Sam and his parents indulged my need to make Christmas cookies Friday afternoon.

Thank you.

Check out these “trees”.

They looked better on the internet than they did in real life (not exactly a surprise) but Sam loved decorating them.  I made a batch of shortbread dough, rolled it into a triangle shape, and then (after chilling a bit) cut them into 3/8″ thick “trees”.  Half a pretzel stick was inserted to make a trunk, then they were baked at 300 degrees for about 25-30 minutes.

While they were baking, Sam and I made the green frosting and discovered my 37-year old mixer had died.  The motor just made a “whirr” sound, but nothing happened.

End of an era.  Purchased from the Spiegel catalogue and used with great joy.  It came with a food grinder and a blender.

So I got out the little hand mixer and we soon had plenty of green frosting for the trees.

And we attempted to make candy cane cookies, though at first it was a bit of a disaster.   Sam, a Play Doh veteran, turned the dough into all sorts of shapes and we ended up with a tray full of yummy butter cookies.

I also learned that Sam loves pretzel sticks.

Here’s my trusty shortbread recipe.  God only knows how old it is and how long it has been in my recipe box.

1 cup softened butter
3/4 cup of sifted powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups sifted flour
1/2 tsp salt

Cream the butter, powdered sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy.  Gently mix in flour mixed with salt.  Chill.  Roll about 3/8-1/2″ thick on floured board.  Bake at 300 for 20-25 minutes, until dry but not browned.  Note:  I baked my trees 30 minutes until slightly brown so they would be harder and therefore easier to spread frosting on.

All finished.

Rest in peace.