A Taste of Christmas

By Karla Bright in honor of her grandmother, Blanch Marie Eaton.

As a child, I loved the three-dimensional Christmas trees Grandma made. She would cut out round, scallop-edged cookies, with a hole in the middle. After they were baked, she would decorate them with green frosting and sprinkles. Then she assembled them. Using a candle for the middle, she stacked the cookies up in graduated layers to look like a Christmas tree. I never actually saw Grandma make the trees; they were just one of the many surprises of Christmas that came from Grandma's house.

Even though my grandmother passed away twenty-one years ago, her tradition of baking cookies for others is still with me today. I make several kinds of cookies for Christmas, but everyone's favorite is the sugar cookies, and just like Grandma's they're fat, soft, and yummy. You can't eat just one. As I begin measuring the shortening, sugar, flour, and other ingredients for sugar cookies into the mixing bowl, the memories of my grandmother came flooding back. Grandma was not a tall lady, only about five-one. She was not fat, nor was she skinny. She was just soft, warm, and comforting. My mind shifts to the times my brother, sisters, and I spent at her house. Sunday nights, while our parents were at church, we watched The Wonderful World of Disney and snacked on Fruit Loops or Cocoa Puffs, the kind of junk cereal our mom didn't buy. I think about the times as a little girl, I would run across the street from school to her house for a bowl of chicken noodle soup and a cheese sandwich for lunch. My cousin Brad and I would sit at the little table in the living room to eat and watch cartoons ("funnies," as Grandma called them). As I began mixing the cookie dough, other memories of Grandma fill my thoughts: pictures of her in her rocking chair watching a favorite game show, tending her African violets, or crocheting hairpin lace afghans for each of her grandchildren, when she was almost blind.

Once the dough is ready, my girls and I cut out starts, bells, candy canes, and Christmas trees, and put them in the oven. When the cookies are all baked, my mom, my dad, kids, husband Jack, and I sit around the kitchen table to frost and decorate them. As we work, we reminisce about Christmases past, and I tell the children about my grandma making cookies and about the good times I had at her house. Before long the table and countertops are covered with decorated cookies. Some have a few fingerprints in the frosting and enough sprinkles for three cookies, and some are neat as can be. The children, as well, are covered in frosting and sprinkles as are the table and the floor. As Mom and I send the kids off to bed and begin cleaning up, we talk about Grandma and the tradition she started. Now my mom and I share the hope that the memories created this day with our children will be kept in their hearts and, in turn, passed on to their children.