Christmas Cookie Traditions

So one of my favorite New York Christmas traditions is making Christmas Cookies with our friends.

This year’s been a bit weird.  Our kids literally have school through tomorrow, which is the day before Christmas Eve.  Christmas Eve’s Eve as I like to call it.  That being said, it’s been a bit extra busy, fitting in Christmas fun but still maintaining all of the normal stuff in between.  So this afternoon, after the kids got home from school, is when we started up our annual Christmas Cookie baking.  When this darling girl offered to help roll out the cookies, a part of me wanted to tell her that it was probably better if Mommy just did it.  But then I realized that that wasn’t true.  It was totally better that my sweet nine year old helped because she is awesome and these are the days that I have to hold close.

So with her Santa Hatted Jingle Bell, she rolled away and sure, some of the cookies were bigger or smaller than others, but overall she did an outstanding job.

It got a little messy.  But none of them seemed to care, so didn’t either.

And in an extra fun turn of events, we even had our cool neighbor Zack join us for the decorating festivities.  The poor guy was just walking home when I saw him out the window and invited him in.  Because when it comes to cookie decorating, the more the merrier.

We even got his amazing Mom to come and hang out with us for a bit.

And throughout the afternoon, everyone worked hard, decorating stars and trees and candy canes and even lizards, because I bought lizard shaped cookie cutters in Prague and Ellee insisted that we make KoKo (our gecko) Christmas Cookies as well.

And it could just be me.  But having a bunch of friends all sitting around our dining room table always makes my heart feel so full.

In the end, maybe we ate more than we decorated.  Because they turned out pretty awesome.  And it was instantly another blessing to add to my growing list of things that I’m thankful for at Christmas time.  I really love the traditions that we’ve created and thoroughly enjoyed spending time today decorating delicious cookies with our amazing friends.