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Christmas 2020: Cookies

Continuing with our Christmas 2020 series, today's blog post will talk about cookies. Specifically, let's talk about Christmas cookies.

I know that making and eating Christmas cookies is a tradition for a bunch of families, but it never really became a huge thing for my family when we were growing up. I don't really have a good explanation for it, but I don't exactly have a sweet tooth (given what happens when I have dessert right before bedtime, this is probably a good thing). I just never got those cravings, so I never felt like I was missing out on anything.

This means that I didn't make gingerbread people or houses, I didn't cut out sugar cookies in the shape of Christmas trees, and I didn't decorate those cookies with red and green frosting. I have plenty of happy Christmas memories and I enjoy the holiday just fine, but that particular bit of nostalgia just doesn't exist for me.

You know who it does exist for, though? The Mild Wife. And since we were celebrating Christmas by ourselves thanks to the pandemic, she figured a good way to help get into the Christmas spirit would be by indulging that particular tradition. So, we set out to make Christmas cookies.

And boy, did we ever:

We hit all of them at once

Having been through the exercise now, I can totally see the appeal. You get to be a little creative, it's not exactly super taxing, and it's almost impossible to do it wrong. I mean, if you want blue trees, go for it. It's your tree, and it's going to taste just as good. It's all good.

Still, the bit that made me laugh the most involved the gingerbread people. As you can probably tell I had some difficulty getting precision. At first, I wanted to try to make something like the Shrek gingerbread man (and I definitely had this scene going through my head at some point), but I couldn't quite pull that off. So, I started putting other types of decorations on them: a tie, some shorts, sunglasses, arm bands, you get the idea. Those didn't require surgical precision, and it also let me add in some variety.

The Mild Wife, however, noted that her favorite ones were the "ones with loincloths." In my attempt to add variety, it has never occurred to me that the shorts might look like something else. There were many, many laughs once the Mild Wife pointed this out. Let's just say that if we make gingerbread cookies next year, I am absolutely going to chuckle as I decorate them.

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