Cookie Day is an amazing way to kick off the holiday season. Christmas music serenades while the kids run and play gleefully with the comforting scents of vanilla and sugar wafting in the air. We were so thrilled to welcome everyone to the North Pole for a day of baking and frivolity.
Dad and Janice arrived with festive t-shirts for everyone plus a gingerbread man cookie container with an oven mitt with mini wisk, kitchen towel, cookie decorating kit and a cookie mix for the grown-up kids plus fun activities for the kids including a Rice Krispie house and train kit, a Brach’s candy cane reindeer and moose kit and crafty foam gingerbread boys and girls for them to decorate. The kids had a blast!
Dad and Janice also brought Papa’s homemade boiled custard to share. I believe that Chris and Dad got together to make this batch and I thought it was the best I have ever had. To make it last, I slowly portioned it out a little at a time over the next week trying to savor it and make it last.
New this year for Cookie Day was the kid sized baking table which was adorned with cookie cutters, rolling pins, food coloring and sugary sprinkles ready for little hands. Lily, Elijah and Levi worked on all their crafts at the table, used it to roll out and decorate sugar cookies as well as making Spritz Cookies with a cookie press.
The kitchen was a hustle and bustle of activity with multiple recipes being created and tasted as they came out of the oven. Dad made yummy peanut butter cookies and shortbread, Josh tried his hand at chocolate chip cookies, Jill made Snicker Doodles and Peanut Butter Cup Cookies, Janice made a delicious pistachio cream cheese cookie and Leah made her grandmother’s Tea Cake cookies which are always a hit. Somewhere in there was a chocolatey, fudgey ball covered in confectioner sugar. I think Leah made those as well.
To keep everyone’s energy up throughout the day, doughnut holes and hot coffee awaited everyone’s arrival. However, Dad and Janice also provided sustenance with a variety of biscuits from Hardee’s. Be still my heart. We also made sure to have plenty of snacks, chips and dip, salami with crackers with white Vermont cheddar, the perennial Chex mix and chili with all the fixin’s. Of course, I can’t forget Leah’s cheese ball which was to absolutely die for.
The house rang with holiday cheer and filled my heart with a resonant joy. Everyone knows I’m a sentimental softy and as always I’m tremendously grateful for my wonderful family and I cherish all of our special times together.
