My favorite things

The kitchen is covered in a fine layer of flour and sparkling sugar. The scents of cinnamon, cocoa and vanilla hang in the air. It's the week before Christmas and I've been baking.

This is one of my favorite times of year. I get to stay up late and sip a little brandy or port (ok, sometimes it's bourbon), listening to my favorite music - on headphones so I don't wake up the girls. Over the course of the week I make batch after batch of cookies:

-Fig and walnut biscotti
-Lemon rosemary shortbread
-Pecan crescents
-Drunken fruit and nut bars
-Chai spice balls
-Cappuccino shortbread
-Mexican chocolate balls
-Spritz

The list grows and changes each year.

The purpose of baking all of these cookies is not to eat them myself - in fact I rarely eat cookies while I'm baking them. No, these are to give away to friends and family. Part of the fun during my week of baking is the time I spend poring over recipes after putting the kids to bed. I dig through cookbooks and web recipes, I find notes I've scrawled onto scraps of paper. I make my preliminary list of what I will bake. I try to create a balance - some cookies have fruit, others have nuts or strong spices, and there is always chocolate.

After the list is complete and I've made sure I have all of the supplies I will need, I am ready to bake. I love the stillness of the house as I move through my kitchen, creaming butter, adding sugar, flour, cinnamon, and cocoa. I love shaping the cookies. Each one is a little different. To me, they are beautiful.

While I do love to bake alone, I also make time to share the fun with my girls. I save the spritz cookies for an evening when we can bake together. They love to sprinkle the formed cookies with sparkly sugar and non-pareils. They help me tint the dough green and red to punch out mini Christmas trees and flowers. Often when I bake with them, we make sugar cookies that they can decorate with sticky icing. Those never make it into the gift bags - my girls have no qualms about eating the cookies when they are done baking.

Baking all of the cookies is a big part of the fun, but cookie delivery time is just as wonderful. First, I have to pack up all of the cookies into bags or takeout boxes - it's quite an assembly. Everyone's package gets labeled. Some of the deliveries I do solo but what I most enjoy is to pack the girls into the car and drive around town, looking at holiday light displays and stopping in to visit with friends. We probably stay at each house for only 15 minutes or so before heading back out into the cold to our next stop. Sharing something as simple as a gift of cookies and good cheer with our friends - this is truly one of my favorite things. No fancy presents needed.

And, if you are wondering, these may have been my favorite cookies this year - a new recipe for me - Cappuccino Sails from Judy Rosenberg's cookbook. They are a coffee-laced shortbread cookie dunked first in very dark chocolate and then coated with toasted almonds. Yum.