Perfect Christmas Cookies For A Perfect Holiday

As a child, our family had a house packed full of four children, and our mother and father. When Christmas came around, there was always plenty of love and happiness to go around. Our parents decided long before any of their gang was born that teaching their children to love and respect themselves and others would get them a lot further than expensive gifts would throughout life.

In that same vain, our mother would prepare for the holiday season the same way each year. She would make a list of neighbors, friends, and co-workers of our father, family members, teachers and the slew of civic centers and religious foundations she volunteered for in one of our notebooks. She would then detail the total number, and base her trip to the grocery around one meaningful gesture: Baking Christmas cookies for the whole lot.

With the sheer drive to thank everyone in her life somehow during the Christmas season, she would set out each year with her list in hand and begin making batch after batch of her famous sugar cookie Christmas recipe. Lucky for us, there were always extras. After all of these years, you would think we would have tired from the excessive intake of the soft, buttery delight, but it is still all of our favorites.

With her very simple sugar cookie recipe, you can be the bearer of sweet gifts too this holiday season, and put a smile on the faces of everyone in your neighborhood. Everyone loves Christmas cookies, and receiving them just might inspire an act of kindness on their part.

Sensationally Delightful Sugar Cookies: The Christmas Recipe

What You Will Need (Makes Five Dozen Christmas Cookies):
• 1.5 Cups of Butter, Soft
• 2 Cups Sugar, White
• 4 Large Eggs
• 5 Cups All-purpose Flour, Sifted
• 2 TSP Baking Soda
• 1 TSP Vanilla Extract
• 1 TSP Salt

What to Do:
• Combine the butter and sugar in a large bowl until mixed thoroughly, and smooth.
• Add eggs and vanilla with a whisk until combined thoroughly.
• Stir in baking powder, salt and flour until mixed completely.
• Assemble the dough into a large ball, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour (up to overnight).

Prepare to Bake:
• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
• Flour a flat surface, like a table or counter top and roll the dough flat to ¼ or ½ inch thickness (the thinner the roll, the crispier the cookie, so it's just a matter of preference).
• Use cookies cutters to form shapes, or the top of a small glass, coffee cup or other hollow container to form round or square cookies.
• Align the cookies one inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
• Bake for six to eight minutes.

Icing Recipe (Some people like icing, others do not: We LOVE it!)

What You Need:
• 1 Cup Confectioner's Sugar
• 2 TSP Milk
• 2 TSP Light Corn Syrup
•.5 TSP Vanilla Extra
• Red, White & Green Food Coloring (It is a Christmas recipe, you know?)
• Optional: Sprinkles and Candies

What to Do:
• Combine milk and confectioner's sugar in a small bowl until smooth.
• Add the corn syrup and vanilla extract with a whisk, until combined thoroughly. (If the icing is still too thick, add a bit more syrup to thin it out.)
• Divide the icing into different bowls to add food coloring to each, or simply make one big bowl of red!
• Paint the icing onto the cookies, and apply sprinkles or candies if you choose.

Make this Christmas recipe's preparation a family affair, and your children will enjoy giving back to others and celebrating the season with Christmas cookies as they get older. It's inexpensive, tasty and fun, so what do you have to lose?