i think my fondest memory would be watching my parents make chrusciki (Mom rolled, cut, and flipped them while Dad fried them), then sugaring them once they had fully cooled.

it's something we gave up doing last year because my mom just doesn't have the stamina to make them all day anymore. we might cut back the recipe and do them every other year.

My favorites are Nutmeg Logs. My mom got the recipe from a roommate in college and they're the most coveted cookie in our house each Christmas. My favorite thing ever is helping her make them and grating the fresh nutmeg over the rum frosting. Growing up in Arizona, it was the closest thing we had to snow (without driving a few hours) watching that nutmeg fall onto the cookies.

And now my tummy is grumbly. I think I'll bake some this weekend!

Mom, my sister and I spent hours in the kitchen making all kinds of cookies and candy. My favorites were her tender sugar cookies that you rolled in ball, pressed down with a sugared glass and then sprinkled with colored sugar. We didn't make the cut out cookies and I don't make them to this day. But the memory of the fragrance of cookies baking or candy bubbling on the stove will be one of my favorites.

My great-aunt was truly a master baker. I don't know when she got started on her Xmas cookies, but she must have made 20 kinds every year! We would be doing the family rounds and she'd say, "Come in! Come in! I just put on a fresh pot of coffee!" And about 75 cookies. We'd sit and sip our coffee (kids too--we're Italian) and she'd say, "Oh try that one. New kind. Did it come out good? I don't know." Oh to be Zia Nita's cookie vetter! What a great job.

I have memories of making koulourakia with my YiaYia. This is typically more of an Easter thing, but she would make them for Christmas too. They were my favorite childhood cookie.

We always do cut out sugar cookies on Christmas Eve. I have a great memory of one year in particular watching my mom make her famous cheese straws (only a Christmas specialty!) with our ancient cookie extruder. Then gobbling them up with her as they came out the oven (leaving my dad and brothers rushing to get any we left them!) She did a rum cake most years too and I can remember watching tv with my grandma next to the tree, eating WAY too much rum cake and jumping around exclaiming how drunk I was! ha!!

My favorite memory is when my younger sister, who had a hard time pronouncing 'n's, (like Sata for Santa, laudry for laundry) went around offering every guest at my grandma's house schnitten cookies. Or as it sounded sh*tten cookies. :)

My favourite memory is a new one. For the last 5 or 6 years, my sister and I have decorated sugar cookies with our young nieces and nephew, who live in another province. This year I wondered if the eldest might be getting too old for it, but she assured us that she'll NEVER be too old to decorate cookies. This year, this activity will be our gift to them, instead of some tangible, wrapped present. I love this tradition and hope we can keep it up!

Every year when I was growing up my mom and her 3 sisters would get together for a long day of cookie baking at my aunt's house. All my cousins would join in too. While the adults were busy making and baking the cookies, we kids were at the "decorating table". We easily made 6 dozen frosted and decorated sugar cookies and it would take HOURS to decorate them all. But at the end of the day we all went home with tons of great Christmas cookies. I can still feel how it felt to sit in that overheated basement listening to Christmas music and drinking soda after soda while my hands were covered in dried frosting from decorating.

One of my most favorite cookies that Grandma takes special request for is also Pfeffernüsse, putting a sliced apple wedge in the container where they are stored seems to soften them up a bit, can't wait for them this year! TJ's also had a box of them I bought a few years back, very good!

My best memory is making Italian anise cookies with my mom. Rolling out the long logs of dough and frosting them with green and red (although it was more pink, than red) icing. Those are still one of my favorites to eat.

My favorite cookie at the holidays is Grandma's Peanut Balls. They are exactly the same as Mexican Wedding Cookies, but my mom always used chopped peanuts instead of pecans! Try it!

My big memory was making Hannukah Spritz cookies (with the press) to bring to school and getting to put sparkly sugar on it. Haven't had them since I was a kid.

My fondest memory is my Grandma making gingerbread cookies. They were never the favorite at the holidays because they weren't as sweet, but now they are what I look forward to most.

Helping my mom make spritz, cocosbullar, and pepparkakor. Mmmmmm.........

i wrote recently about a snowed in moment where my ma and i shared a (shareable sized) gingersnap, a recipe that was, three years later, shared with me, compliments of a coffee shop in Lethbridge, AB. Gingersnaps and mint tea, the smells and tastes, take me to the winter.

http://tastamattina.blogspot.com/

"perfect for dipping"

I miss making angel bites with my mom. And then discovering (with horror) that the reason they were so good was because of dates.

My grandmother's recipe for butter cookies using our vintage cookie press decorated with colored sugar, sprinkles, candies, and chocolate.

My fondest baking memory is making cut out sugar cookies.

My fondest eating memories involve rum balls and a German cookie called spitzbuben. The latter is a nutty shortbread with jam spread between and dipped in lemon glaze.

My aunt always made a huge tub of pfeffernusse, but I never loved those as a child.