Lately I've been tending towards baking biscotti at Christmas. Some of my favorites are biscotti with dried apricots and pistachios, or vanilla and rosemary, or black pepper and figs. I can relate to these better than I can to classic cookies.

Mind you, I am quite a cook, but there was not a sweets/cookie tradition in my family when I was growing up (my mother never ate sweets and did not serve desserts or sweet snacks, on the whole -- and I don't remember her ever making cookies), so I've never quite felt a part of the holiday baking tradition.

...which is a shame, as I now have a seven-year-old son I would love to have the experience I never had. So I try, but I feel so incompetent at it! I can't decorate my way out of a paper bag.

Also I work full time and have a long commute, so weekdays are out, and I sing in two church choirs, which doesn't leave heaps and bunches of weekend time either.

I did once make a batch of hamantaschen filled with homemade mincemeat (the no-meat kind, btw) for a holiday party. I called them "Eastern Stars." They were quite yummy.

I often make "fruitcake" using a buttermilk gingerbread foundation and folding in various dried fruits and nuts -- nothing candied except heaps of ginger, and sometimes orange peel that I've candied myself (which tastes completely different from what you get in the store).

This year I thought we might make fudge and nut brittle, along with the biscotti. And the homemade mincemeat (my own recipe), and plum pudding (also my own recipe).

Cheers,
Claire