Christmas cookies

Mom always made Christmas cookies, and we kids always helped. Mom would make Chocolate Chip and Oatmeal Nut cookies mostly for us kids, then make some special cookies that only happened at Christmas; Vanilla Kipfel, cinnamon stars, some anise type cookies, sugar cookies cut into shapes with colored sugar on them, and some twisted cookies with yeast in them. We kids hated the anise cookies, but Mom made them for herself. The cookies would go into tins and cannisters, and come out for special occasions during the Christmas season; for visitors, for game nights, as a second dessert.

One year, the wife of one of Dad's colleagues had emergency surgery right before Christmas; they had 5 children, if I recall correctly, and the thought of those poor kids not having Christmas cookies did not sit well with Mom. She and I started baking, and making mostly traditional American cookies, we filled up a HUGE platter of cookies and delivered it to the family a few days before Christmas. I'll never forget the look on the faces of those kids when they saw all those cookies!!!

There was always one night during the holidays when Mom would take out her German language 45RPM records and drink a little too much while listening to them and be down right nasty to us kids. I never understood it at the time, and I'm not sure she did either; she was clearly thinking about the home she had left in Austria and while I'm sure she didn't regret having emigrated, she clearly regretted something.

Comments

  1. EVMS ApostleJanuary 15, 2019 at 6:56 AM

    If I recall, I used to mock the fact that she was speaking German and say other unkind things, so I'm sure that didn't help.

    ReplyDelete

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