Electric mixer. Check. Sugar cookie ingredients. Check. Homemade frosting. Check. Flour everywhere. Check. Colored sugar sprinkles. Check. Grandma’s cookie cutters. Check.
Growing up in the northern states, I enjoyed the beautiful white winter landscapes, and nothing was as fun as my favorite tradition, making and decorating sugar cookies with my family.
My mom would get out the big electric mixer and let my brother and me help add the ingredients. We would watch the attachment swirl around, stirring everything into a sweet-smelling dough. Next, we would sprinkle flour onto the table, plop down a pile of cookie dough, and sprinkle the rolling pin with flour before rolling out the dough to the proper thickness.
Then came one of the best parts—choosing from the selection of metal cookie cutters that my grandma had passed down to us. We usually chose the more Christmasy-looking ones, but I also liked the animals, such as the squirrel and the pig, as well as the ice cream cone, foot, and flower plastic cookie cutters my mom had added to the collection. These shapes were fun to decorate.
Once the cookies had been baked and cooled, my mom made frosting out of butter and powdered sugar. She taught us that a little bit of frosting would go a long way. I learned to frost the different shapes carefully. We then got to choose which colored sugar sprinkles we wanted to sprinkle on top. It was a fun time of creativity and of anticipating the delicious reward awaiting us.
You might be tempted to think that the reason I enjoyed making cookies so much was that I enjoyed eating them. However, what made this my favorite tradition was that, in our working together, my family spent quality time with each other, creating something we could enjoy together and share with others.
At this time in Earth’s history, God has a task He wants to do with each of us. Just as my mom taught my brother and me how to make Christmas cookies, including us in each step of the process, God wants to teach each of us how to share His love and His truth with the unreached.
Working with God and learning from Him how to share with the unreached is not only about completing a task. It is about building a deeper relationship with Him and with each other in the process. As we seek to follow His instructions and copy His behaviors, it brings us closer together.
Revelation 7:9 (NASB) describes the sweet reward we may look forward to when we learn from Him: “After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all the tribes, peoples, and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands.”
As you spend time with your family this Christmas season, prayerfully consider blessing mission children and student missionaries by giving to the Children’s Education Fund or the Student Missionary Fund. Your thoughtful generosity is one of the best gifts they can receive.
