The holidays are here and I’m in the mood for baking cookies!

This is my favorite time of the year for baking. Sometimes I need to reign myself in so I don’t overdo it. After all, who is going to eat all those cookies in a 2-person household?

Fortunately for me, my husband has quite the sweet tooth, and he’s only too happy to sample what I bake.

This year, however, I’ve decided to cut back on the excess of sweet treats – a bit of a challenge, given the holiday tradition in my family which goes back to our German roots.

This tradition involves an individual plate of Christmas cookies – yes, every member of the family gets their very own plate of cookies on Christmas morning, to eat as they choose.

Growing up, this was often the most exciting part of the holiday!

My mother would assemble the cookie plates on Christmas Eve, and we weren’t allowed to see them until morning. We even had special, Christmas themed holiday plates – just for the occasion.

As an interior designer, I understand how the needs of our families often change over the years, and our traditional way of doing things evolves – as new ideas present themselves.

Or, as so often happens in our homes, we simply want to ‘freshen’ the look.

Which is why, I’ve decided to make two changes this year:

• The first, is to bake less.
• The second, is to switch from paper Christmas themed plates to a more eco-friendly, re-usable choice – fine china. (Mostly because said paper plates, which have been re-used year after year, are looking a little ragged around the edges).

One thing, however, will never change, and that is my homemade Lebkuchen cookies – which I bake every Christmas.

For anyone not familiar with Lebkuchen, it is a German honey-spice cake – a thicker, chewy cookie filled with traditional Christmas spices like cinnamon and cloves.

In my pre-gluten-free days, we always had store-bought Lebkuchen.

However, years ago I came across this recipe from Sunset magazine, and I have faithfully baked these cookies every year since – to serve alongside the store-bought version.

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