I’ve always been a Christmas fiend, but having a child brings the whole season into sharper focus. This year the Nuni is old enough to get it — she can sing all of the words to “Jingle Bells” and “Silent Night”, she points out every decorated house we drive past with a cry of “Look Mama! Pretty lights!” and she knows that every time we make cookies, we are making them for Santa Claus to eat.
Spending time with a kid is who so entranced by the magic of Christmas makes me want to revisit the Christmas magic of my own childhood. As an adult I’ve expanded my Christmas baking repertoire (though it probably says something about my family that Christmas dinner this year — gravlax, roast beef, scalloped potatoes, creamed spinach and steamed persimmon pudding — was the exact same Christmas dinner I ate when I was eight and when I was eighteen), but when it comes down to cookies for Santa Claus to eat, we’re talking the old fashioned rolled sugar cookies, cut into pretty shapes, then iced and decorated.
