The Christmas season arrived in full force this week.  It started last Friday night as we began our annual cookie baking weekend.  I started by myself, with a very special cookie.  Nutmeg logs were one of my mom’s favorites.  I remember, as an adult, coming home one day when it wasn’t Christmas and mom had made herself a quick batch–just because she felt like having one.   We made these cookies at home every Christmas and, as I roll out the dough, I can feel mom’s hands helping me learn to shape those long tubes of dough and I can hear her voice with her suggestions as to how to get it right.  And, when I got tired or frustrated she was there to finish the job, with absolutely no admonition that I needed to finish.  Mom always had your back.  She also always let us go a little crazy with the decorations, but also always managed to get a few decorated with just nutmeg (which is what the recipe called for–mostly for her to nibble on).

Somehow, this tradition of cookie baking we do in mom’s honor.  She always baked for the neighbors at Christmas time.  Her pecan rolls were famous;  I don’t know what the priests up at the rectory would have done without their infusion of pecan rolls.  Something has to get you through midnight mass (of course, back then, it really started at midnight).  I’m not sure what mom would think of the number of cookies we bake.  This year the number was down a little bit.  We  (David, Michael & I, with Tim and Brandy as quality control agents)  baked just under 1,000  cookies of 18 different types.  I know that mom would probably shake her head and then would offer to help.  Mom’s been gone for 12  years now; but I know she never really left.  I see her in my boys and in the things we do that keep her memory alive.  There’s a new cranberry cookie in the mix this year.  Mom loved anything cranberry.

I know that we are also making new memories for ourselves.  Our trials and tribulations with finding a good mouse cookie may finally have been solved this year.  Mice are a challenge in many ways;  a big one is the temptation of boys (and men) who get tired of making normal mice and decide to create 3-headed mice; tattered mice or other mutant mice.  We didn’t run into that this year–but one mouse was turned into a hedgehog as a small gift for a friend of one of the boys.  Our mice tales (and tails) will live in infamy, at least in our memories  (It’s a little frightening to think that we all devote valuable brain space to mouse cookies).

May your holidays be full of warm memories and traditions, both old and new, that will carry you safely into the new year.

Karen