• Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and one-half teaspoon of the kosher salt together into a medium bowl.  Set aside.
• Cream two sticks (one cup) of the butter and two cups of the confectioners’ sugar together in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment on low speed until completely smooth (about one minute).  Add the egg, condensed milk, red food coloring, and two teaspoons of the vanilla and beat until smooth.
• Add the flour mixture all at once and slowly mix on low speed until a dough starts to form with some dry spots.  Leaving the mixer running on low speed, drizzle in the vinegar and mix just until combined.
• Divide the dough in half.  Place half the dough between two sheets of parchment paper.  Roll out with a rolling pin until the dough is one-fourth inch thick.  Lift off the top sheet of parchment. Cut the dough with a three and three-fourth inch-tall Christmas tree cookie cutter.  Use a one and three-fourth inch mini-Christmas tree cookie cutter to cut out the centers of half the larger trees.  Repeat with the remaining dough. Chill in the refrigerator until firm (about 30 minutes).  Remove the excess dough around the trees and lift up the mini trees centers they are cut out from half the cookies.  Gather together the mini centers (they are now scraps) and any excess dough. Re-roll, refrigerate and cut out more trees by following the same steps.
• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
• Transfer the cut and chilled cookies onto the prepared baking sheets spacing them about two inches apart.  Bake until the cookies are matte on top and slightly puffed (eight to ten minutes).  Let cool on the baking sheet for three minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
• Beat the cream cheese and the remaining four tablespoons butter until smooth with a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Slowly beat in the remaining three-fourth cup confectioners’ sugar, remaining one teaspoon vanilla extract and remaining one-fourth teaspoon kosher salt until completely smooth.  Add the green gel food coloring and beat until the frosting colors the cookie evenly.
• Spread one tablespoon frosting on each uncut cookie, then top each with one of the cut-out trees.  Decorate the cookies by placing a small dot of frosting on top of each tree and covering it with a gold star, then sprinkle the frosting showing through the middle of each cookie with nonpareils.

Movie: Silent Night

“In a cabin on a World War II front, a German mom with a young son mediates a truce between three German and three American soldiers so they can all celebrate Christmas Eve 1944 together,” courtesy of imdb.com

Activity: Giant Pine Cone Garland

Supplies:

• Oversized pine cones (or regular sized pine cones)
• Drill with small bit
• Eye screws
• Super strong clear thread (like fishing line)

Instructions:

• Start by drilling a starter hole into the top of a pine cone.  Then insert the eye screw into the drilled hole.
• Cut about two feet of bead thread and wrap it around the bottom few scales of another pine cone.  Wrap tightly and secure with a double knot, leaving a tail of a few inches on one end and the rest of the thread on the other.
• Thread the long end through the eye of the screw in the first pine cone.  Then pull it taut and wrap back around the second pine cone, over the place previously wrapped.  Ensuring that the thread stays taut, tie off with another double knot and snip the ends.
• Now that there are two pine cones strung together, repeat the process.

Memory: Mrs. Marcie McDonald

“My favorite Christmas memory is an annual one.  When my children were younger, our Christmas card each year would be a picture of them in various Christmas-themed costumes.  It started when my daughter was about one year old, and someone gave us a small Santa costume for her to wear.  We took a picture of her in the costume and sent it out as our Christmas card. Throughout the years of my children’s early childhoods, they adored the Christmas tradition of dressing up in costumes for the annual card.  They were Christmas gifts, nutcrackers, the three Kings, Christmas stockings, etc.  Early on in this tradition, the wife of a Sacred Heart Greenwich colleague of mine started taking our cards and creating tree ornaments out of them with beautifully crocheted decorative borders.  Each year, she would receive our card, create the ornament, and send it back to us.  When our fourth child arrived, when my older ones were in their pre-teen years and had long outgrown our tradition, we rejuvenated it with him wearing a different Christmas hat each year.  So many years of this tradition occurred that we now have a separate tree just for these ornaments.  Each year as we decorate for Christmas, it brings back wonderful memories of those special early years with my now-grown children. ”