The Whiny Cut-Out Cookie Maker

Tomorrow it is in my plans to make 'cut-out' cookies.

I have loved these cookies since childhood.

Such happy memories have I of rolling them out, baking them and then frosting them.

Little bowls full of different colored frosting littering my mom's kitchen table.

That tinging sound of colored balls rolling off the table and on to the floor...

Oh! This was SUCH fun!

But, I remember a day, most likely when I was in middle school (although they had the good sense back then not to call it that) when I ask my mom if we could make them that day.

Her response?

I remember it was a rather whiny response. Not usual at all for my mom. She did not 'do' whiny, nor tolerate it well either.

She said, and I attempt to quote, "You can make them if you want to. I HATE making those cookies! It takes so long, uses up so much space and by the time they are done I can't stand the sight of them! And, YOU will have to clean up the mess."

I could not have been more surprised if the earth had unhooked the equator like a belt and split in two.

My mother HATED making those wooooonderful cut-out cookies we made every year?

The thought had never crossed my mind that my mom HATED anything.

So, as I recall one of my sisters and I happily toiled together making sure that our family didn't miss out on a Christmas tradition just because our mother had tired of making cut-out cookies.

Skip ahead a few years, say, to the late 1980's. MY three precious little cherubs now love these cookies also. They all want to make them to take to their classroom Christmas parties. They KNOW that their mommy LOVES these cookies, and volunteer me to make them for each one of their three classrooms. Of course, they 'help'.

Suddenly, I am in total sympathy with my mother - AND I have a raging migraine from taste testing all those cookies. (i don't know why it is, but a tree cookie frosted in green tastes better than any other shape or color. it's true. just trust me.)

Every year since the late 1980's I have resented making these cookies. They only take a few ingredients, ones I always have on hand (speaking of hand - yesterday i also bought a 'hand' cookie cutter. forgot to mention that.) They freeze extremely well. Rolling them out isn't too difficult - at least not if all the stars are lined up correctly. And, everyone loves them. Everyone.

Tomorrow I will make them. I will, because I have no middle school daughter to do it for me. I'll put on Christmas music - especially Bing Crosby and I will have at it.

It goes without saying that I will be whiny, all alone in my kitchen.

But, I have to do it. It's tradition. And Jonge is coming over. We have a tree in the basement to decorate. Must have those cookies!

(one year, in a crunch for time, i shaped the dough into a log, sliced it, frosted them white and called them snowballs. no one was impressed. they, too, must know that the green frosted trees are superior.)

Just for the record. These are my favorite Christmas cookie to EAT. I have others that are my favorite to MAKE. I don't whine about having to make those. I promise.