Holiday Must-Have

Day 56: As I grew older, I came to realize something: traditions change. St. Nicholas no longer throws a bag of candy through the back door. Santa doesn't come down the chimney. The screw bases on the old lights don't fit the new strings. The ancient glass ornaments shed their paint like dandruff and are replaced by sets of plastic apples and handmade velvet baubles, which in turn are replaced by wooden birds. Conscience rears its head to dictate that killing a tree is a grievous sin, and an artificial one takes its place. Even now, my traditions are in flux. I've stopped sending cards or even a Christmas letter. The sisters-of-the-heart have decided that this will be our last "12 Days" gift exchange. The tree and almost all the decorations will stay in their boxes because it would be unfair to spend the season reprimanding a small cat for being a cat. But spritz? It's not Christmastime without spritz. I almost always make them on St. Nicholas' Day (I decorated this batch this morning). Sometimes, a week or two later, I make Russian tea cakes (aka "Sandies"), but they are not as traditional as spritz. It may be a small straw, but holding onto it gives me hope.

St. Nicholas' Day Spritz

Day 55: The Midwinter/Christmas holiday season has officially kicked off with the baking of spritz for St.. Nicholas' Day. I make 3-5 different shapes, and although I put Sprinx on top of most of them, if I have candied cherries or fruitcake fruit, the "wreath" gets that in the center. We have a list of dangerous words here: spritz, Sprinx and "sprinkles," i.e., the Fancy Feast "gourmet" kibble Merry regards as a treat. I have to be extra careful when muttering to myself so that he doesn't misunderstand what's about to happen. In any event, the cookies will be decorated either tonight or tomorrow (probably tomorrow, because 3 PM kinda sneaked up on me today). Happy St. Nicholas' Day!

Tree, No; Spritz, Yes!

Day 57: With a 12-pound, 8 month old Mischief Monster in the house, I am forgoing a Christmas tree for the first time in my adult life. There was once when abject poverty meant the tree consisted of a two-foot high "skunk spruce" decorated with buttons, but every other year, I've put up a full-sized (as in "ceiling-scraper") tree. They've been artificial since I was in my 30's, torn between the ecological conundrum of whether to kill a living being or to support the plastics industry, and I have to admit it's not something I've completely resolved in my mind even now. In any event, the question is resolved this year. I do not want to spend the holidays yelling at my little babycat. It wouldn't be fair to him or to me. That said, it ain't Christmas without Spritz. I usually make them on St. Nicholas' Day (December 6), but got a bit behind and didn't bake until the following morning. My recipe is adapted from the good old red-and-white buffalo-check Better Homes and Gardens cookbook to use 1 cup butter and 1/2 cup margarine to obtain the flavour and texture I prefer, and of course they are lavishly (and I mean lavishly!) dipped in sanding sugar or topped with a candied cherry or fruit peels.

St. Nicholas' Day

Day 54: For me, the holiday season begins on St. Nicholas' Day, December 6, and it is observed by baking one of two types of cookie, usually spritz. Sometimes, I start off with sandies (aka Russian tea cakes), but they are something that I occasionally make at other times in the year. Spritz are only made for the holidays. While other people make spritz (and usually for Christmas parties), I happen to think mine are the best. Why? Because I don't skimp on those sugar sparkles. My mother used to say that a thing worth doing ws worth doing well, and I firmly believe that applies to dipping buttery, rich spritz in crystalline sugar. Go whole hog, or don't bother going! Otherwise, today also marks when I start decorating the house...but first I think I'll have a nap to sleep off all that sugar.

St. Nicholas Day Tradition

Day 54: Happy St. Nicholas Day! For me, the 6th of December marks the start of the holiday season. As a youngster, the occasion meant a visit from St. Nicholas...not Santa Claus, not Father Christmas, but a figure somewhere between the two, with a blush of St. Francis of Assisi thrown in for spice. I pictured St. Nicholas as physically resembling Father Christmas: tall, thin, heavily and luxuriously robed, bearded, and with a wreath of holly and mistletoe on his head. His companions were the forest creatures, chipmunks at his feet, birds on his shoulders, deer following adoringly behind as he made his evening rounds to the children of the world. He did not bring toys, clothes or the other trappings one would expect from Santa's bag. Instead, he brought sweets and fruit: mandarin oranges, chewy dates and figs, ribbon candy, crystallized maple sugar in the shape of leaves. I never knew which door he'd open, but it always seemed to be the one farthest from where I was waiting to hear the "thunk" of a sackful of goodies hitting the floor when he tossed it inside. And oddly enough, my father always seemed to miss the event, having excused himself to visit the kitchen or bath. Today, I celebrate St. Nicholas Day with a tradition I began in adulthood. To open the holidays, I bake one of my favourite cookies, either Spritz or Russian Tea Cakes. I think St. Nicholas would approve.

Cookie!

Day 52: The world is a pretty grim place right now, so I decided to get a tiny little head start on the holidays by making spritz. Normally, I wouldn't start my holiday baking until St. Nicholas' Day when spritz or sandies would kick off the season. However, I'd run myself out of cookies, and since I am the original Cookie Monster, I had a good excuse. There was just one hitch: margarine. The recipe calls for three sticks, leaving it up to the cook to decide whether they want to use butter, margarine. or a combination of the two. For decades...decades!...I've made spritz using one cube of margarine and two of butter. I seldom use margarine anywhere else, except in my chocolate chip cookies. And now, stick margarine has all but disappeared from grocery store shelves, with the exception of that branded Imperial.

I don't know what they put in Imperial, but a few months ago when I made my first batch of chocolate chip cookies using it, they flattened out to wafers with little chocolate mountains poking up. Not only were they flat, they didn't taste like they should have done. I tried to find another brand of stick margarine, and that's when I realized there was a problem. Apparently, no one is making it now. Several experiments later, I found that by adding almost a full cup extra of flour, they were at least edible. So why did I dive right into spritz without thinking about that?

I thought the dough looked and felt off in the mixer bowl, but when I tried to put it through the cookie press, it became obvious that it was just too gooey. I put it back on the mixer and added flour...roughly an additional 3/4 cup to the 4 cups specified in the recipe...until it reached the right consistency. Perhaps I could have added another 1/4 cup of sugar as well (I'll do that next time). Imperial margarine is a royal disaster.

Traditions

Day 59: Traditions are an important part of life, not only for the sense of bonding which they carry but also as something to anticipate with joy and hope. When one lives alone, the former is diminished by lack of connection, but there is no reason not to exploit the latter to its fullest benefit. As I have said before, I do not celebrate Christmas in the religious definition. I do put up a tree and I do exchange gifts with a small circle of friends, but my solemn observation is reserved for the Solstice. And without family to participate in Yuletide sing-alongs or elaborate Christmas dinners, I have had to create my own personal set of traditions, one of which is the making of spritz. I make them only at Christmastime, and not a single soul is here to reproach me for my lavish use of sprinkles. I've seen far too many cookies which appeared to have made the briefest pass through the coloured sugar, picking up only the few grains which allowed them to say, "Look! I'm festive!" Nope, in this household, you get sprinkles, lots of sprinkles to give that sugary crunch to rich almond-flavoured dough. Once a year is not such a sinful indulgence, is it?

Getting A Jump On St. Nick

Day 52: St. Nicholas' Day (December 6) normally initiates the cookie-baking season in my kitchen, but this year I got the jump on St. Nick with a batch of premature spritz. Spritz are one of my two favourite Christmas cookies, the other known variously as Russian tea cakes, sandies or snowballs. The holidays are not fully in sway until both varieties are baked, bagged and frozen. Spritz are a bit of a pain to make, but not nearly as much so these last couple of years as previously. I invested in a trigger-operated cookie gun which spits out uniform bits of molded dough with each individual click. The secret to success lies in having the cookie sheets cold when the dough is extruded onto them; the chilled surface makes them adhere. I put my heavyweight pans in the freezer the night before, and shooting cookies was an absolute breeze the following morning. The crunch of abundant crystal sugar provides texture to the rich, buttery, almond-flavoured cookies. I was delighted to find it in colours other than red and green this year. I mean, whoever heard of a green snowflake outside of politics?

Christmas Cookies

Day 56: Given that I was otherwise engaged the last two days, I did not start my Christmas baking on St. Nicholas Day as I normally do. However, at the crack of dawn this morning (slightly before, if the truth be told), I had spritz in the oven. Cookie Monster that I am, these will now become my default lunch until they're gone, perhaps alternating with Russian tea cakes ("pecan sandies"). The holidays are not complete without both sweet dainties, and if nutrition suffers a bit in favour of indulgence...well, it hasn't killed me yet.

Last year, I invested in a new trigger-style cookie press (Oxo) and I couldn't be happier with it. There is much less waste than there was with my old Super Shooter, and the cookies are much more uniform. Just to show that old dogs can learn new tricks, I took to heart a hint from the Oxo recipe booklet and now chill my cookie sheets beforehand. I was surprised to see how much more readily the dough adheres to the metal. The new press makes it so easy that it's a wonder I've managed to refrain from making spritz more often!

Traditions

Day 55: Okay, call me a sappy sentimentalist if you will, but even though there's no one around to share them with me, there are certain traditions I observe in connection with the holidays. One of them is baking cookies on St. Nicholas Day, and it usually takes form as Spritz, those wonderfully almondy, butter-rich "cookie-press" cookies. I'm always rather heavy-handed with the sugar sparkles...cookies should be festive, don't you agree?...and in the days that follow, I will ration myself to no more than half a dozen each day in the interest of keeping my uniform trousers zippable.

Baking Day

Day 64: Is there a more homey fragrance than that of baked goods hot from the oven? The aromas of buttery spritz cookies and nutty "birdseed bread" fill my house on this cold December day. I got a little ahead of myself with this project. I don't usually start baking until St. Nicholas' Day, but the chill in the weather wanted something to cut through its bite, if only psychologically.

To my way of thinking, baking is a spiritually uplifting occupation. It is impossible to be downhearted when creating cookies, or dismal when handling bread dough. The golden warmth of crust and crumb brighten the kitchen and the soul. When the garden lacks gaily colored flowers, let the sideboard bloom with plates of spritz dipped in crystal sugar, festive and bright, and don't let Jack Frost put a damper on your cheer!