These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

Everybody has a favorite Christmas cookie.  For alot, it's oatmeal raisin.  Some prefer sugar cookies with colorful icing and sprinkles, and some like plain old chocolate chip cookies.  My favorite Christmas cookies are springerles. 

My Grandma would buy them every Christmas from Thornhill's Bakery at the Dixie Manor Shopping Center.  That was THE bakery to go to in our area.  After a day of shopping at Dixie Manor, we would stop by Thornhill's and have a ham sandwich and a Coke before heading out for more shopping.  After we ate our sandwich, Grandma would buy a box of springerles, and would bribe me - if I behaved the rest of the shopping trip, I could eat one on the way home in the car.  It usually worked. 

Not many people like springerles - I guess it's because of their strong licorice flavor, or because they're so hard.  I love them.  A couple of springerles and a cup of strong coffee is my breakfast of choice during the holidays.  Thornhill's Bakery closed about 20 years ago, and our only local full-service bakery closed it's doors 2 years ago, so since then, there's been no place close to get springerles.  A co-worker mentioned a bakery about 10 minutes from work, so the other morning, I decided to stop in and see if they had springerles.  I was thrilled when I saw the top of one of the glass display cases full of bags of springerles.  I picked up a bag and handed it to the clerk.  I thought I'd won the lottery when she said "Oh, we sell these by the dozen, but we put in 2 or 3 extra in each bag."  Sweet. Imagine my surprise when she rang up my purchase and said "That will be $6.50."  WTF???  After I picked my jaw up off of the floor, I managed to get my voice back and asked the clerk "Did the baker make a mistake and put gold flakes in them instead of anise?"  Needless to say, she looked at me like I had 3 heads.  I reluctantly paid the $6.50 because I really wanted the cookies.  I've been rationing them out, and only allow myself to have one cookie a day.  Maybe I can go there after Christmas and they'll have them marked down.