Cracked Cauldron Spillings

This weekend, we are preparing for Cookie Day.

In the little village where I grew up in Germany, they celebrated Cookie Day for as far back as anyone could remember. It's not a big holiday, and it's not very widespread. Maybe because it involves a lot of work?

I wish it were more widespread than it is.

Let me tell you how we did it in Germany, and how we do it now.

In Germany, for days before December 12th, people baked their specialty cookies. Each family had at least one special cookie they made that no one else made as well. Or made at all. If a family couldn't afford to make their cookies one year, they'd find hte ingredients on their doorstep so they could anyway - along with fuel to light their ovens. On the morning of December 12th, the families would set tables piled with their cookies outside their doors, and everyone roamed from table to table with baskets, filling them with cookies for their families. Everyone had a spare basket to collect cookies for someone who couldn't come, and those extra baskets would be delivered that evening or as soon as possible. And for the holiday season, everyone had cookies, lots of different kinds of cookies they didn't have to bake.

Here, where we can't even get the neighbors together for a block party, it's different.

We still bake our specialty cookies. Now, though, instead of setting up tables and sharing with neighbors, we mail boxes of cookies out to family and friends who live far away, and deliver cookies to ones who live near. And we always take boxes of cookies to people who wouldn't otherwise have cookies.

Official Cookie Day is December 12th, so we have to mail them no later than December 6th to be sure everyone gets their cookies on time.

In years past, when we had children in the house, we spent the morning of Cookie Day decorating sugar cookies and gingerbreads and delivering them in the evening.