Between work and school and trying to keep my house from becoming a hazardous waste site, it’s been difficult for me to even begin to think about how to make the holidays something special for my kids. Now, holidays will come and go whether I do something about them or not, and I’ve had years where I barely get presents wrapped before Christmas morning, and years where Santa forgot whose present was whose or even which stocking belonged to which kid. I always try to make sure Christmas is special, but sometimes it’s a struggle. Recently, however, I changed jobs and reduced my work hours (and my pay! ugh), and I’ve started feeling better about preparing for the holidays. I decided that this year, we will prepare for Christmas by making a different Christmas related recipe each day starting December 1st and ending on December 24th. I guess I decided to make up for all the years I had mediocre holidays in one month!

I so browsed cookbooks, recipe cards, and the internet and curated 24 different recipes to try to make before Christmas. I did the shopping, and I noted which recipes I felt I could do the first week. Now, I’m not entirely crazy, I did make sure to have a few recipes that don’t require a lot of time or prep, because I do have kids, and I do still have to go to work. But still, I started to think maybe I had bit off more than I could chew. None the less, I selected pfeffernusse for my first recipe. I don’t know why. I’ve never made pfeffernusse before. At least it was a Sunday, so if everything went sideways I had time to regroup and try again. With that in mind I started mixing up the dough around 11am Sunday morning. Only to realize after I added the last ingredient, that the next step said “refrigerate overnight”. Folks, this is why it is always important to read every step of the instruction manual before pushing the start button.

Through the whole mixing process my kids were great! The first thing you need to know about my kids is they like to help. Love to help even. If momma is doing something, they are right there, offering their grimy hands to stir or kneed or taste or what have you. But today was great! They willingly washed up when I asked, they took turns bringing me ingredients, they even helped each other find what I needed. I was starting to think we were making wonderful Christmas memories together.

Learning that the dough needed to be refrigerated was a bit of a setback, but I figured four or five hours in the fridge would be just as good as overnight. And after all, it was coming up on lunch, so a little break would give me time to get everyone fed and some of the mess cleaned up before trying to mold and bake the cookies. I figured the hard part was over: dough was made, mess was cleaned, and everyone was fed. Dear reader, this blog is called the parenting struggle because the struggle is real for us parents. And let me tell you, maybe it was the influx of calories at lunch, maybe it was the pent up tension form the morning spent prepping cookies only to have nothing to show for it, but the afternoon was a mess.

The littlest was crying because the dog sniffed her face. The oldest drank the can of pop that the middle had opened for herself, and then just stared at me as if I was speaking Latin when I asked him what he was thinking drinking from a random open can. The second oldest was upset that I wouldn’t let him browse YouTube, which is not a thing we allow in our house, and he can only do so when he sneaks onto our phones, which is a whole other issue, and I know I’m going to have trouble when he reaches his teen years and the hormones hit. And the second to youngest wanted to play a board game in the worst way and absolutely could not wait for me to finish cleaning up from lunch; he also couldn’t be bothered to help in the cleaning process so I could play with him that much sooner.

Parents in these situations, there are few options. I chose option “put on a Disney movie and plop everyone in front of it so I can manage my chaos”. There is a time and a place for screen time, and for me this was it.

I decided to wait until after dinner to make the cookies, just to give them that much more time to cool in the fridge. (If you’ve ever made pfeffernusse before, you know the dough is pretty thick.) Now, refer back to where I said my kids love to help. Parents, there is a fine line between allowing your children to help you with something so they learn life skills and just kicking everyone out of the kitchen so you can get shit done.

We were approaching 7pm. The dough (enough to make over 80 cookies I discovered after all the baking was done) needed to be rolled into balls and spaced evenly on a sheet pan and baked for 10 minutes per batch. And of course the kids wanted to have a hand in it. Each dough ball got fondled by at least three sets of hands before making it to the sheet. Someone would press too hard and the ball would break apart. Or someone would fumble the ball and it would wind up on the floor. Multiple times someone would get distracted and run off to play with a toy, and when they would come back the process would get stalled as we waited for them to wash their hands, again. It was slow going.

But in the end we prevailed! We have almost 7 dozen powder coated cookies to show for all of our hard work!

The recipe I used came from “Many Gifts, One Spirit: Memories and Recipes”, a cookbook compiled by my grandparent’s church from member submissions. If I could change anything about this recipe I would note that the Karo syrup should be of the dark variety. I used the light syrup, and I feel it leaves something to be desired.

Pfeffernuesse

1 C sugar

1 C margarine (I used salted butter)

1 2/3 C Karo syrup (I would recommend dark syrup)

2 eggs

1 tsp baking soda in a little hot water

1 tsp cloves (ground)

1 heaping tsp cardamom

7 1/4 C flour

Cream together sugar and margarine. Then add Karo syrup and eggs to mixture; beat well. Add dry ingredients and stir together well. Chill overnight in a covered container. Roll in small balls and back on cookie sheet at 350F for about 10 minutes. Roll in powdered sugar when cooled. The older the cookies are, the better they taste!

Thank you for coming along on my journey. Hang in there, we’re all doing the best we can!