Christmas Traditions

Normally this blog is about recent sessions, well, I guess it still is, just recent sessions with my own kiddos and some past memories too. So please indulge for a moment if you will.

One of our family's Christmas traditions is baking and decorating sugar cookies. I remember my mom used to make them when us kids were growing up. Then there were some years when she stopped. Probably because it was messy and she had three kids or something like that. I think it was in high school I asked if we could try them again. And we did and she hasn't stopped since. She's now kind of the cookie baking queen of the family. She's a great cookie baker and Christmas candy maker. She's known for that too. It took a few tries to find the right recipe--the one where the cookies stay soft, but oh man, once we did. Yum! Mom did the baking; I was into the decorating. I remember making all sorts of colors-the traditional ones-red for stockings, yellow for stars, green for trees-but also purple, orange and blue. We would turn circles into ornaments using different color combos. Ahh, the mems.

Every since I got married, I have also made and decorated sugar cookies. And starting at about 2 years old, MJ has been helping me. Now Little E gets in on the fun. (although I can see why my mom stopped with three young ones-it is messy. :) ) But oh the memories the girls and I share around the kitchen. It's something we look forward to each year and MJ still talks about cookies she made two years ago.

So, even though with little ones, it does get a little messy, but they are only 6 and 3 once. So, I gave them each a dough ball and let them go at it-rolling, cutting, eating. Yes, who doesn't love to sneak a little ball of cookie dough every now and then?! :)









Then Christmas Day, it was on to the decorating...











and on to the giggling...







I absolutely love these photos (courtesy of my hubs-props to him). They capture the essence of this fun time with my girls. Sometimes we get so caught up in the capturing of memories on film ourselves, we forgot to get in the moment and enjoy it. Fortunately, I got to be in front of the camera this time. Thanks hun!



and finally, on to the clean-up!

I hope you are creating special holiday memories with your families this year!