On days that my mother would make Aunt Gertie’s “Two-Hour Cinnamon Rolls” all of us kids couldn’t wait to have one as soon as they were cool enough to bite into. They smelled divine and the gooey caramel-nut topping, mixed with the yeasty cinnamon rolls, so-o-o delicious. These rolls were one of my favorite treats as a child. If there were any left the next day (a rare occurrence), they were even good cold! But usually my brother polished them off before the rest of us had a chance.

When my great niece was two years old she met Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. He actually showed up at our house! She was terrified. To her, he was not a “jolly old elf.” He was a giant and a scary dude. That was the last time he appeared at our holiday gathering!

A few Christmases ago, I bought a kit to build four small Gingerbread houses with my sister and her grandkids. Yes, I said “bought a kit!” I always make my own cookies but in this case I was not above letting someone else make the gingerbread for these houses. I was 99% certain that no one would want to eat the houses, especially after they sat around for a few weeks being admired and collecting dust. So I reasoned that I didn’t have to go to all that trouble of baking the extra-sturdy gingerbread and planning out the correct dimensions, etc.

I lived in “snow country” as a small child and remember the fun part of snow with fondness...making snow angels, letting snowflakes melt on my tongue, building snowmen. Snowflake cookies remind me of that time. And like real snowflakes, each cookie is different.

As everyone knows, red and green are the traditional colors for Christmas. Red Santa hats. Green Christmas trees. Red ribbons. Green garlands. Red and green icing on Christmas cutout cookies. Perfect. Unfortunately, I lost all but one of my photos of these cutout cookies, which leaves this page a bit wanting. Instead of complaining, I’m going to consider it a challenge...a challenge to make traditional red and green Christmas cookies this year. Come back in December and see how they turned out.