1 lb. butter
1 egg
2 tsp almond flavoring
2 cups sugar
6 or so cups flour (until the dough is filled out crumbly)

press dough evenly into sandbakkel tins - too thick and they don't cook well, too thin and they break when you try to get them out of the tins

350 degrees at 15-20 minutes

This is more or less what I had written down, but what it doesn't tell you is where I hide the Sandbakkel tins from Christmas to Christmas, or that there's always too much dough and not enough enthusiasm for the entire batch, or that by the end of it your hands ache and your thumbs are raw from trying to gently press on the razor-sharp edges of the sandbakkel tins.

But when you sit down and eat all the broken bits of cookies that didn't make it out of the tin whole, with a steaming cup of coffee, and especially on a wintry day, well, it was all worth it. And what's better is you can sing carols and share stories while you work.

Clint needed to work on the game for tomorrow (God I hope we get to game and no more snow falls!) so he basically made the dough for me and then the girls and I made the cookies.

First I had the girls sing along to the CD soundtrack for "Hotel Bethlehem" which is the church musical the youth are putting on Monday night. I have to admit, it's a cute soundtrack, but the title makes me try to fit it into "Hotel California" in my head, which never works. B is one of 3 maids who don't have solos, but get to sing backup, Diana Ross-style. T has the part of the stable boy, a Boy Soprano, and she has two solos. I've worked with her on proper breathing and raising her eyebrows to make sure those low notes don't go flat. I've picked up a few tricks over the years, but I'm hardly the best voice coach. (Especially now, as I continue to recover from my own voice problems. Today I sang ok, but it's hit or miss and I can't figure out why I have good days and why I have bad days, voice-wise. To say it's simply frustrating is just..!)

Then we listened to a CD of choral songs and tried to sing along. The balance is all wrong on that CD - I should just chuck it.

In between I told them that I got the recipe from my mom, who got it from my Dad's mom, and who knows how far back it goes on that family tree to Sweden? I can pull out my copy of Matilda's Journey and look it up later. All I know is the tins have been passed down, and some new ones acquired at times, so some are old and spotted and some are shiny and new (and extra sharp).

One of them - I think T - asked "So that means we're part Swedish?" "Well," I replied, "Not really. You're so American that the Swedish part  is less than a tenth, I think. But we can enjoy the cookies."

It was 6 inches of slushy, melting snow outside, and sweet cookie memories inside. And I really need to make sure we do this at least once a year, if for no other reason than so the girls learn the proper depth to make the sandbakkels!