I'm just carrying on an old family tradition

One of our family traditions is to make these cut out sugar cookies and decorate them one by one. We have these super old cookie cutters that are one of our family heirlooms, and so we usually go over to Joe and Amanda's house to decorate after they have already rolled, cut out and baked the cookies. They do the hard part, we do the fun part. The recipe is huge, this year I think it made 91 cookies.

When I was young, like in junior high, I used to have girlfriends over for a slumber party and we'd stay up for as long as we could decorating cookies. Last year for Christmas Sara gave me some new cookie cutters because I was a mom and she had fond memories of my mom making those cookies.

I had no idea what Cecilia would do this year with the cookies. Some of the designs can get pretty intricate. I can remember one year, maybe the first year John was along for this family tradition, Tom was just learning to say "please" and he must have said "please" 5 hundred times that night, for the icing, or sprinkles or whatever. It was cute. Cecilia took to the tradition like a natural. I gave her one cookie and put some icing on it, and she ate the cookie right away. Later, she found the top of the portable high chair and started licking the icing. She makes me laugh.