Silver Bells, Vanilla Fudge and Sugar Cookies....

It's that WONDERFUL time of year again. Warmth, tradition, memories and Family. Everything looks beautiful and smells wonderful and life is lived to a soundtrack of merry melodies. Today I found myself alone in the kichen,happily humming silver bells, lost in a haze of sugar, butter and vanilla, around me some of my dearest treasures, old handwritten recipes on yellowed paper. Singing Mama's favorite tune and trying to recreate her masterpiece, old fashioned Vanilla Fudge.

The recipe is just a list of measurements no instructions. Just ingredients. I consider trying to attempt the fudge alone,But remember it's a two person job. I can almost hear Mom saying," you have to beat it until it's glossy."How long? I'd ask...You'll just know she'd say.I loved my Mom's kitchen, Warm cozy and a flurry of activity.She cooked without thinking or measuring a pich of this and a dash of that. Always perfect!But baking was science, (cooking was Art) I looked at my windowsill... there lined up for inspiration, 4 old strawberry measuring cups,vintage, cracked and unable to function except to inspire me.

I admit it I love Christmas and I love baking and candy making.I love it when I'm in the kitchen with her old recipes and ancient mixing bowls faded from use.I love that I still use the old red rolling pin I learned to roll pie crust for tiny pies as a little girl.I remember to use only the old green bowl with little dutch girls for cookies.And bread can only rise in the big brown bowl with wheat painted on it. I enjoy using the old tin cookie cutters when cutting out the best sugar cookies ever. I still make the icing from scratch and tint it all the different colors.I have baked these cookies all my life, in all the stages of my life every year. With my Mom, Dad, my brother and sister, with friends...and one year Mom, my boyfriend (Keith) and I, spent hours decorating them into little works of art.I couldn't wait to make them in my own home one day.But that first year away from home I cried missing her artistic touch.But then the mailman left a box of the perfectly decorated cookies.packed so carefully not one was broken, addressed in that dear familiar handwriting.inclosed were all my favorite ornaments. We hung then tenderly on the tree. And started our own little family celebrations and traditions.

My cookies are never as perfect as hers but taste the same. My girls have been making the cookies from babyhood. at that stage mostly eating the dough and icing. chubby little fingers trying to free the shapes from the cutters in vain. cookies globbed with icing that only a mother could see the beauty in.As they grew the so did their skills until now their's surpass my ability.Tiny reindeers, trees, silver bells, snowmen and stars. twinkling sugared snowflakes and impeccably dressed gingerbresd men.They understand this most important tradition of spending hours bent over the kitchen table,painstakingley creating tiny treasures. Talking, singing and laughing and remembering Christmases past.It keeps us connected to our history and the security that no matter how things change, the cookies and traditions remain the same, we are family and our traditions keep us connected and make us strong.So this morning I waited until Ashton and Hannah sleepily enter the kitchen coaxed by the smells of chocolate fudge cooking on the stove. Then it's the flurry of activity.As Bing Crosby senerades us with silver bells, we reach for the ancient lovingly worn bowls, wooden spoons and old recipe cards and we laugh and share and talk. Hannah starts meticulously dipping pretzels in chocolate and Ashton carefully measures all the ingredients for the famous vanilla fudge, adjusting the heat like a pro and dropping littl bits of the bubbling liquid into ice water to check the consistancy. Then she askes "Mom, how long do I beat it? I reply you'll just know.....

The fudge was perfect and the day was beautiful, BUT....This year I understand the pain my Sweet Mama must have felt my first Christmas away from home.Because Amber is not here to share this sacred ritual, my heart is heavy but I know what I'll do I'll pack them up perfectly, not letting one break and I'll take them to her for Christmas. And I know As long as I live I'll never stop learning new lessons from Mom's kitchen of life.