Christmas 2013
I grew up in a small coastal Maine town with my three older brothers. Every Friday in the winter we'd pack up the family Suburban and head up to Sugarloaf...our mountain home 2 1/2 hours northeast. Looking back, I remember the warm, yeasty, gooey cinnamon rolls fresh from the oven that we'd indulge in on Saturday mornings before heading out to ski. And I remember the Christmas Holidays. My mother was a baker...she spent so much time in the kitchen... it is where I picture her right now...rolling the dough, twisting the cinnamon rolls, dipping them in butter, sprinkling them with cinnamon sugar and earnestly placing them in the buttered glass pan. She'd cover the cinnamon rolls with waxed paper and then set them to rise in the refrigerator over night. In the morning she'd get up before all of us. The smell of warm cinnamon wafting trough the air would be my wake-up call...time to have breakfast and then go ski.
At Christmas she'd make endless batches of cookies...our whole dining room table would be overflowing with tins of Needhams, Pfeffernusse, Pizzelles, Springerle, Almond Crescents and various French Pastries. She was a baking machine during December. A lot of the cookies she would plate up, cover and bow, and give to friends, co-workers and people who helped our family. The paperboy I think even got cookies...but certainly the plow guy and the trash guy. Nonetheless, there were always enough cookies for me and my brothers and my dad...sometimes lasting until a few months into the New Year. I can honestly say that I can't ever recall my mother stilling down and enjoying them herself. The fulfillment she got from seeing others enjoy her cookies, maybe even just the idea of the thing, must have been just fine for her....not so for me. Christmas Cookies, I'll admit, are my weakness. Part nostalgia, part simple, pure unadulterated flavors...almond, vanilla, butter, sugar, molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove...what is not to love? Though I have to say...it feels good to see someone smile when they receive your homemade cookies.
While I can't claim to have the same dedication to baking the classic cookies my mother made...I definitely have become my mother's daughter...and spend my fair share of time in the kitchen, baking batch after batch leading up to the Holidays. It is a busy time of year for everyone...but being in the wine / cheese & chocolate industry...it is by far the busiest month of the year for our businesses and my wine sales job. But, I make time for the cookies. For the most part my baking repertoire is all my own. I make my Grandmother Gretchen's Soft Ginger Cookies with Coffee Frosting, my Grandmother Ruth's Buckeye Balls, various almond cookies, Raspberry Strippers, Biscotti and Classic Christmas Cookie Cutter Cookies with frosting & colored sugar sprinkles. I am pretty sure my mother considers it a great tragedy to not carry on the Classics...but at least (I think) she appreciates that while I am doing my own thing, I am still carrying on her Holiday baking tradition.
The Gingerbread House is where I remain fairly true to my mother. I fudge the measurements and usually go a bit bigger with the dimensions...but the result is pretty close to the Gingerbread House my mother made when I was growing up in Maine. It is an impressive and colorful work of wonder. A masterpiece really...complete with winter action going on in the yard (miniature people coming to visit, a couple of trains, a festive Nutcracker, a reindeer, a sleigh, a dog in his winter doghouse) a candy cane fence, a heavily adorned and colorful roof of hard to find hard candies, a welcoming wreath over the front door, shutters for the windows, a back door, Santa up on the chimney...and a tree inside with presents next to it. Every year there are variations....but it is mostly the same. As my son Finn will tell you (as he explained to his 1st Grade Class this year for his Family Holiday Traditions project), it takes two days to make: 1 day to bake the gingerbread pieces and 1 day to assemble. Finn is now a 4th Generation Gingerbread House builder/maker. His Great Grandmother Gretchen started it all...for her kids: Martha, Mary and my dad, Patrick.
All of this...in effort to create for my son the essence of what I remember as the great comforts of home during the Holidays. Decorating the tree, baking the Christmas Cookies, building the Gingerbread House, reading from The Bible on Christmas Eve before opening presents...are traditions at our house that carry on the things I loved as a kid. Home for the Holidays, there is no better place to be...no other place to be.
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