Traditions

They make us think about the good times.  They renew a sense of belonging.  They provide a feeling of family pride, and of a long and rich family history.  Traditions renew the spirit of giving.

One tradition my family has enjoyed as long as I can remember, is baking cookies.  It is one of many fun things I did as a boy.  After 66 years, I am still doing it with my two grandsons.



I was eight in 1955.  It is my first memory of helping my mom bake cookies.  My mother was a natural in the kitchen.  Everything at the time was made from 'scratch'...a term rarely used today.

Antique flour sifter.

Many of the tools mom used to make those outrageously delicious cookies in 1955, are still being used by the family.  My wife uses tin measuring spoons, a hand operated nut chopper, and kitchen knives with wood handles, all used by former generations.

The cutters are the fun tools.  They form/cut the dough precisely every time one is pressed into a piece of rolled out dough.  We store them in a shoe box in the pantry, similar to how we did on the farm.  Many of the family favorites are those made from aluminum each with an arched handle on top.

Vintage cutters

The oldest cutters I found in the box are made from crimped tin.  Originally, they were used to form biscuits as well as traditional cookies.  My guess is, they formed hundreds of biscuits (circa 1900/1930) for my mothers family, comprised of 13 children.    

The coolest kitchen item and the one I most enjoy operating, is a hand operated grinder.  I remember my grandfather securing it to the end of the kitchen table for my mom.  A life-long farmer, Pappy used it to grind everything from beef to walnuts.  It is one of a number of century old antiques the family continues to use.

Food grinder.

Since the mid-1970's the grinder has been used once a year...at the holidays.  It was made by the Griswold Mfg. Co. of Erie, PA.  The company was chartered in 1865 on the banks of the Erie canal.  Called a meat/food grinder, it still has the original wooden handle.  The cast iron body is tarnished with age and hundreds of washings, there is not one crack in it frame..  The cutting blade has never been sharpened.  The auger is not worn.  The three cutting plates never altered.  It continues its long life bringing joy to our family year after year. 

There is also something special about collecting and preparing ingredients called out in an old family recipe.  When a cake, pie or batch of cookies is made from scratch, it makes you appreciate the end result more.  Plus, I choose to believe, it tastes better too.

Hand operated nut chopper.

The part of baking cookies I most enjoyed year after year was decorating.  Sand Tarts take the most time, patience and creativity.


Moms green tin recipe box held the keys to dozens of lip-smacking pies, cakes, and desserts.  Recipes passed down from generation to generation were hand written in pencil.  That would be before the keyboard was invented.  Many recipes were named after the person who originated it, i.e.(my favorite) Aunt Gerties chocolate cake with caramel icing.  

Metal recipe box.

Mom always stored cookies in tin cans to keep them fresh.  She cut wax paper the shape of the can and placed paper between each layer of cookies to keep them from fracturing.  When guests arrived, she brought a can out to serve with coffee.

Cookies that had an odd shape, or were baked a bit too long, or fractured while being transferred from baking tray to cooling table, were put in a ceramic cookie jar on the dry sink.  I can remember the smells of cookies coming from that cookie jar to this day.

Many of her recipes have survived, although yellowed from age and spotted with cooking oil, cookie batter, and countless floured fingerprints.  Some of the ingredients called out can barely be seen on the old cards.  One reads, 1 scant cup sugar.  How much is a scant?

Family recipes.

Fast forward to the 2012 holiday season.  My wife and I are now the senior members of the family.  It's our responsibility to insure that making cookies and other family traditions are passed on.

Two days before Christmas, our oldest daughter and two grandsons came over to spend the day making cookies.  Knowing kids today have an attention span that lasts the length of a mega-byte, my wife had the cookie dough made, and chilled over night, ready to roll.

No sooner had the cutting board been placed on the table, than both grandsons were standing next to Nana, anxious to begin.  No coaxing needed.  These guys were really in to it, as was their mom.

Making cookies is one good example of a step by step process.  As a former process engineer, I know the importance of working a process in sequence to do it right.  Today, just like 1955, the process for each cookie would be, brush on a light coat of egg white, sprinkle on cinnamon sugar, add a pinch of chopped walnuts, and the final step before the oven...colored sugar.

Dylan watches Papa as he finishes decorating a sleigh.

Colored sugars await their application.

When Papa pulled his chair up to the table, Dylan and Connor were already engrossed in the process.  It might have had something to do with the fact that they would soon be able to eat the cookies they made.  Incentive can be found in many forms.

Dylan is into it.

Connor rolls the dough with a rolling pin.

Connor began the process by rolling out cookie dough to a paper thin state.  Next, he positioned a cutter atop the dough and with the palm of his hand, pushed the cutters edge to the cutting board forming a cookie.  The naked cutouts were placed one by one on a tray for Dylan and Papa to decorate.

Papa showed that patience is important.  There is no quick way of decorating 12 dozen cookies and make virtually all of them a bit different than the last.

Dylan and Connor have worked this process a number of years now.  I'm confident this tradition is in good hands.

Someday they will be senior members of the family and responsible for insuring their children know the importance of family traditions.

Hopefully their wives will continue the tradition of making cookies for the holidays.

Daughter, Kim transfers a cookie to a baking tray.  Dylan (L) prepares to make another cutout while brother Connor (R) forms dough into a ball.  It will be rolled paper thin before more cutouts are made. 

The focus in recent years has been on how many different characters can be developed from a generic gingerbread man cookie cutout. This year the gingerbread man form included brown boot cookie, pink eye cookie, no-brain cookie, red boot cookie, multi-color robo cookie, rosy cheeks cookie, alien cookie, blue boot cookie, Santa cookie, Dylan with hair cookie, red toe cookie, blue mittens cookie, oriental cookie and one-eyed cookie.

Kim takes a turn at decorating.

One of these characters experienced an early and untimely demise.  Rosy cheeks cookie, was being transported, by hand, from its position among dozens of its peers, on the cooling table,  to a container where it would be shuttled to its intended final home for consumption, when it fell out of the grasp of its intended consumer, Dylan.

Rosy Cheeks cookie tumbled to its death on a hardwood floor.  The shock of the tragedy evaporated in seconds as Dyaln fell to his knees while gathering every bit and piece of dough and speck of sugar of the once robust Sand Tart.

Rudi the red-nosed pig.

The family was horrified at what had occurred.  Rosy cheeks cookie was birthed only minutes before from a wad of nondescript raw dough.  It survived the heat of a 375 degree oven.  Then cooled and cured to perfection, only to meet its early demise.

Family members had to look away as a heartbroken Dylan, consumed the last bits of what was intended to be a delightful sweet snack on Christmas day.

One-eyed cookie had the honor of taking the place of Rosy cheeks cookie in the container Dylan would take home.

Oriental cookie.

One item in the kitchen I am most proud.  A ceramic pig cookie jar.  It is a reminder of the many times, as a boy, I lifted the head of that cookie jar and snatched a cookie or two.

Mom made cookies throughout the year, not just at the holidays.  All the cookies she made were normal size, except the last one.  Scraping the last of the dough from the mixing bowl, mom made the last cookie huge saying, 'This one you can eat after it cools.'

Cookie jar.

During the 'Boomer' generation, the ceramic cookie jar has seen duty at Shadeville Farmhouse (8 yrs.), Mountain View Farm (15 yrs.), Bennington Road residence (7 years), before moving across the country to Colorado, where it has enjoyed the past 5 years atop the refrigerator.

I gave it a bath in warm soapy water before it posed for this piece.  It appears the pigs smile got a bit wider since its bath.

These vintage collectibles were made by  The Shawnee Pottery Company, Zanesville, Ohio.  The company was named after a native american village located where the company began producing them in 1937.

The clay pigs were produced wearing either a blue or red scarf.  S. S. Kresge, McCrory, Benjamin Franklin, F. W. Woolworth, and Sears carried the Shawnee pottery line.  My mom bought this little piggy at Woolworth's in Sunbury, Pennsylvania.  The figurine originally sold for $8.00 retail.  Today, collectors pay $500 for one in good condition.  This little piggy will remain in the family, however.

Regardless if you make cookies from a prepackaged, preformed log of dough, buy them baked and decorated ready to eat, or make them from scratch, they are a favorite treat at the holidays and all year long.

While choosing his favorites, Dylan licks the back of.bald headed cookie.

Keep old traditions alive.

  Start new ones.