FILLING COOKIE TINS A FAVORITE HOLIDAY RITUAL

Bringing up the cookie tins is a ritual at my house almost akin to trimming the tree. It is probably the first act of the joyous season, for a lot of the cookies, especially the lebkuchen and fruit cake ones need to ripen.

The cookie tins have their own special niche in the wide basement shelves, that being any empty space I can find to place them when they are washed and put away in January. During the rummaging and shifting about the rest of the year, they may have moved a considerable distance and even be turned upside down.

So, on a bright, sunny but frosty morning near the first of December, I set aside some time to bring them up. Sometimes I bring only two at a time lest, if more than that, they slide around and go smash as I mount the creaking stairs. Or is it my knees?

The tins have been accumulated over many years. One is dark red, very plain, with some dull worn spots on the bottom.

It is of WWII era when there wasn't a lot of time for folderols and decorations. The plainness of it makes me think of molasses cookies for there wasn't much sugar at WWII time and we made do with molasses and honey if we could find any. The molasses and maple syrup had to be man processed, but honey, if one kept hives or found a bee tree, was already made for us.

I dutifully make a small batch of molasses cookies not that I like them so much but because they evoke memories of a time even farther back than WWII. WWI? Sure, I dimly remember them, a great relief they were from the brown biscuits. Neighbor Harvey had a sorghum mill and I rode with Grandpa every year to get our two gallons of sorghum.

The cookie tin that I like best is the Currier and Ives one. The lid is a picture of a horse drawn sleigh full of people, red scarves flying. They are, evidently, in a hurry to get home to the distant house to have warm drinks and butter cookies.

I make my butter cookies and put them in that tin, although never can I make them as good as Thomza's. I think her secret is a dash or two of nutmeg.

One cookie tin appears to be cross-stitched with a variety of flowers. Fancy cookies go into this tin - little green Christmas wreaths with coconut whiskers sticking out all around, tiny Christmas trees trimmed with sugar baubles, stars, angels, snowmen. It is the only tin that will contain mixed cookies. To put molasses cookies in with lebkuchens is an insult to both.

The big oval shaped tin has always been saved for the lebkuchens. This gift tin, gold colored inside, once contained cheeses, nutmeats, pickles, etc. The scenes on both top and bottom are reminiscent of snowy streets in possibly Paris or London. If you don't think of Christmas just looking at the container, just wait until it is opened. Out comes the essence of Christmas baking itself. You can almost see it in the air, little misty streams of spices, vaporous aromas of candied oranges, pineapples, citron, honey and sorghum.

Each year I try to make a new cookie, but I don't get a new tin for them, lest the basement shelves break down. I have found that some of the best recipes are to be found on the backs of flour or sugar sacks. These culinary companies don't just slap on any old recipe on their containers. They're tried and not found wanting. One of the best cookie recipes I've found lately was on the Gold Medal sack, called simply, Hedda's Cookies. One cup each of sugar and shortening. One egg. One teaspoon almond abstract. one and a half cups flour, one half teaspoon salt. Two cups flaked coconut. 350 degree, ten to fifteen minutes. You cooks will know how to proceed. Put in a separate cookie tin!

REJOICE!