Dear Reader,

As always, you’ll need a cup of coffee or tea and a mindful moment to accompany you as you read my weekly letter.  mind-ful-ness: a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment. 

On Thursday, last week, I was feeling pretty festive toward the upcoming Christmas season and I decided to make a sugar cookie recipe from my book, My Farmhouse Journal. With that thought, I sent a text to Mom and asked, “Would you want to come make cookies with me?” 

It had been a long time since we had made cookies together.   It’s not one of our family’s traditions, but for some families they have a cookie making party. Grandmas and daughters and their daughters get together to bake, bake, bake.  It must be lots of fun. But on my cookie-baking day it was just the two of us—mom and me.

Of course, if you have a copy of my book, My Farmhouse Journal: Memories and Recipes (What? You don’t?) You would know the cookie recipe: Old Fashioned Sugar Cookie Cut Outs. The memory never fades of two little farm girls helping mother in the kitchen has survived all these many decades. I wrote in my book on page 138 along with the recipe:  

We gathered in the kitchen to fill large, white coat boxes full of these sugar cookies for Daddy to take
to his workers at Ford Motor Company where he was Forman. It was always a fun time rolling, cutting out and decorating each design. All of us kids participated under Mom’s supervision. Our tin cookie cutters consisted of a bell, a tree, a star and a Santa Claus.

The recipe was originally penned in Mother’s hand written, black and white composition recipe book.  The pages have yellowed with time, the ink a bit faded and there are grease stain splatters on the page cause we have used it every year for decades. Upon seeing the splatters, we laughed together,  “Mrs. Ellis would not be happy seeing this, now would she?”

“But to me, Mrs. Ellis,” I might defend, “The splattered page   implies a recipe well loved. Does it not?”

So on that sunny afternoon, we got busy making the cookies and we reflected on the memories we made throughout the years.  You know, the truth is, it really only takes a little bit of time to make a batch of cookies. That’s all we made—one batch—two cookie sheets full.  Next, we enjoyed icing them  (canned icing with food coloring added makes this so simple) and we added some sprinkles to each one just as we did in the farmhouse kitchen of my youth.

Once finished, a couple hours spent together, the cookies were beautiful on the silver platter she held as I snapped a couple pictures of Mom holding the most vibrantly, colored, old fashioned sugar cookies one has ever seen. (I did not spare on the food coloring. Lol) and that afternoon is another memory made to cherish in my memory bank. This week, take time to find someone to share your time with. After all, time is the greatest gift of all.