Oh, Cookie Day!

It happens once a year in houses all over the country. Sisters, grandmothers, aunts and friends gather together at the crack of dawn with age old recipes and a pot of coffee brewing. Armed with butter and parchment paper we retreat to the kitchen. No one will escape without a thorough coating of flour on their pants and in their hair.

It's cookie day!!

This year my best friend came down from Los Angeles to have cookie day at my house. We used some of her favorite family recipes and some I gathered together, 7 total kinds of treats. She brought her pup, Charlie, and we put on the Christmas music and got to work.

We only really took one break for lunch. Brian ordered pizza for dinner and we took bites in between rolling dough and taking sheets out of the oven. Ten hours later we had 34 dozen cookies and 2 trays of bark, and we only sacrificed three broken cookies. She says we're rock stars. She's right.

Some of the fruits of our labor. Photo courtesy of Allison Walentowicz