"Oh Bring Us A Figgy Pudding."

No thanks, a sugar cookie of a candy cane with enough frosting send my eyeballs to the back of my skull will do just fine, thank you.

#5 of 31 Things I Love About Christmas: Making Christmas Cookies.

What other holiday has cookies so closely associated with it? Flag Day? Hardly so.

Cookies are a huge part of the Christmas memory bank and fabric of the holiday itself. No one leaves a few slices of pizza, wings and a Coke/brewski for Santa (though you wanna talk about extra presents...try it this year and see what happens). We leave cookies for Santa and milk or egg nog to wash it down. Though now I look back and wonder, I hope he got to our house soon after we laid out his treats, the last thing he needs is warm milk that has been sitting at room temperature for several hours. Icky.

I can remember as children, both at our house and occasionally Grandma's and Aunt Julie's houses, we would make Christmas cookies. Well let me clarify that. We would generally make a mess, cut out the sugar cookies, impatiently wait for them to bake, then happily frost, ice, sprinkle them with all the fixings. We were better off shooting the sugar directly into our veins. Mom, God Bless her, we would have plates upon plates of these things...maybe it just seemed that way now, but there were no shortage of heavily frosted Christmas cookies in the house. My sister and later my brother, would pick one cookie that we each decorated to leave out for Santa. God bless our relatives who came over and knew with us, there was no way they were gonna get away with eating just one cookie.

This I remember as being a very fun afternoon or evening. Christmas music playing for sure. Nothing seemed to get us even more ready for Dec. 25 than making cookies on an ice cold December day. Aside a few store bought Christmas cookies/treats, Christmas cookies and assorted treats are best when the come from your own kitchen. They not only come from your kitchen but from your heart. My lovely wife has made some unspeakably amazing Christmas treats this year which include peppermint biscotti, egg nog fudge and snickerdoodles. You have no idea. And I know in some sugar overdosing sorta way, these are a small sign of love.

That's why the process of Christmas cookie making is such an important one. A simple pastime and expression of knowledge and love that one is never too old for. These are the things that matter most. Maybe that's what Christmas is all about in the end, an expression of love. An expression that exists in many many many different ways, making it all the more fun.

"Tis The Season."

These things should come with an advisory sticker.

#9 of 31 Things I Love About Christmas: Archway Cookies-Cashew Nougats.

These are, without a doubt, the greatest mass produced Christmas cookie ever. "A shortbread cookie infused with finely-chopped cashews, rolled into nuggets and carefully baked for a dense, crisp bite." Bite-size pieces of heaven. They are very dense, a crisp bite at first. the powdery sugar melts away, but these aren't overly sweet. I don't know how to describe them other than amazing. There really is nothing like them.

These have been a longtime favorite for years, as are the other Archway Classics like the iced gingerbread men, candy cane and the Bells & Stars, all easily available at Wegmans. We have been getting them for as long as I remember, often stocking up as they become increasingly hard to find as Christmas gets closer. Here in NC, they are a little bit harder to find and I must stock up when I can. Archway has the Christmas cookie market cornered. Aside from the old standby Pillsbury "slice and bake" cookies, there really isn't a company that packages Christmas cookies.

I know this entry is a bit on the short side, but how much can I really write about a single style cookie?