Crazy for Christmas Cookies!

After hearing all about the annual Virtual Advent Tour hosted by Marg [The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader] and Kelly [The Written World] over the last couple of years, I finally decided to join in the merriment. Today's post is my contribution to the 2012 Virtual Advent Tour that just kicked off a few days ago. The idea behind the tour is for book bloggers to share anything they wish about the advent season with their fellow bloggers.. family or country traditions, recipes, books, movies, songs, anything at all, really. To learn more about the Virtual Advent Tour, the schedule of participants with links to their blogs, or to sign up yourself, visit the Virtual Advent Tour Blog HERE.

As you can guess from the title of this post, I am crazy for Christmas cookies. Ever since I can remember, my mother would bake dozens of Christmas cookies--at least five or more varieties and store them in decorative tins on the dining room table. We would eat them, of course, but my mom would also package sampler plates of cookies, wrapped in cellophane and tied with ribbon to gift to relatives, friends, neighbors, the mailman, the garbage collectors, teachers, crossing guards, and so on. She made a lot of cookies!

My mom practiced this Christmas cookie tradition after learning it from her own mother--my maternal grandmother whom I called Oma. My Oma baked traditional German cookies such as spritz, lebkuchen and linzer cookies. My mom baked those same cookies--except for the lebkuchen, and then some. She'd switch it up a bit every year but there was always spritz, linzer cookies, almond crescent cookies, chocolate chip cookies with walnuts, iced holiday cutout cookies. My brothers and I usually helped with the cutout cookies. So much fun!

From the first year that I had my own kitchen, I've been baking Christmas cookies for the holiday season as well. There may have been a year or two when I only managed to make one or two varieties, but I always baked some cookie for Christmas. Interestingly, the only cookie from my childhood that I consistently bake every year are spritz cookies. I wrote about my affection for spritz cookies last year, in which I include a recipe in this post HERE. I have been using the same cookie press for almost 20 years now and I think I'll just cry the day it fails me. I sure hope I don't jinx myself by even thinking of that happening.

I love cooking magazines probably just as much as I love cookbooks and I have acquired many many issues over the years. That can be a whole separate discussion, but the point here is that every December I pull out all the holiday issues of cooking magazines in my collection and pour over them for days and days and days and weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, deciding on the cookies that will make that year's list. I think planning the cookies is almost as much fun as baking them! But never as much fun as eating them. ;)

My holiday magazine collection includes:

Over a decade of December issues of Cooking Light magazines:

Holiday issues of Cooking Light magazine

Nearly a decade of December and Holiday issues of Everyday Food magazines:

December & Holiday issues of Everyday Food magazine

Several special Holiday publications from Martha Stewart Living:
These include decorating and homemade gift ideas and instructions. SO fun!

Holiday cookies {and homemade gifts} MS publications

One beloved copy of Holiday Baking by Cook's Illustrated magazine:
I subscribed to this magazine for a year or two--loved it. Very good for serious cooks who love reading about test kitchen processes and food science as much as they love cooking.

Holiday Baking special publication
from Cook's Illustrated

Several special Christmas Cookies publications from Better Homes and Gardens magazine:
SO many terrific cookie recipes and tips in these magazines. Also, instructions and templates for making Gingerbread Houses. I bought a new one [the red Holiday Baking one on top] just the other day because I want to make the gingerbread house inside it this year. :)

Christmas Cookies | Holiday Baking
Special publications from Better Homes & Gardens
magazine

I also have ONE Christmas Cookie cookbook that I absolutely LOVE. I have cooked many recipes from this cookbook of classic Christmas cookie recipes. That is, Joy of Cooking Christmas Cookies by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer-Becker and Ethan Becker. If you are passionate about Christmas cookies like I am, I highly recommend this cookbook. It's no longer available in print from the publisher, but look for it at your library or from used book sellers! This is becoming my trademark line lately, isn't it?


Nothing says Crazy for Christmas Cookies like my collection of cooking magazines, don't you think?

I also have a collection of Christmas craft books and cross-stitch patterns that rivals this collection of Holiday magazines...  ; )

Are you crazy for Christmas cookies, too?

What is your FAVORITE Christmas cookie?