Baking Christmas Goodies--The Beginning

Chocolate, sugar, flour, caramel, peppermint, nuts, cookie dough...

Beginning in 1985, my mother and her very good friend, Jamie, got together every year to bake candies and other treats for Christmas. They would set aside one full day... usually a Saturday... to make candies and cookies of many different kinds. It has always been an all day long event... starting early in the morning and finishing in the early evening. I remember Mother would bring home tins and plastic containers full of all sorts of sweet treats at the end of the day. We were only supposed to get into them when given permission but of course us kids were always sneaking when no one was looking. For the first several years it was just Mother and Jamie that did the baking. As all of us children (me & my siblings and Jamie's kids) got older, we were allowed to help out in the kitchen. Although Mother died in 2004, we have kept up this holiday tradition. This year, we decided to bake at my house.... for years it's been at Jamie's house. My brother, Phillip, and Jamie came over. Jamie's daughter, Mandy, would have come but she had another family Christmas get-together to attend. She was missed! Jamie got here about 8:15 in the morning and we began assembling all ingredients.

There was another counter opposite this one that was just as full! I began melting caramels to make Turtles and Jamie began working on the dough for Candy Cane cookies. She let Grant help her roll out the little ropes of dough to twist into the candy cane shape. Grant said it was like playing with Play-Doh.