Merry Christmas cookies

Christmas cookies in my family are serious business. My grandmother, my mother, and now I have been making the same cookies, with more or less the same decorations, every year since 1947. The recipe is from Betty Crocker’s Cooky Book, but doubled because why would you make fewer than this many?

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup shortening
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/3 cups honey
• 2 tsp. lemon flavoring
• 5 ¼ cups flour
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 2 tsp. salt

Directions

1. Mix shortening, sugar, egg, honey and flavoring thoroughly. Measure flour and stir together with baking soda and salt. Blend in. Chill dough.
2. Heat oven to 375o. Roll dough out ¼” thick. Cut into desired shapes.
3. Place 1″ apart on lightly greased baking sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until no imprint remains when touched lightly.
4. When cool, ice and decorate as desired.

You can’t really see under the Santas here, but this year I debuted some new Hanukkah shapes as well: a menorah and a dreidel. We’ve also been making Stars of David for a while. Cookies for everyone!

You can make a ginger bread version by substituting brown sugar for granulated, molasses for honey, and 2 tsp. cinnamon plus 1 tsp. ginger for lemon flavoring.

I stole this tin from my mom because I thought it was pretty.

Next up: THE DECORATENING.