When my Grandmother Crawford passed away, I inherited her Spritz cookie press. Grandmother baked Spritz cookies for Christmas every year. When my sisters and brother and I were young, we lived in Nebraska, as did Grandm other.  In the weeks leading up to the holiday, we could be found at her house, or ours, crowded nose-high around the kitchen table watching her squeeze the buttery batter onto the waiting cookie sheets.  Spritz cookies are tricky. The dough has to be just the right consistency and the cook has to have just the right touch to form the perfect cookie. Sometimes Grandmother added green food coloring to the dough, adding a bit of realism to the trees and wreaths. Once a sheet was full we took over, showering the  stars, trees, or snowmen with red or green sugar crystals, multi-colored sprinkles, or chocolate-shots. Our pudgy fingers pressed shiny silver balls into the tippy-tops of equally pudgy trees.

  By the time I reached my teens we had moved to Washington and Grandmother gave up trying to send individualized gifts to her offspring. But for many more years, and until shortly before her death, we received a Christmas box which had traveled fifteen hundred miles from Grand Island to Seattle filled with Spritz cookies—each one lovingly decorated by her great-grandchildren—my cousin’s children—and individually wrapped to protect it for the journey. 

When I think of Christmas gifts from my childhood, why do these inexpensive cookies come to mind before bed-wetting dolls, miniature china sets or tricycles? Because they were a part of tradition. Without tradition to ground us holidays become trivial and boring. Traditions are the warmth and spirit of holidays. It doesn't matter what the tradition is, its familiarity evokes inner peace and closeness to others involved.

  I am reminded of a story I heard about a teenaged boy who felt he had outgrown the traditional family birthday dinner gathering with cake, grandparents and song. He insisted he didn't want to be subjected to that baby stuff.  With great wisdom his parents complied with his wishes. When the family sat down to dinner on his birthday, it was treated as any other evening meal. No favorite foods, no cake and ice cream, and no gifts. With respect to the last item the boy expressed surprise and dismay. But his parents calmly explained that the gifts were a part of the tradition. He was not going to be allowed to select the birthday traditions a la carte to suit his own needs, but must accept the entire package. 

Although I thought this very clever and appropriate, I do have to admit that through the years we have added, deleted and modified our traditions to meet the needs of the ever changing family situations. With rare exception, we have cut our tree in the same lot for fifteen years. We acquire one or two new ornaments each year, but for the most part the same ones hang on the tree year after year. We have not had a train under the tree in several years, but we do have an alpine mountain-side of lighted houses. We still get together with my husband's family on Christmas Eve, but not always at Grandma's house. We still open gifts on Christmas morning fortified with cups of coffee or cocoa, but Bingo has supplanted Hollywood Poker on Christmas afternoon.

  The overriding tradition of Christmas remains the same. Family. There is no question that the bulk of the time will be spent with grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers and sisters. We are most fortunate because the true spirit of Christmas—with its atmosphere of goodwill and cheer—prevails. Arguments, rancor, bitterness, jealousy and other negative emotions have no place and generally do not surface. The sense of connectedness is paramount and foremost.

  Perhaps that is why the cookies from Nebraska  first came to  mind. They reminded me of relatives and mutual love that spanned half a continent and four generations. I know from experience that Spritz cookies are time-consuming to make, delicate to package, and costly to mail. But as Grandmother worked, I know she was thinking fondly of her faraway son, daughter-in-law and precious grandchildren.