Christmas Cookies

Every year I decide to make Christmas cookies.

Now, I am not actually Martha Stewart, or a cray person. When I was in high school, Larissa and I would make platters of cookies for people as gifts for the holidays, and every single years the madeleins had me in tears. I do not have the patience or the time for complicated projects. Instead, I go simple. Sugar cookies. Made by my favorite Dough Boy.

You would think that, since all I have to do is roll out the dough and bake it, the cookies would be simple. This is what I think. Every Single Year.

And for awhile, the cookies actually DO look fabulous. We have all sorts of cookie cutters, and I use them all. We have hearts and stars and snowflakes, trains and candy canes, Santas and trees. The first sheet of cookies is a wonder!

Until I put them in the oven.

Because THIS is when the cookies decide to puff up to three times their original size. That first sheet of cookies went from intricate and delicate designs to... well, to blobs of cookies. Everything looked like a blob.



This put me in a difficult position yesterday, when I was making a few cookies to give as gifts. Complicated cookies can look messy because they are complicated and require time and effort. Dough Boy sugar cookies are not allowed to look messy. They must look nice.

I managed to separate out a few cookies that looked like flowers, and a few gingerbread men that looked more or less like... obese gingerbread men. And instead of stories last night, I sat the boys down at the kitchen table and opened a little cookie-decorating sweatshop. For one half-hour the boys dabbed sugar icing on cookies with paintbrushes and poured sprinkles on a few sugary cookie-men victims. They look just fine, and now I am happy to give them away as tokens of thanks.