Holiday Cookie Traditions
Ouita’s decades old passed down cookie recipes. Photo by Talitha Schroeder
Oh my, it’s Christmas cookie weather! In Truman Capote’s classic short story “A Christmas Memory”, he writes lovingly and lyrically about making fruitcakes with his elderly cousin. We have equally fond memories of baking cookies and other holiday treats with our own kin and now is the time of year when we peek around the Thanksgiving corner and start making plans.
At Holly Hill Inn, after her daughter Willa was born, Ouita set aside an afternoon every December to stir up a batch or two of her family’s Damn Good Sugar Cookie recipe and roll out dozens of angels and snowmen and stars and Christmas trees. Willa and her friends decorated the freshly baked cookies in a kitchen full of chatter and laughter and music.
Ouita says, “In our family, we have always LOVED Christmas cookies. My cookie recipes go back several generations. My Grandmother was never without a cookie in her cookie jar.”
We share Ouita’s grandmother’s recipe, written down by her mother, Pam Sexton, and maternal grandmother and namesake, Ouita Peyton. Ouita still has the original handwritten recipe card and it’s one of her most treasured kitchen mementos.
Our own commercial cookie baking enterprise was launched back in 2011 by Sara Gibbs and Julie Grant. Working with a home-sized electric oven and military precision in the little cottage kitchen at Woodford Reserve, they devised an ingenious system for making, baking and freezing dough, then packaging the finished cookies.
Monday and Tuesday were for making and freezing the dough, Wednesday and Thursday were baking days, Friday saw the finished cookies packaged for the weekend. Sara focused on combining just the right assortment of flavors, textures and shapes, while Julie perfected packaging techniques still in use today at the Midway Bakery. And Julie’s teen-aged daughter pitched in by folding stacks of boxes in front of the TV each night.
Sara says they selected cookies based on a variety of flavors and textures. The cranberry vanilla shortbreads were an early and enduring hit and are still included in every holiday box, alongside Ouita’s Damn Good Sugar Cookies and other traditional favorites. Although she lives in Florida now, Sara hasn’t stopped making cookies to share with friends and family. She’s already checking out her grandma’s recipe box and ready to start testing with a focus group of lucky neighbors.
Today all our cookies are made at our Midway Bakery, where manager Sandy Allison says the holiday bakers slip in after hours, like so many elves, and transform the bakery into a cookie factory. Pretty soon, they’re in a groove as everyone scoops and bakes and bakes and scoops to the sounds of Christmas music.
And at a time when many small-town and rural post offices are closing, we’re proud to support our Midway Post Office (full-time staff of two) by shipping all our cookies and other treats from our 40347 zip code. They’ve even loaned us a mail cart and learned to keep an eye out for our afternoon shipments so we don’t miss USPS driver Jennie’s 4:30 pickup.
Whether you’re knocking on a neighbor’s door or sending a box across the country, who doesn’t like to give and receive cookies? Nothing matches the sheer cheer of holiday cookies, sparkling with red and green sugar, redolent of vanilla, studded with nuts and dried fruits.
We hope you’ll try your hand at Ouita’s Damn Good Sugar Cookies or your own family favorite this season. Slip Grandma’s apron over your head; get the oven going; queue up your Christmas favorites; and whisk yourself away in a sugary cloud of sweet memories. Grandmothers everywhere will approve.
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