I think the ones with cream of tartar are the best tasting Patti....thats just my opinion though. I have a cut out cookie receipe from my MIL thats good. I will run and get it. Christmas Cookies 1/2 cup butter 1/2 cup shortening 1 cup sugar 3 eggs 3 1/2 cups flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 2 teaspoon cream of tartar 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla Cream together butter, shortening and sugar, add eggs. Blend well, add vanilla. Sift together flour, soda and cream of tartar. You can chill the dough or chill half while rolling out the other half. I usually am in too big of hurry! LOL Bake at 375 degree oven 10-12 minutes. Butter Frosting 3 tablespoons soft butter or margarine 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar about 3 tablespoons cream 1 teaspoon vanilla For color add your choice of food coloring

Almond horns, made with almond paste. They are sooo delicious, I only make them once a year because we always manage to eat them up within a day or two. 1 box Almond Paste, grated (I use Odense, I think it's 7 ounces) 3/4 cup confectionary sugar 1 large egg (room temperature), separated 1 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons all-purpose flour 1 cup thinly sliced almonds, slightly crushed 4 oz bittersweet chocolate DIRECTIONS Line cookie sheet with parchment or foil. In a food processor or with a mixer combine Almond Paste and sugar. Mix until the texture of fine crumbs. Add egg white and flour, reserving yolk. Mix until dough becomes a smooth paste, it will be slightly sticky. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. With floured hands roll dough into a 12 inch log. Divide into 12 equal pieces and roll into balls. Roll balls between palms into 3 inch logs, slightly tapered at ends. Spread almonds on a plate. Beat reserved egg yolk with 2 tablespoons of water. Dampen log with beaten yolk. Roll each log in almonds until coated, bending into crescents. Place crescents 2 inches apart on cookie sheet and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 F. Bake 12 to 14 minutes or until light golden in color. Cool sheet on wire rack for 5 minutes, and loosen crescents with a spatula. Slide parchment off of sheet and back onto wire rack to finish cooling cookies. Melt chocolate in a double boiler or microwave. Dip cookie ends into melted chocolate. Place back on parchment until chocolate is dry. Layer 'Almond Horns' between sheets of wax paper in an airtight container.

Ahhhh, Hi Alice. Haven't seen you in a while. Yes, we tell people to just SOB but when you've read the same post for years, we have a tendency to want to reach out and slap some sense into a fellow KTer. How hard is it to be grateful for the little things? (and I'm not saying $100 is a little thing). But evidently SamKaren has been there 13 years....she shouldn't expect anything more. I'm sorry she's unhappy with her Christmas gifts or rather, the lack of appreciation she feels from the departments. And since I'm not there to observe their working relationship, I'll just say this: I've been in secretarial jobs before and I certainly didn't receive or expect gifts from everyone in the department. Some people's glass will always be half empty or even cracked. We can continue to fill it for them over and over or help them fix their glass. Sometimes "handholding" just doesn't help. I do wonder if her unhappiness is apparent in her relationship with her co-workers? If she's truly that unhappy, perhaps she should look for a job where she will feel more appreciated. Me? I have two sons in college with the next semesters tuition due soon so my DH and I didn't exchange gifts. It was a quiet Christmas with friends and family. With the cost of everyday living rising with no end in sight, I think a lot of people are trimming their gift giving budget. I don't base how good my Christmas was on what I received. It makes me sad that year after year, SamKaren feels jilted by her co-workers. That's not what Christmas is about.

The week before Christmas my father, God bless him, used to take one night after work to make Spritz cookies with us kids. It was always green Christmas Trees and pink Flowers. They went into foil lined tins that my grandmother saved from the very old days of fruit cake or purchased "fancy cookie" giving. I have the blue container that looks like Wedgwood. In 1965 part of our Christmas present was my parents getting tickets for us to go see THE SOUND OF MUSIC over an hour away in the next state. It snowed that entire day but my "never day die" father didn't falter and we were some of the only people on the road that night. My mother brought the cookie tins and passed out those green and pink Spritz cookies to all of us through the movie. Precious memory...