Making cookies for the holidays is a tradition most families carry out year after year, but for senior Sydney Prasch, it is taken to the next level.
On Saturday, Dec. 8, Prasch and her extended family gathered at 9 in the morning at a cousin’s house to start the largest cookie decorating process.
“I’ve been doing this since I was a child,” Sydney’s aunt Paula Erickson said. “My mom started the tradition when I was younger and then as the years went on I added my own stuff to it. When my kids, nieces, and nephews were old enough, I gave them all a gingerbread apron to wear when they were old enough to bake with me.”
Since they bake over 2,000 cookies each year, Erickson starts baking the cookies earlier in the week. The sugar, peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies are all baked on the Tuesday or Wednesday before and the gingerbread is baked the Friday night before. They do all of this in preparation for the decorating that takes place from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
“For the ingredients we used 44 cups of sugar, 50 sticks of butter, four dozen eggs, 13 and ½ cups of brown sugar, six cups of peanut butter, 18 bags of chocolate chips, five large bags of flour, and 24 pounds of powdered sugar for the frosting,” Erickson said. “All of these ingredients make 36 dozen of sugar, 79 dozen of gingerbread, 21 dozen of peanut butter and 31 dozen chocolate chip cookies making a grand total of 2,011 cookies.”
Each year, Erickson’s daughter Rachel Balias, who has been baking cookies with her mom since she was 3, helps bake all of the cookies along with Erickson’s friends and co-workers.
“My favorite part would be getting together with all of our friends and family,” Balias said. “The holidays can be such a busy time for all of us so it’s nice to be together and do something everyone can participate in. Our immediate family doesn’t get together for Thanksgiving and Christmas day is the only other time we are all together, which is too rushed in itself, so it’s really nice to have a day celebrating everyone and the holidays.”
Although the process of mixing all the ingredients and finding a job for everyone could be stressful, Prasch’s family made it something no one wants to miss out on.
“Over the years it’s expanded to friends and really inviting anyone that is important to us,” Prasch said. “When all of my little cousins started being born we had a lot more hands to help but my cookies always turn out the best. Even though it just seems like decorating, being together like this is one of the best parts of the holidays. I look forward to it every year and it truly means a lot to me. It really puts everyone in the Christmas mood.”
What was once something 3-year-old Prasch attended just to eat the cookie dough when no one was looking, will now be an unforgettable memory that is continuously cherished.
