"Pressing" On...

My camera has quickly been filling up with pictures of the festive frivolities going on around here...mostly baking and crafting. But they've had a harder time making the transition onto the blog...until today, I'll share a few!I recently acquired my Grandma's fabulous Mirro cookie press! What a fun tool! It's a treasure trove of bits and pieces that I can see getting lots of use in my future. I feel as though I've inherited a bit of a family heirloom, seeing my Grandma's pretty cursive within the original old box. She made note of cookies she made, dates she made them on, and other little baking notes to remember. While I was scrubbing and cleaning up the old press in preparation of cookie-making, even Hub eagerly offered his cookie-press assistance...you know, guys and tools. We made our family's Chocolate Christmas Tree recipe...an annual Christmas cookie standby. Mum usually decorates her cookies with melted white chocolate (died green) and strung across the tree, garland-like.

But Mum was unavailable when I was going to frost mine and I didn't know just what exactly she used to frost her trees then...so I used a buttercream sort of frosting and made little snowball-ish/ornament adornments. I pondered out loud, rather doubtful, that they weren't just like Mum's, to which Hub noted that it was nice to put my own little spin on these cookies. So perhaps a new tradition is born, a melding of recipes and cookie tools...old and new!

Now there are murmurings of a big snowstorm heading this way, just in time for Christmas...oh my...so I'll be signing off from the blog until next week to tie up loose ends and enjoy the holiday with our dear family.

Merry Christmas!