Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Cookies of Christmas Past

My Aunt Susie always made the holidays feel special. Her house would be over-the-top decorated with hokey Christmas decorations; every candy dish would be filled with green and red M&Ms; and every gift she gave to my siblings and me was beautifully wrapped, and topped with a bow. The best part about celebrating Christmas with my Aunt Susie, however, was her giant, chocolate-chip-and-M&M Christmas cookies. These suckers were HUGE, perfectly cooked in the middle, and insanely sweet. As a kid, my siblings and I lived for them.

Over the last few years, we stopped hearing from my Aunt Susie. To be honest, she basically fell off the face of the earth - no one can get in contact with her.

I miss her most at Christmas time. And her cookies. The size-of-your-head, candy-filled cookies just made Christmas. So, this year, I tried to recreate them - and failed miserably.


I mean, they came out decent enough. They taste great, but they ended up coming out more like M&M biscuits than the flat cookies my Aunt Susie used to make. Despite not being close to the original, one bite of these cookies still caused me to reminisce about Christmases celebrated with my aunt. That alone was worth the effort of baking them. I'll try again next year to get them perfect. 

Do you have a dish/recipe/etc. that just "makes" your holiday? If so, what is it, and why is it special?


6 comments:

  1. Always hard to recreate a dish you have such good memories of! My mom's butter cookies - those make it Christmas for me!

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  2. I hope you'll be able to reconnect with your Aunt Susie!

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  3. that is so sad about your aunt!! her cookies sound delightful!

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  4. Sorry to hear about your aunt. Hopefully you'll reconnect. Maybe she reads your blog!

    We have so many special things... we each get to pick a dish we want my parents to make or get each year. I usually ask for clams casino but this year I am craving manicotti so I asked for that instead.

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  5. Thanks, Megan! And manicotti is such a good choice. :)

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  6. Those cookies look delicious! I want some now. At my house we always bake these Bolivian style cookies. They are the best :)

    If you need some cookie recipes you can find some or add your own here: http://www.skinnyscoop.com/list/TheBudgetDiet/indulge-best-dessert-recipes

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