Enter The Wilton Holiday Cookie Contest

every year my mother would make candy cane cookies for our family. as a child christmas was not christmas without the candy cane cookies. last year my mother was unable to make the cookies due to illness. my sister and i decided to try and do the cookies. we decided that from now on we would get together and make these cookies every year. my sister lives in virginia and i live in tennessee. we will get together a few days before christmas and make our cookies and take some to the nursing home where our mother lives now.

Every year my parents went to my Aunt's house to exchange Christmas gifts and they always returned with a plate filled with all different types of Christmas cookies that we lived for & were so excited to recieve. That was such a significant memory of Christmas for me that I now take vacation time from work to bake and share cookies with our friends, co workers, and Vets at the VA hospital in Temple Tx. as a tribute to my Aunt & my Mom that has passed on.

Every year for Christmas my granddaughters and I make every kind of christmas cookie you can think of. We have been doing this tradition since my oldest granddadughter was 2, and she is almost 19 now. They still ask me when we are going to make our cookies. They love to make spritz the most, but then we make our frosted, and decorated sugar cookies too, by the time we are done the kitchen and dining room are a mess but it's all worth the fun of having them help me. When I was young I never lived close enough to my grandparents for me to do this, so I want to have as much fun as we can so they remember and make memories and traditions for their familes.

My childhood memories are a little different. My mother was not a baker, she was an excellent cook, but couldn't bake to save her life. When I turn 12 I became very interested in baking and started to get cookbooks and make the recipes in them. I would bake pies, cakes, bread whatever I could by reading the directions. My brothers and sisters and my Dad were my ginny pigs. My Dad would challenge me and tell me "I don't think you can make a Lemon Meringue Pie" Well that's all I had to hear, I was determine to make it the best. It took me 7 days of making a pie every night to finally get it right. My Dad was shock! I started baking cookies at Christmas every year and now that I am in my 50's my brothers and sister tell me "Its not christmas unless you bake your assortment of different Christmas cookies" My Cookies our my family"s tradition and I totally enjoy baking them.

Two things I love about Christmas were presents and the food. My Grandmother would make the best food ever. She would make pies, fruitcakes, gingerbread, breads, and cookies. Oh the cookies, we would make sugar cookies from scratch, roll and cut them out, then decorate. There was homemade icing, candies, and all kinds of sprinkles. As we decorated, we talk, laugh, sampled and made a wonderful mess. I lost my grandmother 5 years ago and it has not been the same during the holiday season. But I keep the tradition going on. I have her old cookie cutters and recipes. So every year my son and I take a weekend and have a wonderful time making cookies, candies and the most wonderful mess in a kitchen you could ever want. Just to see his smile and his eyes light up over a few hours of fun is the best gift I could ever ask for.

In my childhood we didn't have luxuries like an ultra this or an insulated that.Our cookie press was third hand. When the knob was twisted to form the cookie, half the dough attempted to form the cookie and other half oozed out the holes on the side where there was once a metal handle. To my mom, baking was just another frustrating, holiday stressor, especially since she was working with tools fit for the curb.. but she always made do. My children will have a different story to tell. The cookie press we use today requires just a delicate squeeze, and we make ginger bread houses every year. I wish my mother were here to bake with the grandchildren she never had the pleasure of cradleing. She would be amazed at how companies like Wilton have made baking such a joy. Every year during our cookie baking I share my usual "holes in the cookie press story" with my family. I'm sure they're tired of hearing about it but it's a part of Christmas my mind and my heart won’t let me forget.

Every year my kids make cookies to leave out for Santa. They are very serious about these cookies. They have to touch all over them and place them on the plate just right. My husband gets testy (because after all, he has to eat the cookies). He's always on them about germs and keeping away from the cookies once they are on the plate and the kids get confused as to why 'daddy is so worried about Santa's cookies'. I get a kick out of seeing the whole thing play out, every Christmas Eve!

One thing that we do every Christmas is make sugar cookies. My mom would always make the dough for us. My three sisters and I would make our cookies when everyone got home at night. We would often make cookies well into the night because we were having so much fun being together and laughing. We love looking at all of our vintage and new Wilton cookie cutters. We have a collection of over 100 different cutters. Now that we are grown and have kids of our own, we continue to make sugar cookies with our own families. We are planning to get together for Christmas this year and I know that we are all looking forward to a late night of laughs and of course sugar cookies.

My greatest memory of when I was a little girl every year for the holidays baking with my mom, now that I am a mother of three children, we do all kinds of things for the holidays, bake cookies,, cupcakes, and of course cakes, the 2 younger children love it they get out there little aprons and there bakers hats and they are ready and once they are finished they are all so proud of what they created, and thats what it is all about!!!!! My older daughter is a perfectionist and she likes to take her time, and thats ok too, as long as we all have fun!!! that is the main objective!!!!

One of my most treasured childhood memories is that of the Christmas season. Walking home from school in the icy, dreary December weather. I can remember being cold, wet and tired, coming into the house, being greeted by a warm blazing fire in our seldom used fireplace and the aroma of freshly-baked snicker doodles. There were six of us--my five brothers and I; we each had a favorite cookie, and for the six days before Christmas Eve, my mother would bake one of our favorite cookies. On that day, the child whose cookie was made would come home after school and was given a glass of milk, with a few favorite cookies on a special plate with a small gift beside it. Of course the rest of us had cookies also, but in a family as large as mine, this was one of the few times that my mother could take the opportunity to make each one of us feel special. As I look back on this memory…the only cookie that I can remember the aroma of was snicker doodles. Maybe because that was my favorite!