We all know about the important and big Christmas miracles — the birth of Jesus, the birth of each and every baby everywhere, ill children — and adults — getting well, the Grinch’s heart growing three times it’s size.

But there are smaller miracles, too.  My family sitting around my dinning room table, laughter, friends and loved ones traveling to see me from afar, and me not burning the roast!  LOL.

Treasured memories are miracles, too — remembering the way my mother decorated the house, my father hand-making a nativity for us, my grandmother’s cookies — all of these are what keep the love going, even though I miss them so very much.  Good memories are like good cookies, balm for the soul.

Books are another holiday miracle.  Sitting at home on a snowy day and reading a great story, like Mary Kay Andrew’s Christmas Bliss, can really transport you somewhere so special, you feel as if you’ve been on vacation with your closest friends.

For Christmas, I wish you miracles — big and small.  And if you don’t already have a wonderful cookie recipe, here’s one for Mary Kay Andrew’s special Fairy Drop’s.  (More on the book later.)

FAIRY DROP COOKIES

4-1/2 cups all-purpose flour                                                              Frosting

1 tsp. baking soda                                                                                    ½ cup softened butter

1 tsp. salt                                                                                                       ½ tsp. almond extract

1 cup softened butter                                                                            ½ tsp. vanilla

1 cup powdered sugar                                                                           2-1/2 to 3-1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 cup granulated sugar                                                                                           3 Tbsp. milk

1 cup vegetable oil                                                                                  Your choice food coloring

2 eggs

2 tsp. almond extract

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

In large mixing bowl combine dry ingredients. Cream butter into flour mixture. Add both kinds of sugar and beat ‘til fluffy. Add oil, eggs and almond extract to mixture and beat ‘til well-mixed.

Chill cookie dough in refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Pinch off teaspoon-sized bit of dough, roll between fingertips and place on ungreased cookie sheet, half an inch apart. After all cookies are on sheet, use a coil spring-shaped tool to flatten cookie and make impression on top.

Bake 10-12 minutes, until cookies are palest shade of yellow.

Make frosting by beating butter into powdered sugar, adding almond and vanilla flavorings, thin with milk until you have a thick frosting, separate into 2 or more bowls and tint with desired shades of food coloring. Red and green are fun for Christmas, pink, blue, mint-green and yellow are fine for other occasions. Place dab of frosting atop each cookie.

These keep well in a sealed container.

And if you’re looking for a wonderful holiday read to load on that new Kindle of yours, or to thumb through while buried in blankets on the window seat, you’ll love Christmas Bliss!

Christmas is coming, but Savannah antique dealer Weezie Foley is doubly distracted—both by her upcoming wedding to her longtime love, chef Daniel Stipanek and also by the fact that her best friend and maid-of-honor BeBe Loudermilk is due to give birth any day—and is still adamantly refusing to marry her live-in-love Harry. Readers have come to love these characters in Mary Kay Andrews’ three previous Savannah novels:  Savannah Blues, Savannah Breeze, and Blue Christmas.

Whatever way you choose to celebrate the holidays, I hope they’re filled with miracles, small and large, and especially the miracle of laughter.