The Christmas cookie recipe that keeps my family close

Sometimes the smallest traditions that count most

Cookies.
(Image credit: chas53/iStock)

They say you can never go home again — that someday, everything you've ever held dear to you will be gone. All you'll be left with are the memories you've made, and the imprints on your heart left by the people you love. For me, and I suspect for many others, it is memories from childhood Christmases that evoke the strongest sense of love-steeped nostalgia. And all it takes is one whiff of almond extract, and it's like I've stepped back in time. I can hear the laughter in the kitchen, I can see my family, and I can almost taste my grandmother's almond cookies, the recipe that brought us all together.

For as long as I can remember, every Christmas my family would pile in our tiny car and make the 1,000-mile journey to Southern Alabama. It had become one of my favorite family traditions, and I'd stare out the window excitedly and watch the world roll by, the December landscape of the Midwest transforming into the rolling hills of Kentucky and finally into the sandy beaches of the Gulf of Mexico.

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Melissa Blake

Melissa Blake is a freelance writer and blogger from Illinois. She covers disability rights and women's issues and has written for The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Glamour and Racked, among others. Read her blog, So About What I Said, and follow her on Twitter.