Cookies, we’ve got cookies! At this time of the year I bake cookies for several reasons. One: they taste good; two: they smell good; three: I make them each year to send to my daughter. I want to help her remember who her mother is and I want to maintain the closeness that I feel with her. When she first moved to Philly I needed to send her cookies and a stocking that Santa Mom had filled. She has graciously allowed me to continue that tradition. She also generously shares with the people in her office. In fact, I think they look forward to the cookies too.

My mother didn’t bake cookies as often as she baked cakes, pies, pastries and Kuchen or made candy. I think probably cookies are a little more labor intensive. I have always baked cookies, especially chocolate chip. The recipe I used labels itself as Mrs. Fields Chocolate Chip Cookies but they are suspiciously like the recipe on the back of the chocolate chip package. Besides, I somehow feel that it is unlikely that she would give out her secret recipe to perfect strangers.

The cookies I sent this year were One Bowl Brownies, chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies, Snickerdoodles, and Cranberry Orange Oatmeal cookies. Once I get into the cookie baking mode I am eager to find more recipes and bake more cookies! I think I will make some biscotti to have with tea or coffee and Chocolate Peppermint Bar Cookies and perhaps lemon bars, and I can list a dozen more. Unfortunately, when I bake them, I also want to eat them, and I really should not eat more cookies, even at Christmas.

Santa was not very prominent in our Christmas festivities when I was a child. We didn’t leave cookies and milk out for Santa. The emphasis was on the celebration of Christ’s birth. I like to celebrate by having cookies.

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