{"id":622,"date":"2008-12-09T15:37:57","date_gmt":"2008-12-09T21:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/wordpress\/?p=622"},"modified":"2013-08-23T15:02:20","modified_gmt":"2013-08-23T15:02:20","slug":"christmas-baking-traditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/e\/christmas-baking-traditions\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Baking Traditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

I remember Mom baking these cookies when I was a child (many years ago!), and all of the family getting together to decorate them.\u00a0 We’d play Christmas music, and decorate dozens of cookies.\u00a0 The first 10 or so cookies always were decorated with great care.\u00a0 By the time we were finished decorating, the final cookies looked a little weird.\u00a0 If friends were visiting, they’d help.\u00a0 It was always fun, and we’d all laugh and sample what we made.<\/p>\n

Now I have children.\u00a0 We continue to decorate cookies, and there have been some pretty wild ones invented.\u00a0 Mom gets new cookie cutters, and we spend a lot of time trying to figure out what some of them were actually supposed to be!\u00a0 When the cookies are all decorated (20 dozen usually), we give most of them \"\"<\/a>away to family and friends.<\/p>\n

When I was first married, my sisters and I would get together to bake and throw flour around.\u00a0 We’d all bake a few recipes, and then make cookie and bread trays to give to our friends.\u00a0 Now, Mom, I and all three of my sisters get together every year to bake, and we put everything together one afternoon, and fill dozens of cookie trays to give away.<\/p>\n

We start at Halloween by looking through recipes from magazines, then decide who makes which recipe.\u00a0 We always have the tried and true recipes we make every year, but try to add new ones.\u00a0 We spend \"\"<\/a>the next month baking cookies, candies and breads.\u00a0 Every one of us has a different talent, and we go with our strengths.\u00a0 I can bake quick breads and chocolate fudge.\u00a0 Grandma does all of the roll out cookies, and our traditional Christmas cookies.\u00a0 She also makes the best peanut butter fudge!\u00a0 My sister Jeannie can make spritz cookies like there is no tomorrow.\u00a0 None of the rest of us can get the spritz gun to work!\u00a0 Susie is the queen of making cookies that take lots of time!\u00a0 Connie can make lemonade and cake mix cookies in her sleep.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a tradition that I hope my children continue, and enjoy as much as we do.\u00a0 Passing down family recipes through the generations is very important. \u00a0If you have a special family tradition that you’d like to share, please feel free to comment!\u00a0 Merry Christmas-and we’ll have a reindeer cookie for you!<\/p>\n

Grandma Beckman’s Christmas Cookies<\/p>\n

1 cup sugar\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a01\/2\u00a0cup\u00a0shortening
\n1\u00a0egg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1\u00a0teaspoon\u00a0vanilla extract
\n1\u00a0teaspoon\u00a0lemon extract\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1\/2\u00a0cup\u00a0sour cream
\n1\u00a0teaspoon\u00a0baking soda\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 3\u00a0cups flour
\n1\u00a0teaspoon\u00a0baking powder<\/p>\n

Cream the sugar and the shortening.\u00a0 Add the egg, vanilla and lemon. Add the sour cream.\u00a0\u00a0 Mix the flour, baking soda and baking powder alternately with the sugar mixture.\u00a0 Roll out and cut with a cookie cutter.\u00a0 Bake at 350 degrees until done.\u00a0 Decorate when cool.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I remember Mom baking these cookies when I was a child (many years ago!), and all of the family getting together to decorate them.\u00a0 We’d play Christmas music, and decorate dozens of cookies.\u00a0 The first 10 or so cookies always were decorated with great care.\u00a0 By the time we were finished decorating, the final cookies looked a little weird.\u00a0 If Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,55],"tags":[1088,111,112,113,114],"class_list":["post-622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e","category-c","tag-christmas","tag-christmas-baking","tag-christmas-recipes","tag-christmas-traditions","tag-cookie-exchanges","cat-42-id","cat-55-id"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/beckmans-300x2041.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8694,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions\/8694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}