Rolling cookie dough before dawn

First time I ever set my alarm for 5:45 so I could bake cookies, but it worked. The kitchen was cold, except for the preheating oven. The dough rolled easily without getting sticky.

Dad has requested cut-out sugar cookies like his mother used to make. He wants them thin and brown, the way we both prefer.

I'd hoped to make cookies for Dad when I was in Lincoln over Thanksgiving. Even if I had found Mom's cookie cutters, I could hear her warning the kitchen was too warm to roll cookies.

In December Mom would also be frustrated when the kitchen was too cold to bake houska or cardamon braid, our traditional Christmas breads. The yeast needs a warm winter day to rise -- a steamed kitchen.

Found my cookie cutter collection odd. The butterfly, hearts, squirrel, and roller skate cutters went for clay art projects long ago. The bell and other Christmas forms must have gotten too rusty.

Dad will be getting a package with a few reindeer, helicopters, brontosaurus, and one ghost (of Christmas past). There will be boots and pine trees, and several states of Texas. And there will be lots and lots of owl cookies. He should just pretend they are arctic snowy owls.

My grandma would arrive for the holiday on the Greyhound bus. She would climb down carrying two cardboard shirt boxes tied with string. One would be full of sugar cookies. The other would hold prune and apricot kolaches. I hope my little mailed tub of cookies gives Dad some taste memories.

Mantle disornamented

"Took down Christmas" this afternoon. It's a strange expression meaning the packing away of Christmas decorations for another year, but it sounds like a wrestling term. Indeed, I am struggling with emotions as this year ends. Putting away the ornaments I had set on the fireplace mantle really got me weepy.



With three full-grown sons and their friends hanging out in the condo living room watching bowl games, we need the space taken by the Christmas tree. The tree ornaments are such a powerful connection to Fritzi that it's tough to put them away for another year. It's good to know that unpacking each decoration next December will be like opening the windows on an Advent calendar to find the joy and generosity of the Christmas season.

For twenty-five years, or basically all my adult life, my mother and I shared a joy of creating or finding perfect ornaments to remember the year. Each ornament I wrap and pack away is a combination of holiday cheer, charm bracelet, time capsule, and childhood scrapbook. We have ornaments to remember teddy bears, windmills, charcoal grills, ice-skating, school bus rides, fishing trips, firetrucks, 10K races, and aquarium fishes. Many remind me of the intense and loving involvement my mother had with her little grandsons, and her appreciation of the fine young men they became.

Someday these sons will create new homes and families. I will say a sad farewell to the ornaments Fritzi chose to acknowledge each boy's accomplishments when they migrate from our Christmas tree to theirs. I pray that each son will choose a partner who appreciates such simple and meaningful family traditions. I hope each of Fritzi's grandsons will feel her love and pride in them every Christmas.