Chistmas cookie time!

Last year I decided that I was going to help shoulder the burden of making Christmas cookies for the holidays. You need to understand that Christmas cookies are sacred in my family. One time my mom got really sick with the flu a few weeks before Christmas and couldn't make cookies. I thought there was going to be an uprising! Mom always made the dough ahead of time which wasn't really a good idea. We would pick at it until she ended up having to make more. Then once the cookies were done, she would try to hide them so we couldn't sneak them before Christmas Eve. Ha! The best hiding place was the dryer but we always found them anyway...

So last year was kind of a disaster. I had an old cookie press (Mirro brand) that requires you to manually twist the dough out. I credit it for my carpal tunnel syndrome. By the end the handle wasn't even working. I was only able to make the wreaths and ended up using candied hots instead of bows of red icing. Mommy, Esq. complained about that for three days!

This year I bought a new press from Crate and Barrel and went to town. There is one drawback to the automatic cookie press. Who ever designed it thought that two small notches was enough to secure the handle and the top. I blame a man for that one. The problem is that the cookie dough is really dense so the top and handle kept popping off as I went. Extremely frustrating to say the least. I had to make sure that the dough was basically room temperature. But then I couldn't get the Christmas trees and starts to come off the press. But I persevered and managed to make 10-12 dozen cookies.

Here is me in the kitchen. I think it is hour 2 of five. Making the dough was the easiest part. It was pressing the cookies that took forever!

It was a two day process. Trees and stars on the first day and the plain wreaths. For the second day I whipped up some green frosting and DH helped me to decorate the cookies.

I plan on sending some to Mimi, giving some away at work, and of course leaving plenty for the holidays and daily snacking :-) And yes, Mommy, Esq., I managed (or rather DH did) to put bows on all the wreaths.