Sorry I haven't written for a few days. I've been REALLY busy…baking COOKIES. Nothing gets me in the holiday spirit more than baking cookies. First, I put on my favorite CD, The Best Christmas Album in the World (Virgin Records), which I bought years ago in the UK. Ask my kids, it isn't Christmas unless we hear this album, ESPECIALLY disc 1, which starts out with John and Yoko's And so this is Christmas/War is Over. What's not to like about that?
Next, I dust off my folder of cookie recipes, gathered from 6 Christmas Cookie Exchanges in Nigeria (1991-1996). It was nice to live in a place long enough, with people who like to bake. We'd get together for lunch at someone's house, and everyone brought a dozen cookies for each participant. Then you'd take home a dozen different cookies times 8 or 10, or however many friends came for lunch. I have my favorites, which I make every year, and each recipe reminds me of a wonderful woman. Maren is those Hershey Kiss peanut butter blossoms, Jane is Ginger Cookies, Linda and Kim are the chocolate mint cookies with melted Andes chocolates on top. There's also a Rocky Road Bar recipe the kids and I added to the repertoire when we moved to Louisiana in '97. And of course, my Mom's Spritz cookies (I do have a cookie press, gotta have the trees), and Macaroons (off the Baker's Coconut bag) which remind me of Uncle Dick, who made some every Christmas. Some years I add in a not so often made recipe, but the listed ones are the standards. I don't have a cookie exchange these days, so I have to make them all.
I've sent off boxes of cookies to both kids to aid in finals studying. Some will stay here, some will go out as small gifts to neighbors, most of whom I don't know. We always did that in our neighborhood growing up, and I've done it everywhere I've lived, most of the time…
So, Cookies and Tunes. I'm feeling in the spirit!
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