When I was a little girl, and frankly, until the time I moved away from home (the 2nd time), I would look forward to the month of December, not JUST for Christmas, but for the annual Christmas Eve party at the Rouses’ and the annual Christmas Cookie Decorating party that preceded it .
Imagine if you will, a small 3 bedroom, 1 bath ranch style house with a front door that opened directly into the living room and a side door that opened into a small hallway between the living room and the kitchen. The only reason for this small hallway was to house the door to the basement. The kitchen was about 10 x 10, had only a small counter space in the corner of the kitchen and an even smaller space between the sink and the cabinets to work with. The rest of the room was filled with the table and chairs where the family of 6 ate all their meals. It was in this tiny kitchen, kids from families of 3 different neighborhoods would gather one Saturday afternoon in December to decorate cut out sugar cookies.
Each year, Lisa Rouse would cut out and bake what seemed like hundreds of Christmas cookies. She would make the frosting from scratch using powdered sugar with milk, vanilla and food coloring. She would fill bowls or tea cups with the frosting and give us the food coloring to mix our own colors. There would also be all different kinds of sprinkles and baubles and all the fun other trinkets we may want to bedazzle the cookies with. Lisa would let us eat one or two, but for the most part, as they came off the kid assembly line, they would be stored away for the annual Christmas Eve Dinner. Each kid usually would pick one cookie that would be their “feature” cookie for their parents for the dinner.
I would look forward to this Christmas dinner with such anticipation each year! I couldn’t wait to get down to the Rouse’s house to find my special cookie. This Christmas Dinner was typically for 40 – 50 people. As you can imagine in this small house, there were people everywhere and Lisa would have plates scattered all throughout the house with frosted Christmas cookies on them. You had to get there early if you were going to find your special cookie and be able to give it to your parents before someone ate it. All the kids were doing the same thing. Not unlike a scavenger hunt, we would all be rushing to find our cookie and once found, would run it to our parents so they could save it for their dessert after dinner.
Now I have my own kids and I still love nothing more than to bake cut out sugar cookies and frost them together. We have a big party every year where all the neighbors come by and I always have our frosted cookies out for everyone to enjoy. We eat, drink, and are merry together to ring in the Christmas season, just like at the Rouses house.
I thank Lisa Rouse for all the years she hosted the most wonderful Christmas cookie decorating parties and Christmas Eve parties ever. A Christmas will never go by without me thinking of the wonderful times decorating cookies and spending Christmas eve with all the neighborhood families to walk home late at night with the crunch of snow under our feet, sleep and wake up to surprises left by Santa.