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All of my childhood Christmases were filled with cookies from my grandmother. She brought up her family on a farm in postwar Missouri. That farm had been in her husband’s family since 1850 and every generation of Jewett children were raised in the same house – my mother being the last. As with all postwar wives, my grandmother spent her early marriage cooking, cleaning, raising children and working around the farm. In the 1950s, she got a new cookie press made by a company called Mirro. The press came with a booklet of recipes and two of those recipes in particular became a big hit in our family. Soon she was expected to bring out the cookie press every Christmas season and the tradition carried on for the next fifty years. She kept the same cookie press all those decades, even when it was held together with masking tape. One year we got her a new press made of plastic and it broke the first year. Things just aren’t made to last anymore.

Here are two recipes that have been part of the Jewett Christmas since the 1950s. Debates rage every year as to whether the wreaths or the trees are better but everybody seems to eat them by the fistful. They are so addictive that I advise people to just double or triple the recipes right away or you’ll be in the kitchen every week making more.

Tomorrow I will post a gingerbread men recipe, a Russian tea cookie recipe, and a very old sugar cookie recipe.

HOLLY WREATHS

1/2 cup butter
1/2 (3 oz.) pkg. cream cheese
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Cream butter, cream cheese and sugar well. Beat in vanilla. Gradually blend in flour. Fill cookie press. Form cookies on ungreased cookie sheets using star plate #2. Hold press in semi-horizontal position and form wreaths by moving press in a circular motion. Gently push ends of dough together to form wreaths. Bake 8-10 minutes. Remove at once to cooling racks. Yield: 2 dozen.

CHRISTMAS TREES

1 cup shortening
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon almond extract
green food coloring
2 1/4 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Cream the shortening and add sugar gradually. Add the egg and almond extract and beat the mixture very well. (Stir in green food coloring a drop at a time until the desired color.) Sift flour, baking powder and salt and gradually add to the first mixture. Stir until blended well. Fill a MIRRO Cookie press. Form cookies in desired shapes onto ungreased cookie sheets, decorate with candies and bake at 375 degrees F for 10-12 minutes.