Christmas Book | Bobbi Ann Johnson Holmes

Christmas is just eleven days away, and if you’re looking for a cozy Christmas book to curl up with, check out The Ghost Who Came for Christmas.

While I advise reading the books in the Haunting Danielle series in order (this is Book 6), it isn’t critical for enjoying the story.

With a house full over the Christmas holiday, Danielle has been spending a great deal of her time baking—recreating culinary memories and holiday traditions from her childhood. One of those is a chocolate drop cookie borrowed from my own childhood.

If you are in the mood for baking, here’s the recipe.

Chocolate Drop Cookies

This cookie was a Christmas tradition when I was a child. During the holidays my paternal grandmother, Madeline, would fill a roasting pan with chocolate chip cookies and the chocolate drop cookie. My father (the original Walt) loved both, yet I believe the chocolate drop was his favorite. These are moist cake-like cookies, a delight to any chocolate lover! But don’t over-bake!

1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 egg (beaten)
1/2 cup milk
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda (dissolved in 1/2 teaspoon of warm water)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 squares (2 ounces) unsweetened chocolate (melted)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 375º. Cream together sugar and shortening. Stir in egg, milk, then remaining ingredients, one by one. Blend well. Drop by teaspoonful on cookie sheet. Bake for 8-9 minutes (Do not overcook!) Frost while warm. About 3 dozen cookies.

Chocolate Drop Cookie Frosting

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3 to 4 tablespoons cream or milk
2 squares unsweetened chocolate (melted)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Blend together sugar and cream. Add melted chocolate, stir well. Add vanilla, mix thoroughly. Frost warm cookies.

Before we wrap up the year there is one thing we always do—write in our Christmas Book. It’s a family tradition we started 24 years ago. The Christmas Book is something like an annual family diary. Initially, it began by each member in the family sitting down on Christmas night and writing a page in the book. Our daughter was nine when we started the tradition, and our son was twelve. In those first years, they normally told about gifts they received along with drawings. For Don and I, we recapped Christmas and the year.

One might assume I started the tradition; after all, I’m the writer in the family. But actually, it was my husband, who wanted to start a Christmas family tradition of our own.

When our children became adults and moved out of the house, they would write in the book when they came home for Christmas—and when they married, I gave them their own books. I don’t think they are as faithful as we are in writing in their books, and I think someday they will regret not capturing all those memories. Of course, they’ve spent the last few years with a cell phone in their hand—one with a camera—so their lives are pretty much captured in pictures.

Pictures are nice—but so is a written account of our lives—something we have in our Christmas Book.

Stay safe tonight—and Happy New Year!

(Photo: Don, Scott, and Elizabeth, the first year writing in the family’s Christmas Book. 1991, Wrightwood, California.)