Christmas Appies

One of my most favourite times of the year is when my mother and I get together to make our Christmas Appetizers and cookies

We have been making cookies for as long as I can remember and started our appetizer tradition well over 10 years ago. As the years passed we perfected our selections adding a few, deleting even more and finally settling on a few must haves. Our must haves are ham tartlets, Parmesan bites, mushroom turnovers, cheese puffs, crab wontons and this year we tried something new....cheesey spinach bites. In addition to this we always make rollo cookies, rum balls and short bread cookies.

This year it was hard to get excited about making them. As much as we enjoy making the appies, my Dad enjoyed his job as taste tester/quality control even more. He would talk about it for days leading up to the big day saying he hoped there were lots of mistakes that he would have to get rid of. He would come home early from work and sing our praises as he picked out all the ones he deemed unpresentable and sit back and enjoy them with a HUGE smile on his face. 

Last year we made them mere days before we found out the bad news so at least he was able to enjoy them one last time. This year we contemplated not making them, but we couldn't not make them. It just seemed like we would be dishonoring his memory if we didn't carry on the tradition.

So we made them, well I didn't get to help as much as normal due to my baby pain, but they got done. They all taste amazing, but every bite is bittersweet.

Have a great day