Christmas Cookies

Sophie and I made my Gingerbread Boys and girls, trees, bells and bows for Santa tonight. Of course I was too tired to make fresh white frosting, so Santa's getting Delaney Pink and Sophie Blue; the colors of frosting the girls chose the last time we made cupcakes. I just thawed it out and used it on the gingerbread. Trying to make the boys look as manly as possible in baby blue and white pearls. LOL

I'm usually very good about keeping track of where a recipe came from, but this is one that I don't think I ever had a clipping for, so maybe from an old cookbook of my mom's? I don't know, but it's the recipe I've been making for the last 20 years and I posted it to Food.com for a friend to try last year. Thanks to her review I have increased the spices a bit and even though I always use freshly ground nutmeg, tonight we ground our own cloves and allspice berries as well. The dough isn't overly sweet, and it's possible that I have strayed from the original recipe, especially in the sugar category, since I started making these when I was married to my first husband, who was an insulin-dependent diabetic. However, I really like to make these cookies huge, so the less sugar in the cookie means the more cookies I can eat! :)
I like to use the 9-inch gingerbread boy cookie cutter and I have an 8-inch Christmas tree, so this recipe makes about 6 boys, 4 trees and a bunch of other little shapes. I've never really done a proper count, since I'm always making these for different reasons or with kids that like to cut as many little ones out as they can. I just roll and cut until the dough is gone.

Last Tuesday we joined Michele and Delaney in their family tradition of making kolaches. They're a beautiful yeast-dough cookie; delicate, not too sweet and filled with apricot filling. I didn't get her recipe, but plan to. For now you'll have to drool over the photos and take my word for it: they were delicious! ;)

Merry Christmas, everyone!
*Tink