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A Dash of Cinnamon, A Pinch of the Past, A Smidgen of the FutureClose your eyes and remember December, the smell of cinnamon in your mother's or grandmother's kitchen and the warm scent of dough baking in the oven. Imagine opening the oven door and, with assistance, taking out the heated cookie sheet. Devour the cookies, small works of art, with your eyes: Fudge Brownies, Gingerbread, Nut Rolls, Painted Cookies, Sugar Cookies... With each bite, taste your childhood and family history. You can trace your blood and traditions not by DNA, genealogies and family heirlooms, but by recipes given from one generation to the next, like oral histories handed down in clans before recorded fact caught on. Scholars once sniffed at "women's lore," but the notations of "1 dash nutmeg" and "1 cup chopped nuts," when handwritten on a yellowing page, are as important to memorize as the dates of the American Revolution. They are a tangible reminder of love, care and craft in any society, but particularly in America, where encouragement to eat bags of artificially sweetened store-bought Christmas sweets leave people sugar-craving, guilty, physically and emotionally empty Christmas cookies are the opposite of this trend. They represent home, family, comfort, joy, and tradition. It's a miraculous event when generations gather around the stove to spend a day together, getting their hands dirty and sharing of themselves. It is miraculous because those memories are irreplaceable. It's miraculous because children get curious and ask, for example, "Why are the Christmas cookies German? What was Christmas like when you were my age? Did Santa Claus visit you?" Mother, father, grandmother, and grandfather can share with children the family history and everyday moments in the past, such as, "Your grandmother made a mistake and measured one cup of walnuts when the recipe called for half a cup. But the cookies tasted better, so to this day we always use 1 cup of walnuts in the recipe." By reliving these rare glimpses of a life you may have forgotten, you honor and celebrate yourself as well as your family. Christmas cookies themselves transmit and record history and tradition. In addition, Christmas cookies are a thread to Christmas past, not only our past, but long past. The word cookie came about thanks to Dutch settlers in North America during the 1700s to 1900s. Koek is Dutch for cake, so koekje, later cookie in English, means "little cake." Christmas cookies like German Springerle continue the custom of serving Christmas baked goods started by the Romans, Teutonic/Germanic tribes, and other pre-Christian civilizations. Christian religions sanctified these symbols of worship of the harvest gods by adding a "J" on the top to mark the breads as offerings to Jesus Christ. Ancient European peoples ate gingerbread at Winter Solstice feasts. When you bake gingerbread and Springerle, you're participating in a tradition that endures. In that spirit, here is a recipe for successful cookie-making: Start with 1 family, 1 kitchen, and a box of recipes. Add an uninterrupted period of time. Subtract phone calls, televisions, or any other distractions. For best results, add the Prayer Before Baking from CHRISTMAS COOKIES ARE FOR GIVING: "God bless this mixture with the sweetest and tastiest ingredients: joy, faith, family, friendship, love, and health. Let the scent of this holiday offering rise to Heaven and make the angels sing, for the happiness of mankind is their feast. Let us taste our blessings with each bite as we share the company of our loved ones. Amen." Sprinkle with laughter. Add amusing family stories with a lavish hand. Fold in 1 cup patience and understanding, blended with 1 gallon youthful enthusiasm and a pinch of baking know-how. Eat your mistakes with joy. Bake lovingly and well. Enjoy warm, delicious, Christmas miracle cookie-baking memories for years to come! Other articles by this author »
About Kristin Johnson
Copyright Kristin Johnson. Kristin Johnson is co-author of the "highly recommended" Midwest Book Review pick, Christmas Cookies Are For Giving: Stories, Recipes and Tips for Making Heartwarming Gifts (ISBN: 0-9723473-9-9). A downloadablemedia kit is available at our Web site, www.christmascookiesareforgiving.com, or e-mail the publisher (info@tyrpublishing.com) to receive a printed media kit and sample copy of the book. More articles available at http://www.bakingchristmascookies.com. Related
And here is another random article you might be interested in... Eliminating Wasted Time From Your DaysIf you're finding yourself going through entire days without achieving anything. If you're tired at the end of the day but can't remember the last time you did something important - then this article is for you. It's very easy, when you're starting your company, to lose track of time. I, for one, can spend hours thinking about what I should do next without actually doing anything. I find it very easy to amuse myself by myself - but that doesn't help my company at all! The question is, how do you stop yourself from wasting precious hours in your day? How do you get things done? The first thing you should do is create a list of important tasks that need to get done for each day. So, before you go to bed each night, spend some time writing down just SIX things that are important to do the next day. I personally don't mind if they're personal goals or business goals. As long as I do at least SIX things each day that bring me closer to achieving my goals in life. So, for me, a typical list might look like this: 1. Practise guitar for 1/2 hour 2. Invoice clients 3. Buy accounting package 4. Spend 2 hours on Project X (Where Project X is the name of a particular project I'm working on 5. Automate web site subscriptions 6. Re-write salesletter for front-page It looks pretty easy doesn't it? It isn't. It takes a lot of discipline to get just 6 important things done each day. When I first started doing this, I had a lot of motivation to get these things done, so my business grew in leaps & bounds. The problem is that I eventually got demotivated and started losing track of my time. I started spending hours just reading email, posting on forums and generally doing things that weren't helping me achieve more! Until today, that is. I've started a new "plan" to ensure I don't mysteriously "lose time". It's a simple plan really. All you need is an exam pad and a pen. Then, down the left of the front page, write down time slots in half-hour increments like this: 06h00 Then, as each half hour passes, quickly jot down in a word or three what you spent it doing. This is going to help you see where all your time is wasted and will also give you something to answer to. If you're checking up on yourself every half hour (by jotting down what you've done), you'll find yourself more disciplined to do the things that count. This is a very basic technique taught in many time-management classes, tapes and CDs and it works wonders. I never tried it out until now but if you do it, and you're honest with yourself, you'll quickly find out why you're not getting any REAL work done! Those 2 techniques together have helped me grow my business much faster than my previous self would have. When you're an employee - you don't mind wasting a few hours here and there but when you have to put food on the table each month, suddenly your hours start being your most important assets! I hope this helps you! Good luck :) Other articles by this author »
About Norio De Sousa
Norio De Sousa is a young South African entrepreneur that enjoys teaching others the things he has learnt to make running his business easy & profitable. He runs a small business site for South Africans at http://www.small-business-hub.co.za. Related
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