Cookie Garland for the Holidays
Something I started doing in the last few years that my mom has always done is a Christmas cookie garland. My mom did it over a doorway so she could see it often. Last year, with the sudden passing of my Oma (grandmother in German), my mom wasn’t really feeling up to putting any of her decorations up. However, she’s always told me how much she loves it and I know my Oma loved the tradition. I helped her put it up in the perfect spot around the window so she could see it from the whole kitchen, and I know it made her feel better through her grief.
Cookie Garland for the Holidays | The Cookie Garland Tradition
Paris and Little Emily in Germany
The cookie garland tradition revolves around Lebkuchen, a traditional German hard, sometimes heart-shaped, gingerbread cookie that is decorated ornately and hung with ribbons. Now, Germans will buy new ones every year and throw away the old ones, but my mom has shellacked the real cookies so we can use them over and over again. Many of the cookies we have are actual Lebkuchen cookies from Chriskindlmarkt in Germany. We would buy them when visiting my grandparents when they lived in Germany when I was a kid. It’s a lot easier to find cookie shaped ornaments now than it was when I was a kid, so we have a combination of real and fake cookie ornaments.
Cookie Garland for the Holidays | Hanging the Garland
Like I said before, my mom has a great spot to put her cookie garland, surrounding her kitchen window. In my house, I put it on the top of my kitchen cabinets. I use two faux pine garlands and then I added the cookie ornaments I've collected over the last couple of years. I like to alternate the cookies so I have one that doesn't have a lot of color and then one that does. As I hang each individual cookie on the garland, I make sure to be really careful and take my time, especially with the really old ones because I don't want them to fall and break or get caught on the cabinet. Then I carefully added some simple lights. I love that adding light to the garland allows me to see them better, especially at night.
The whole thing takes me about 30 to 45 minutes to do. Every year, the garland looks a little bit different and every year I love it a little more. I love that it brings back memories of my childhood and my family. I love that it reminds me of my German heritage and, now that my sweet Oma is gone, I love that it reminds me of her. Any of the cookies that can be linked, I’ve linked below. Happy Holidays!
Cookie Garland for the Holidays | Shop
