Brown paper packages, tied up with string

...actually are one of my favorite things. This time of year, for my family, Grama's Christmas Cut Outs are another favorite for many of us. These are a soft, fat sugar cookie iced hot to get a glazed effect with the icing. Then we add decorations with colored icing or "stuff", like sprinkles, to match the holiday.

We make them for Christmas, I make them for Valentine's Day and Easter, too. They are yummy and stay soft in a covered container for days and days! The problem with this cookie is that they HAVE TO be iced while warm or the icing is "wrong". As my kids and then my grands got older I have run out of helpers and discovered that these take at least two, and preferably 3, people to make right.

It is impossible to pull 18 cookies out and ice them in the eight minutes before the next batch comes out. If you let the dough get warm it takes more flour, losing the "lightness" of the cookie. I had all the stuff to make at least two batches in the cupboards. With this flu and no helpers, that's where it stayed. I didn't have the energy or the interest to bake them alone.

It's Saturday - Christmas Eve - I went to step Grama's Christmas Open house in the early afternoon. I took things to drop off with the Mom for her last minute gifts and a gift for the Grand folks. They love candy and are easy to shop for!

There were the requisite treats and munchies there to enjoy, a yorkie dog to watch and a black cat to pet. The Lions actually lucked into winning a game, thanks to a touchdown by the defense, and all was right with the world.

While we were chatting my sister said she was baking cookies when she got home. She had made three batches of the Cut Outs and had the kids and grands home to help her. That got me all "I wanna make cookies, too!" when I heard she had the extra hands to help. She said I was more than welcome to join them.

So after making my polites to everyone I scooted out the door and home to get my stuff and the recipe for Aunt A's chocolate chip cookies and a couple extra bags of chips to trade for some cut outs for us. I also switched trucks at home and grabbed the mate's little 4WD to make the trip.

While we have had enough snow for a white Christmas for Christmas Eve we had rain and temps in the 30's. It looked like February, with melted snow drifts, dripping eaves and trees, and half thawed icy gravel roads challanging the best vehicles to stay on them. And the sis lives even further into the sticks than I do. I made it safely to the road they live on, bounced and slid across the washboards in the swampy spots, made the driveway and then got all the way down the drive without getting stuck. I was pretty proud of the little red truck, I never used the 4WD.

When I dragged in the door with my bags of baking supplies there was a little cheer from the neices and nephews, "Aunt Val!", that warmed my heart. I love those kids!

The sis was making dinner and I started my batch of drop cookies while they ate. The timing was great. I was ready to bake while they cleared the table for cookie cutting and decorating. Once mine were run thru I discover none of them likes black walnuts, or some of them don't like raisins, in their chocolate chip cookies.....well POOP! So I ended up taking all of them all home with me. I knew Mom would like them. (Later I find out the mate doesn't like the black walnuts in cookies, either.) We bagged them up and got them out of the way then started the cut out relay races.

The littlest grands and the kids cut out the cookies and put them on baking sheets, the neice baked and timed the cookies, the sis and I put the icing on them. Three hours we stood and decorated cookies of many shapes and sizes. Near the end I cut out some little tiny ginger bread men that baked up about an inch tall. The little guys liked them. We were sticky clear to the elbows with spots of pink and yellow on our shirts, our backs aching and our feet tired when we finally finished. The cookies were very festive looking! To torment yourself click on the picture to download the wallpaper file. It's 2 meg, it takes time to load.




I loaded a couple plates with about a dozen for the mate and I then put them with the bagged up cookies and collapsed in a chair for a minute before I left for home. The kids had cleared the table and got out the poker table top one of the boys made with his Dad. As I was sitting there we played a few hands of "Hold 'Em".

The Dad had folded one hand with a pair of jacks and discovered we had all played on little pairs or nothing with Ace high and got all disgusted! It was funny! "What are you doing bidding up a pair of 5's!" he asked me.

"Bluffing, the same as the neice was!" I retorted. "And if I'd had jacks I would have bet black chips!" He "gggrrrrrr'ed" and started dealing the next hand while we all laughed at him. I bet he stayed in the rest of the hands that night! But I dropped out as the last nephew and niece in law arrived with their little girl.

When you have ice on the lakes and snow in the drifts but it's 35 degrees out you get fog. What I call "wall fog". As in "You won't know it's a wall till you hit it." You can't see the road more than ten feet ahead of the car, you can't see traffic until it's in your face and if you can FIND the white or yellow lines, you can't tell they curve until you are IN the curve.

Forget reflectors, forget tail lights, you are driving on instinct. I got the flashlight out of my pocket, figured out the lights and heater on the red truck, then called the mate while it warmed up some. I let him know I was leaving, put the phone down to charge up, engaged the 4WD and headed for the house. Slowly. Carefully.

There are no markings on the drive or the road back to the main road. You can't even see the signs until you are almost past them. I made it to the corner on the first paved road, took the truck out of 4W, waited for three cars to get by me and pulled out slowly. I went about 35 mph most of the way home.

I was surprised how well I knew where I was inspite of the fog. I never missed a turn or a curve. And, luckily, the critters were busy staying dry, not leaping into my path in the dark. I got home, let the cat in with me and put the treats out for the mate to try then curled up with him on the couch and watched a movie. We had a quiet evening and then to bed, before Santa came and caught us still up!