmas day – I got up intending to bake at least one batch of cookies before noon, so we could have them after (before?) Christmas dinner.
It’s a quarter of one. I’ve baked a from-scratch pumpkin pie. I’m about to stuff a turkey. I have some fresh sweet potatoes in the fridge waiting to be baked. I might even make my grandma’s Christmas nut cake.
Have I baked a single cookie? You know the answer to that, don’t you? 😉
With the homemade pie, I think you can get by without the cookies Sharon. Too much work in the kitchen for a holiday I say. Better to just stick to making the lists and not the cookies.
Being Jewish, I always admired the whole Christmas cookie tradition. Just seemed so quaint and special. I tried a few gingerbread houses with my kids over the years– definitely not my skill set! I’m sure all will be delicous now matter where they were made. Enjoy!
Is there an equivalent Jewish baking tradition Lisa? I do think the cookie tradition is quaint and special. I’m totally amazed with anyone who even attempts the gingerbread houses. My one attempt long ago resulted in FEMA coming in to bring disaster relief to the gingerbread house residents.
I am not a baker at all, never was…other than the occasional choc chip cookies. Of course I would eat way too many of them. So I don’t do that anymore either 🙂 We got so many goodies at work from customers and the occasional staff homemade goods.
Sometimes I think it is better to not be a baker – then you don’t produce temptation to have in your house.
Merry Christmas, from just a little south. This year, our daughters took care of the cookie production. Woo hoo!
Good deal for you Sid. I really should post a photo of the cookies we just did this year. I did not BAKE them, as I don’t do that, but I did help decorate them. We all were very creative with our white, green, red, yellow and blue frosting.
No, no, and no. I think I should be awarded for NOT baking. Believe me, the store bought is much better (and safer). I love to look at pretty cookies, then I bite their heads off! HA.
But I do wish I could make fudge. Fudge is Christmas. Fudge is the four food groups on Christmas Eve. 🙂 I love FUDGE.
I like your ideas Angelia. I just finished off a pan of fudge myself.
I’m just like you, HG. Can’t make a cute Christmas cookie if my life depended on it. I always resorted to bar cookies. Ugly, but they tasted okay. Hope you had a wonderful Christmas.
Thanks Susan, I hope you did too. We just got back from a late Christmas with the grandkids, so what could be better than that?
Glad to know I’m not the only non-fancy cookie baker out there. Mine taste great anyway.