My best friend taylor and I used to have marathon cookie baking sessions back in the late 1980s. He'd then send the cookies in tins to far-flung friends and relatives. Bless him, he's kepot this up for close to 20 ears and without fail, a tin of cookies shows up each year about a week before Christmas. He has certain standby cookies that everyone deamnds but each year, he tries a new one. The ones we always beg for include a Carrot cookie drop with orange scented icing, lemon-poppyseed cookies with royal icing, oatmeal-toll house cookies dipped half in chocolate and Mexican Wedding Cakes.

My mother makes the most amazing holiday shortbread cookie I've ever had and I cannot duplicate her efforts no matter how hard I try. She rolls hers out fairly thick and then cuts into holiday shapes. She only ices them with piped icing to enhance the shape or add a little decoration. She uses a rich butter icing that hardens up nice on the outside but melts in your mouth when bite into it. The Shortbread does the same. Even if I follow her recipe and method exactly, I cannot get mine as tender or as crisp.


I, however, make the all-time best cranberry sauce EVER. Anyone who has ever had some of mine says so. I could post the recipe if anyone is interested. I don't know how manyof you will be making Cranberry Sauce for Christmas - it's really more of a thanksgiving thing. Even so, I put up a quart or more in jars in case I'm serving a pork roast later in the year. My Cranberry sauce goes so well with pork.