Christmas Cookie Day by Tanya Agler

Merry Christmas! Thank you so much to Liz Flaherty for hosting me today on “Window Over the Sink,” especially since the posts in the next few weeks are all devoted to one of my favorite holidays: Christmas!

A long time ago, although in many ways it seems like yesterday, I attended the University of Georgia. One Sunday night, I debated whether to keep studying for a test the next day or go to a Christmas party. My four children are very glad I decided I was ready for the test and went to the party. When I arrived, the host brought everyone together in the living room for a Christmas Carol sing-along. There was one seat remaining, and I asked the guy who was sitting beside the empty chair if he was saving it for anyone. He wasn’t, and we started talking, through the sing-along, through refreshments, and until the party ended.

Soon thereafter, we discovered our homes away from the college dorms were only ten miles apart. Over the Christmas break, he called and asked me on a date. When he arrived at my house, he was taken by surprise as both my parents and grandparents, who’d come to visit for Christmas, barraged him with a series of questions. Since I was ready, I whisked him away to his car, and we talked through dinner.

Then it was my turn to meet his parents and siblings, and it was my turn to be amazed. Every room in his house was decorated for Christmas. Even the bathrooms had holiday hand towels and matching soap dishes along with snowmen figurines. I’d never seen so many decorations in one place. That day, his mother graciously asked if I would like to come to Cookie Day. While I didn’t know at the time it would be the first of many, I was thrilled at the kind offer and jumped at the chance.

Early one December Saturday morning, I arrived at their house, thinking it would be a half-hour of fun and then Jamie and I would have the rest of the day to go Christmas shopping or do some other holiday activity before he went to work that night at his part-time job. I walked in and found different stations: one person rolled out the dough, another cut the shapes selecting from a huge assortment of cookie cutters, another swapped out baked cookies hot from the oven for a fresh sheet, and the rest decorated cookies, cool enough to frost, with icing and a variety of sprinkles, red-hot candies, and colored sugar. The night before, his mother had mixed four batches of dough and refrigerated them.

After a lunch break, we all finished icing the last batch of cookies. Jamie’s mother kept calling out, “Make some nice ones for the neighbors.” In addition to the sugar cut-out cookies, the day before, she had made wedding cookies, peppermint bark, spritz cookies, and banana bread. The day after Cookie Day, she assembled packages of cookies and delivered them to neighbors, friends, co-workers, and anyone who needed a care package.

Rather than spending half an hour at his parents’ house, it was the whole day, and I left with a basket of cookies to take home to my parents and grandparents.

Over the years, I’ve become known as “the closer.” When everyone else is tired of decorating the cookies, I’m the one who finishes icing the remainder. We’ve branched out and added Grinches and Leg Lamps (my husband’s family loves A Christmas Story while I gravitate to It’s a Wonderful Life and Christmas in Connecticut) to the selection of stars, bells, and holly wreaths.

This year, we’re celebrating a new twist to our annual Cookie Day. My husband has invited his co-workers over, as many of them have never baked Christmas cookies before. We’re having a big party and then we’ll send them away with baskets of cookies and hopefully some fun memories.

So, from that party where I sat next to someone I didn’t know came an introduction to something new that ended up forming one of my holiday traditions. My four children love Cookie Day, and that’s one of their favorite days of the year. Let me know whether you are baking any cookies or pies for Christmas.

And my holiday wish for you is that I hope this Christmas you make a new friend or deliver a homemade treat to an old friend.

Merry Christmas!

An award-winning author, Tanya Agler makes her home in Georgia with her wonderful husband, their four children, and a lovable rescue beagle. She has written six novels for Harlequin Heartwarming with her seventh, Caught by the Cowgirl, coming in April of 2023. Her novella, Christmas Cookie Crossing, is featured in this year’s Christmas Town Bake-Off, an anthology of Christmas novellas written by seven Harlequin Heartwarming authors. When she’s not writing, Tanya loves classic movies, chocolate, and a good cup of tea. You can find her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorTanyaAgler or on Goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/tanyaagler.

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