favorite holiday cookie

My Mom loved to bake. (all of you are thinking, yes, Melissa- we know)...but she got so gitty about it around the Holidays. She always wanted us to help. Every year I would be like, ok, I really will help and learn to make what you're making. I never would learn. I would annoy her and just lick the batter and goof around. I should have paid attention. She would have been so proud. She so enjoyed baking with Aydan, he loved to help. Her proudest moment was when the News Herald came to our home and photographed her in the kitchen baking and then with a perfectly finished tray of cookies displayed in her hand as she stood smiling behind her tree. She made so many copies of that darn article. She literally handed them out. She then got calls requesting orders of her cookie platters. I made her flyers for her to pass out at Boomers. And for the last 3 years of her life, she sold her cookie platters and cheesecakes around the Holidays. Sadly, the next article the News Herald would publish about her -was when she was tragically killed. The first article we helped write and it was beautiful, truly honored their lives that they lived. But then almost a year later they published a terrible article and put terrible details that I could only read a sentence of. All I read what that she was lying in a pool of blood and it will haunt me for the rest of my life. These images are the worst of any kind. No one deserves to die this way by your own child. I literally can work myself up into so much anxiety if I think about it enough. I know it's been a year and 1/2 but it still seems so impossible to me that it really happended.

With the Holidays being tough for us, the only good thing I can think to do is to share a favorite recipe of my Mom's. She made some really good cookies, this one was probably the easiest but one of her cutest. We liked watching her make these and liked even better eating them. This weekend I'll attend my own Holiday cookie party...the Holidays are upon us and while I'm a little down, I will enjoy all of these festive gatherings we have been invited to and will enjoy making one of my most oldest and favorite cookies.......Mom would have loved to be here. They are missed dearly. Thanks for honoring Mom and making your own batch this Season. We love you Mom and Dad and will think of you every day this Christmas Season.

Christmas Corn Flake Wreath Cookies:

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
4 cups miniature marshmallows
1 teaspoon green food coloring
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups cornflakes cereal
1 (2.25 ounce) package cinnamon red hot candies

Directions:
Microwave marshmallows and butter on High for 2 minutes. Stir, then microwave on High for 2 minutes more. Stir. (This can be done in a double boiler if one doesn't have a microwave.)
Add and mix quickly the coloring, extracts, then cornflakes. Drop by spoonfuls in clumps on greased wax paper and decorate with 3 red hots each.
Once cool, transfer to lightly greased serving/storage tray with lightly greased fingers.