It's Cookie Time - Family Tradition

Stephanie is the mom to two boys who is trying to figure it all out with the help of her trusty side-kicks: coffee and her camera. You can follow her trials and tribulations at A Grande Life, on twitter, and on Facebook.




Every year, my family gets together for a huge cookie baking day. The date is usually decided on Halloween when we are all together. We clear our calendars and on December Saturday is solely dedicated to baking cookies. We all have our cookies we want to make {chocolate chip, thin mints, and crinkles} but we all stop to help make the most important cookies of the year.
Italian Christmas Cookies. I am not sure if that is the official name but that's what we call them!
Everyone helps out. Everyone. My kids, nieces, sister, cousins, uncle, grandfather. Everyone crashes my parent's house to make the cookies. If you don't help make them, you don't get to take any home!

My dad pre-makes the dough so that when we get there we can get down to business. We spend the first few hours rolling out the dough, cutting out shapes, and making the traditional balls and half moons. If there aren't enough balls and half moons, my mom starts yelling! The adults take care of the traditional shapes. We let the kids handle the cookie cutters. As we are shaping, Mom is manning the oven. She rotates tray after tray until there is nothing left to bake.

Then we all patiently wait for the cookies to call. While we wait, we bake some other cookies and eat lunch {usually pizza!}.

Then it's time. The part everyone is waiting for. It's time to decorate!

If my mom is lucky, there are a ton left. Someone is always snagging a bite, usually using the excuse that that cookie didn't look good. I am not sure exactly how many dozen cookies we make, but it's a lot. Everyone is sent home with a tin or two packed with cookies!

I look forward to cookie day every single year. I love that my family does this together. No matter what else is going on in our lives, we take the time to make this a special day.

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