Heirloom Gingerbread Cookie Recipe

One of Lu’s favorite traditions is making Christmas cookies.

“Is it even Christmas without baking all the Christmas goodies?” Lu asks rhetorically.

As Lu was growing up, her grandmother would gather all the grandkids at her house to decorate gingerbread cookies. Her recipe is a treasured family heirloom.

“There’s nothing better than a soft and chewy gingerbread cookie,” Lu says.

Grandma’s Gingerbread Cookie Recipe

INGREDIENTS

½ cup butter

½ cup brown sugar

3.5 oz. dried butterscotch

pudding packet

1 egg

1½ cups flour

½ tsp. soda

1½ tsp. ginger

½ tsp. cinnamon

DIRECTIONS

1. Mix butter and sugar.

2. Add egg and pudding mixture. 3. Add dried ingredients.

4. Chill the dough between two

and four hours in refrigerator. 5. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface and cut out shapes with a cookie cutter.

6. For medium-sized cookies, bake at 350 degrees (F) for 10 to 12 minutes.

“When I was about 10, I found my love for decorating when my mom let me pick out my own bedroom and bathroom décor,” Lu recalls. “It’s so crazy that she let me, because everything I picked was bright purple!”

By the time she grew up and had moved into an apartment, she already had just about everything she needed to decorate it—thanks to days spent thrifting as a teenager.

“Thrifting is something I’ve loved my whole life,” she says. “Out with the old; in with the … old!”

Now, Lu has the family and the home she dreamed of as a child, and both inspire her during the holiday season.

“Some of my favorite things in life are traditions. Christmas is the perfect time for traditions and making memories with the ones you love,” she says.

She enjoys going slowly and relishing her time decorating her home for yuletide. When her kids were younger, she decorated at night, one room at a time, and Evie and Harvey would awaken the next morning to a festive dreamland.

“But now, Evie asks to help, so I’ve recently started decorating in the day so she can join me,” Lu explains. “My home is all decorated for Christmas the week of Thanksgiving, because after that, it’s full-on tradition mode.”

If Lu were to choose a word to describe her holiday home, it would be “whimsical.” She mixes old and new

pieces, heaps of texture and unique décor pieces. As a florist with 15 years of experience, Lu naturally fills her home with Christmas florals.

“I use both silk and dried flowers, and they immediately make any space more elegant,” she notes. Soft tapers in romantic colors, diaphanous silks, knitted pom-pom garlands, taupe and pink glass mushrooms, chunky yarn stockings and fresh cedar greenery fill her home, giving it a distinctly ethereal style.

FIRST MEAL OF THE DAY. A breakfast nook is where the family eats most of its meals. Alyssa coordinates it with the living room by using similar colors and placing fur pillows atop the built-in seating.

|ABOVE, RIGHT| IT TAKES A VILLAGE. “My Christmas houses comprise one my most treasured holiday collections,” Alyssa says. She stages them on cake stands so they have varying heights and can also be easily seen. A dusting of faux snow and a forest of bottlebrush trees finish off the shelves.

|RIGHT| WELCOMING WHIMSY. The playhouse has a fun and whimsical feel. Here, ”Sugarplum Fairy” was the theme, and Alyssa really emphasized the sugar part. “I painted Styrofoam balls and dipped them in glitter to make lollipops and also wrapped painted Styrofoam balls in cellophane to make them look like candy!” she says.

|ABOVE, LEFT| WOODLAND WONDER. Alyssa finds mushrooms and moss enchanting and magical. “Throughout the year, I decorate with them,” she says. For the holidays, she sprinkles faux snow around her metal Anthropologie mushrooms and moss for a wintry look.

HOSTESS WITH THE MOSTEST. Alyssa loves to entertain and have people come over. “Usually, we keep the get-togethers small, because our home is snug,” she points out. “It makes everything so cozy.” Her sister-in-law is a fabulous cake-baker, and Alyssa often enlists her to make custom cakes for her parties.

|ABOVE, RIGHT| TINY TREES. Nothing says “nostalgic Christmas” quite like bottlebrush trees! Alyssa dyes hers to get the exact colors she wants. In addition, she sometimes sources them from Hobby Lobby, Anthropologie and Glitterville.

|ABOVE, LEFT| ETHEREAL CHRISTMAS. The delicacy of the décor in the playhouse is akin to spun sugar in pastel colors. Alyssa uses her daughter’s dresses as part of the design, and their soft, frothy textures work exquisitely with the “Sugarplum Fairy”-inspired tree.