Baking Tradition

One of my favorite things around the holidays is tradition. And one of the most delightful that has lasted is baking with the boys. As I have said before, this started when these two were 3 and 1 ½. Their mother, Laurie and I, thought it would be fun to have a baking day, so cut-out gingerbread cookies with decorative icing was our plan.

As I remember, it took us five or six hours to roll, bake and decorate with all the enthusiastic little helping hands we had. As the boys got bigger, became better helpers and we were all around more efficient, we baked as many as four or five recipes in our five to six hours.

This year the boys are 16 and 14 ½, and due to scheduling challenges we opted for just cut-out gingerbread cookies with decorative icing and those fabulous chocolate ginger with chocolate chip. The boys helped, the decorating is more creative and avante garde, and we did it all in just under three hours! Wow! What a different 13 years makes!