Holiday traditions: baking cookies

So my original plan for this was to break it up into 3 posts about the different kinds of cookies that are traditional in my family and home, only to be bombarded with hours at work this season (one more reason to prewrite holiday posts when one works in retail) and I just didn't have the time or energy after work or on my days off to bake, let alone the rest of the process involved with the blogging of the baking. So instead I will be painting a picture with words instead of images. Unless by some miracle I can get some items delivered in the next two or three days, highly unlikely. Or I guess I could just do a focus baking post on the recipe I decide to make for Christmas Eve and to bring to Christmas dinner at his parents house. But anyway on to the real reason for this post... The cookies of course!

The Santa cookie!

The first is a cookie that is very near and dear to my heart, it is one that my grandmother used to bake and send to us all for Christmas with one of the other cookies I will be talking about today. It is a pretty simple pressed sugar cookie. Now I am not talking about those spritz cookies (although I do love those this time of year and my mom and I used to make them for Santa but they're not the ones I'm talking about right now) I'm talking about an old fashioned pressed sugar cookie. It is a dough that is pressed into a cookie mould and released onto the cookie sheet. These are the most amazing Santa face cookies ever. The cookie cutter can be found here Grandma's cutters and the recipe I just got from my aunt today. 

So I hope to make them early in the new year and every Christmas following. I really wish I could have made them this year. Because you see for Christmas last year my aunt got all of the grand kids a cooki cutter for Christmas because my grandmother just didn't have the energy to make them anymore. Unfortunately the cookie cutter did not happen to make the move with me (hence the waiting for some items to be delivered) which sucks. I loved these cookies growing up, being decorated with sanding sugar and egg whites would probably freak out the younger parent crowd but I know that I will make these for my kids one day. 

Ginger molasses cookies

These were the big major recipe I was planning on making this Christmas season. My great-aunt Big Elaine would send these cookies in the same package as my grandmother's Santa cookies. These were the most popular cookies hands down in the family as a whole. They're actually a pretty simple drop cookie. Now while it is a simple recipe I have yet to find the exact recipe. You see Big Elaine never told it to anyone and now even she herself can no longer remember what exactly goes into these cookies. So the last few years I was on a search through all of the old cookbooks in different libraries I could find. I did find one that is very similar last year in a Betty crocker cookbook. 

And so armed with this recipe and more than ample time to make them either tomorrow or Monday, but they do have cinnamon in them. That simple fact alone means that they will not be made for the Christmas dinner at the bf's parents house, his mom is allergic to cinnamon. But I do have to make a couple of batches for shipping to my family. But that can actually wait till after Christmas, not shipping out their gifts till the new year, and I want the cookies to be as fresh as possible. 

Now those are the only real traditional cookies in my family. But I am thinking of making a couple of simple cookies for the Christmas dinner. Simple and easy sugar cookies comes to mind actually with royal icing. But I don't know if I really want to deal with the process of rolling out the dough or not. I will keep you all posted on what I decide to do. Thanks for listening. 

Luv ya all!

What are some of the baked goodies that bring back your memories of Christmas?