Visions of Sugar Plums-Day Three- CookieTraditions

Hi, and welcome to the first day of "Visions of Sugarplums"!  

Join us all week long for wonderful recipes, paper crafts,

family traditions and even some giveaways!  Be sure to

follow the links below to visit my friends who are also

participating!

I know you've been enjoying all of the fun things going on with Visions of Sugarplums and today I'm going to share about our sugar cookie tradition.  Do you have a special cookie that you make each and every year by yourself or with somebody special?  I'd love to hear about it, leave me a comment or even a link to your blog so I can read about it.  

Every year our family goes to church on Christmas Eve and then we head home to bake our Sugar Cookies and decorate them, it's a tradition we've had since the kids were teeny, tiny and I look forward to it each and every year!

The recipe we use is from my step-mom Deena and everyone always ooohs and awwws over it but it's all I've ever known!

Deena's Sugar Cookies

3/4 cup shortening

3/4 cup butter

1/2 tsp vanilla

2 tsp baking powder

5 cup flour

4 eggs

2 cups sugar

2 tsp salt

Cream shortening, sugar and butter together, add eggs and vanilla and mix well. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Chill for 1 hour then roll out onto floured surface until 1/4" think. Cut out with holiday cutters

Cook at 350 degrees for ONLY 5-7 min. and NO LONGER then 7 min. Cool and decorate!

The pictures are from Christmas Eve's in the past (please ignore my messy kitchen because we were having too much fun baking).

2003

Grandma Deena with Makenzie and Devin (they were both 3 yrs old)

2004

 2004 was a rough year, my step Dad had just passed away the month before this and I think we were all still in shock but traditions help with consistency in childrens lives so we kept going!

2005

2006

2006 this was the year we learned that Makenzie's hair could actually be curly if we tried hard enough...LOL!  She had to have spiral curls for cheerleading and it was a pain in the patootie!

Look how little Kylan was in 2006 he was 5!

2007

2007 was the year that Kylan broke his little arm and was in a camo cast!

2008

 Kylan wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty and neither was Gigi.

2008 this was the year Makenzie discovered that she liked to decorate cookies, cakes, cupcakes, etc

2009

The kids have taken so many homeschool cooking classes that they can almost make the cookies and decorate them without me but I won't let that happen!

Makenzie's REALLY into decorating and cooking in 2009 check out the flour on her face!

2010

Grammy stayed the night with us and helped decorate sugar cookies, the kids are getting better and better at decorating.

I hope you enjoyed our Christmas Cookies tradition thru the years!

This week one of my BFF's Mika from Mika's Pantry is hosting Visions of Sugar Plums and with Mika it's all about the food, she's what we like to call a FOODIE so head over to her page and see what type of food satisfies her for the holidays.

Lori over at Choux Choux is all about Holiday decorating and crafting so if you would like some new ideas head over see just how creative she is!  She also offers a giveaway!

Lauren from The Past on a Plate is sharing too, you won't want to miss her post!


Linda from My Happy Place has these amazing Jeweled Coconut Drops

Thanks for reading,