FEED YOUR FACE: Christmas Cookies

Christmas is just around the corner, and lots of people like to make homemade cookies.

At our house, and through the years, the one major cookie we have always made is the sugar cookie. Plain dough, red dough, green dough. And then you have the sprinkles, colored sugar, them little round balls things in silver and gold. And let's not forget all the different cookie cutters: stars, bells, reindeer, Santa, Christmas trees, and all the others. And they come in different sizes.

When we were kids, we went to great lengths to make all the sugar cookies look really neat and cute. Sometimes it took about 5 minutes just to do one cookie. You really had to have a bit of artist in you. Like those little silver and gold balls? They had to be put on the green cookies that were Christmas trees to look like ornaments.

Then there is the icing to put on them for garland and stuff. And if you did a gingerbread man sugar cookie, you had to do the face and some type of clothes for it. No nude-y ginger man cookies in our house! And I always did the eyes on them. You know, you have to put just a little drop of white icing for each eye. Then you had to put a smaller drop on each eye to give them blue eyes or green eyes and even red eyes. And it never failed -- every eye I ever did came out looking crosseyed. It was really upsetting. How in the world can you give Santa a crosseyed sugar gingerbread man?

That's probably why I didn't get some of the presents I asked for from Santa. You try eating a crosseyed sugar gingerbread man cookie that is staring at you crosseyed! You'd end up with milk coming out your nose or you'd end up choking on one of those little silver or gold ball things. And the other cookies? You spend all of this time making them look really neat. Did Santa ever leave you a note saying how nice your cookies looked? I never got one. They were always just wolfed down, an empty glass with a little bit of milk left in the bottom and an empty plate with some cookie crumbs. And that was that.

One year my sister Lenora and I had a great idea. There used to be a feed store not too far from our house. That year when we went to the feed store with Pappy to get some rabbit feed, my sister and I snitched some hay. We stuffed hay in our coat pockets, we filled our pants pockets, and it seems that I even had hay stuffed down my pants. (Another reason for revenge on my sister, see my blog from last week titled, "Butt Sniper.") We figured that we would leave a bite of hay for each of Santa's reindeer. We even put ribbons on each handful, with each reindeer's name. Now, how many kids would think that far out of the box? We were ahead of our time. We just knew that with the hay and cookies we would get all the things we wanted that year.

Guess what? Christmas morning, we got up extra early. (All of the adults loved that year.) And, sure enough, the milk was gone, just a little left in the bottom of the glass. All the cookies were gone. The bites of hay were gone. And under the tree that year we got everything that we had asked for, except I still did not get my full-sized robot to do my biding or the space bike, like from the old TV show Fire Ball XL 5. (Anybody remember that one?)

Make some holiday cheer, make some sugar cookies, decorate them suckers, and see if you can make them without crossed eyes. Have some fun and think of some of the Christmases past. I know that it will put a smile on your face.

So feed your face! and go easy on the food coloring in the cookie dough. I had green teeth for about three days one year.

Enjoy!

Sour Cream Rollout Cookies (soft sugar cookies)

• 1 cup butter


• 2 cups sugar


• 1 cup sour cream


• 3 egg yolks


• 1 t. baking soda


• 1 t. vanilla


• 1/8 t. salt


• 4-3/4 cups flour

Cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg yolks. Combine the soda with the sour cream. (Don't freak out if it foams up a little.) Add to the butter mixture, then add the vanilla and salt. Add flour in two portions until combined. Chill dough overnight, or at least four hours. Roll out, cut, and bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 12 minutes, depending on size and thickness.

You could also add food coloring to the dough if you want some colors. Or add orange, lemon, almond, or peppermint extract if you want a little something extra.

Decorate with sprinkles of some type before baking, or ice these after they have cooled. Now, feed your face!