Holiday Baking Traditions

The holiday season is such a special time of year. Even though time has tested many of them, traditions are my favorite thing about the holidays. Growing up, every Christmas Eve was spent at Grandmom’s house with all of the cousins and aunts and uncles. We had a cookie exchange, we opened presents, my uncle always dressed up as Santa and it took too many years for us kids to realize it was him. Every Christmas morning started absurdly early and you can bet I woke everybody up to go look at all of the presents under the tree.

Although much has changed in all of our lives since then, holiday baking is one of the areas that tradition really stuck in my family! Every year, my mom makes cut outs of all different shapes and festive colors. My aunt makes her classic chocolate chip.

Throughout my whole life, for every occasion from Christmas Eve to Halloween to the last week of the school year, my Grandmom made butter cookies. She must’ve made thousands of these cookies each year- I am not exaggerating. If anything, I’m probably low balling the real total with that estimate. Every teacher I had, friend, friend’s parents, swim coaches, etc. has had these cookies. They were her thing.

After she passed away in 2011, Christmas changed a lot. She wasn’t there, we weren’t in her house, and butter cookies weren’t out on the table. A few years later, we found her cookie gun and her recipe. I knew instantly that I had to keep her tradition alive. I don’t make them in the quantity or the frequency that she did, but every Christmas I make sure butter cookies are there. It makes it feel a little bit more like she’s there with us, too.

What kind of special holiday traditions do you have? How many of them revolve around cookies, or food, too? Share with me in the comments!