I love Christmas time. It's the most beautiful holiday to me. I love the cookies, the decorations, the songs, the candles. And, of course, the traditions.
Growing up we always made some kind of special food. For several years we made chocolate covered cream cheese candies. We'd make the sugar cookies with christmas cookie cutter shapes and put cinnamon red hots in them. I never particularly liked how they tasted but I loved how fun they were to make.
We'd be allowed little glasses of egg nogg. Once or twice mom made egg nogg from scratch but I didn't really care for it--one of those rare times when homemade didn't taste right, the store-bought was better.
Mom would put bayberry scented pillar candles about the house. They scented all the Christmas decorations in the storage boxes they were in, so the whole house smelled of bayberry. I loved that. I loved the few evenings when the lights would be turned down low and all the candles lit.
I've tried to carry over what traditions I could with my DD. I can't find the same kind of candles mom had, though. That babyberry scented holiday is still eluding me.
But I've got a lot of the ornaments from my childhood on my tree, the gingerbread man cookie cutter of my mother's (he's a big 'un), her other Christmas cookie cutter sets, and this year we've added to the collection a Gingerbread House cookie cutter set.
We made the (rice flour) gingerbread cookie dough earlier this week and cut out and baked the walls and roof of the gingerbread house this afternoon. Tomorrow we get to make the icing and put it all together.
The Gingerbread House had become a tradition with DD and me. For the past three years we've made one. We used to buy the kits with the precooked gingerbread and candy but now that we're non-wheat, we're making our own so she can eat it. We got gummies and jelly beans without red food dye No. 40 at the health food store (are they ever yummy) but they were out of the naturally colored candy canes. We'll have to go with the bad old regular ones for that.
Houses aside, making gingerbread cookies with the regular holiday cookie cutters has been a tradition, too. That's about the extent of my holiday baking though, except for the main holiday dinners.
Another holiday tradition that started with my little brother, grew with my niece and is now full fledged with DD is pulling out our growing collection of Christmas children's books. Every night from the night after Thanksgiving to the Epiphany/Three Kings Day we read from these. We seem to be missing a title or two this year, I'll have to try to track them down this coming week.
I wonder what traditions DD will continue and what ones she will create with her own family. I think cookies will definitely be in there, she's rather partial to those.
