I haven't made Christmas Cut-out Cookies yet!

And they are Santa's favorite!!

The days preceding Christmas are flying by and I still haven't checked off

everything on my list.

- Decorate the house and put up the tree. Check. The girls were extremely helpful this year and put ALL of the ornaments on the tree. And I didn't bother rearranging a thing. I must be mellowing in my old age.

- Make Mom's chocolate nut fudge. Check

- Make Mom's 7 layer bars. Check.

- Make Peanut butter blossom cookies (also mom's). Check

- Purchase gifts for teachers and staff. Check and DONE!!

- Purchase presents for family -- including the items that the girls told Santa they wanted. Check. I think. The list keeps growing. I saw a letter that Vivian wrote to Santa at pre-school the other day asking for a Princess Barbie and a couple of other things. I didn't know anything about a damned Princess Barbie! That's the first I heard of it. She told Mall Santa that she wanted "a little teapot" (also news to me.) Audrey said she "ordered" a Nintendo DSi . . . as if she made a few clicks on Amazon.com.

- Wrap millions and millions of things. Almost check. I got a LOT done last night when my dear friend Sara invited the girls over to her house for a few hours after school. Thank you Brennen for being one of Audrey's besties.

- Make "dough balls" for Christmas morning. Ingredients have been purchased. Check.

- Make Santa's favorite cookies. ACK! I can't believe I have yet to make the quintessential Christmas cut-out cookies! I guess I know what we're doing during the day on Christmas Eve!

And instead of my mom's recipe, Curt insists that I have to follow his mom's recipe. Good enough. They all the look the same and it's the only thing he has had a strong opinion about. Except that I couldn't find the recipe.

Curt dug it up in an email he received from his mom in 2007. Lest I lose it again, I'm placing it on this blog for safe-keeping.

Christmas Cutout Cookies

1 Cup Butter 1 tstp vanilla

1 ½ Cups white sugar 3 eggs

3 ½ cups flour 2 tsps cream of tartar

1 tsp Soda ½ tsp salt

Cream the butter, sugar, eggs, salt and vanilla well. Best to use mixer but not necessary. Add the flour, soda, and cream of tartar by hand. Mix by hand. Chill dough. Roll out and cut with cookie cutters or by hand. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 7 to 8 minutes at 375 degrees.

Let the baked cookies sit for a couple of minutes before removing them from the cookie sheet, as they need to firm a bit.

These are really good cookies. You can handle and re-handle the dough and the little chunks of dough that are leftover from each cutting.

UPDATED POST:

Here are some pictures of what OUR cookies looked like!!