Blue Christmas

The decorated sugar cookies that you have just viewed are a sampling of the cookies that embellish my dining room Christmas tree. The tree is approximately nine feet tall and I usually bake and decorate about ninety to one hundred cookies each year. Besides the large cookies that you see here, there are also numerous miniature ones. Since I have a rather extensive collection of copper cookie cutters, I vary the selection of cookies each year. As you can probably see, liberal use is made of silver dragees and sanding sugar; they add an extra sparkle to the tree when it is lit. Typical of decorated sugar cookes, mine are first flooded with royal icing then overpiped with a thicker consistency of icing. I also do a bit of brush work (using alcohol) to add some painterly interest.

I am sorry to say that my photos of the full tree are nearly unusable; my digital camera is quite old and indoor pictures, excepting close-ups, taken with a flash are usually of poor quality. Here is one of the best-of-the-worst Blue Tree photos.



The Tree Topper is a copper watering can filled with baby's breath. Apart from the cookies, the ornaments on this tree consist of handpainted blue/white Chinese glass balls, copper chocolate molds, miniature copper kitchen pots, pans and utensils, copper celestial ornaments, miniature copper/blue apples and copper spiral "icicles". The celestial ornaments and spiral "icicles" were made by me from copper flashing left over from my roof replacement and chimney re-flashing. And, of course, there are blue lights...

The Blue Tree was featured in the Dec 2004/Jan 2005 issue of Design NJ Magazine. It was part of a spread which the magazine did of my six Christmas trees.