As a young girl, I loved spending Saturday mornings with my dad at his work. He always took the Saturday shift at the local hardware store, and going with him meant a day of adventure for me!
There were so many trinkets in the store. The ones that grabbed my attention and affection early on were the cookie cutters. Every time I earned enough money, I would buy a cookie cutter.
Through my childhood and teen years to young adulthood, I continued to add cookie cutters to my collection. I accumulated more than 200 of them – all shapes, sizes and types!
Eventually, two of my closest girlfriends got married and had children. When these kids were about 5, I decided to give the parents a break during the holiday season and invite the kids over to make cut-out cookies. The parents were grateful for an adult evening of dinner and shopping.
The kids and I had so much fun. There was flour everywhere and the laughter didn’t stop for one minute. And I think those kids ate more cookies than they took home with them!
Sometime in my 40s, one of the “kids” was getting married. I decided along with a wedding gift that I would give her some of the cookie cutters. You would have thought I had given her the world! She remembered the cookie-cutter party with such great fondness that she promised when she had children she would do the same thing. And she has – as have all of the rest. Each of them married and with their gift came a box of cookie cutters.
Now they get to pass on the tradition and fun of cutting out cookies. The grandparents even join in. They love sharing the memory of how the cookie cutters came to be a part of their family holiday traditions.
Here are some other ways to incorporate cookie cutters into your holiday traditions:
- Make homemade holiday candles from honeycomb wax sheets.
- Fill with birdseed to make an outdoor bird feeder.
- String them together to make a wreath.
- Use them to organize candy in a gift tin.
- Make cute felt ornaments.
- Make Rice Krispie treat pops.
- Give them as a gift with a bag of sugar cookie mix.
- Make Christmas mini-pizzas.
And of course…
- Use them to make dog biscuits!
