Holiday Traditions

Most of my favorite family traditions revolve around chocolate (surprise, surprise!). Every year since I can remember, my mom has always carried on the tradition of baking for weeks before Christmas and then putting together intricate and delicious cookie plates/containers and delivering them to a few of her hundred closest friends. Each of us were always responsible for a particular cookie- I was in charge of the Snowmen, Elise was in charge of the Santa cookies, and Jessie and her friends were in charge of the stars and Christmas tree sugar cookies. My mom made the rest of cookies and bars and we were lucky if we could snag a bite!


After a week or so of baking, we'd help put together the cookie plates and then we'd all jump into the car and spend several evenings dropping off cookies. My favorite year involved Scotter wearing a Santa mask and all of us girls wearing Santa hats. As we left the cookies at the houses we'd be asked again and again to sing some Christmas songs, so we'd quickly walk back to the car singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." Very few years went by without some sort of argument about who would deliver the cookies to the doors (since many of the people were my mom's friends... and they'd only heard about us from her). Our favorite visits were when we'd arrive at a home to drop off cookies and receive a plate of cookies in return- they were usually quickly devoured in the car. After several hours of driving, we'd stop at Friendly's for some dinner or ice cream and enjoy their typical SLOW service.


Kevin and I decided to continue this tradition of cookie baking and delivering in our little family. This year was our 2nd attempt and although the cookies didn't taste as good as my mom's and weren't as plentiful, we had a lot of fun! Kevin was a whiz at making the peanut butter blossom cookies (pb hersheys kiss cookies) and even tried a new variation using Reeses PB cup bells instead of Hersheys kisses. They were delicious! He also proved to be a great plate wrapper.


I think between work friends, church friends, and family, we delivered 45-50 plates! Last night and yesterday afternoon we did the official cookie delivering. I drove the car while Kevin searched in the dark to find names on the plates... and fortunately no one got the wrong plate (although there were a few close calls) and we only got lost once or twice.


Now we're just hoping to be able to get our condo decorated and Christmas tree up before Christmas day! (P.S.- If you're already gone on vacation and we missed giving you treats... we'll be stopping by in January with some New Years goodies. Merry Christmas!)