We’ve talked about these cookies before, but I think they deserve a little bit more attention than the attention Iggy ultimately gave them. I should have posted this sooner, and given you some time to add these cookies to your festivities, but alas, I didn’t. You’ll just have to find some other time to make them.

These cookies were, at one point, mistakenly identified (by Matthew) as sugar cookies. One look at the recipe determines that they actually should be called flour cookies.

This is not my mother’s handwriting, and the penciled-in quantities below the scribble marks are in my dad’s handwriting (he’s a notorious Scrooge when it comes to sugar, and a notorious overindulger when it comes to all things butter-related), so I ignored all the adjustments and went for the straight recipe:

• 1 lb butter
• 2 1/4C sugar
• 4 eggs
• 5 1/2C flour
• 1/2t salt

Cream butter, add sugar. Add eggs, one at at time. Blend in flour and salt. Chill dough for 4 hours or overnight. Roll and cut. Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes.

But there are, of course, lots of things that the recipe didn’t mention. For starters, the whole process must be done under direct supervision.

Oscar happily volunteered.

Secondly, the dough cannot be put in the fridge before being taste-tested by an official food taster. One never knows when someone might be trying to poison the cookies (or Iggy, in a more roundabout way).

Having a back-up food taster on hand is also recommended, just to avoid the whole iocane powder trick.

Once you’re sure no one has poisoned the dough, feel free to chill it in the refrigerator for four hours, overnight, or three and a half days, as the case may be. If you choose to chill it for three and a half days, though, make sure your warm-blooded husband is around to mash the dough back into submission before trying to roll it out. Once rolled out, have at it with the cookie cutters.

If you have the upper body strength of a small rodent, ask your mom to help you.

Use a straw to punch the hanging holes in the cookies. Take one or two punches, then blow the dough out of the straw.

Don’t overdo it like Matthew, who took 7 or 8 punches and then nearly blew a vessel in his forehead trying to blow the dough back out. Unfortunately, I don’t have a photo of that. We were too caught up in the moment of I-told-you-so-s to get a good picture.

Once the cookies have been baked, set them out on brown paper while they degrease a bit. The brown paper must absorb at least 3/4 of the saturated fat, don’t you think?

While people with better manual dexterity than you tie ribbons onto the cookies, you can go sit in the corner and booze it up in your basket.

Be warned, though: once you start doing it, everyone else is going to want to.

You can try to be generous, but we understand if humbuggery gets the better of you.

Once the ribbons are on the cookies, let them languish on the table for a couple of days while you get up the energy to actually hang them. This might be a good time to eat some of them, because they might just end up getting eaten by a lonely dog with too much time on her hands the next night.

When it’s all said and done, spend some time (a LOT of time) admiring yourself in various Christmas ornaments.

Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like you, saying “Merry Christmas” to yourself over and over and over again.