The tastes. The laughs. The memories.

Three readers share their favorite holiday recipes and what makes them special to them.

Durable delights

Dennise Dullea Whitley, Norway

From the early 1950s to this Christmas, the Dullea family of Norway has enjoyed our mother’s spritz cookies, even though she passed away in 1987.

Every Christmas, the holiday season officially began when Mother, armed with her cookie gun, baked dozens upon dozens of multicolored, multishaped spritz cookies decorated with colored sugar and silver dragoons.

These cookies, packaged with love, made their way into all of our friends’ homes, our schoolrooms and, most importantly, into the B.E. Cole shoe factory, where my dad was the packing room foreman.

These cookie gems were my parents’ gift of appreciation to the people who worked for my dad, many of them for their whole working lives. Not often, but sometimes, the cookie supply would outlast the holiday season.

Somehow a few packages were “stored away,” never to be found until after our parents were gone, and my brother found them when we cleaned out our folks’ home. They were all remarkably intact.

Being my clever mother’s son, he dipped them in polyurethane, attached a hook and they were the most wonderful, sweetest Christmas surprise present for each one of our family Christmas trees.

Mother’s spritz cookies are still giving us joy after 25 years. I always smile and feel happy when I hang them on the tree. In fact, spritz cookies are so woven into the fabric of our family that when my daughter died she requested that the celebration of her life be a tea party with everyone wearing funny hats and that each family make Mother’s spritz cookies, complete with decorations.

And, they did.

The recipe: Mother’s Spritz Cookies

Preheat oven 375 degrees.

1 cup butter (2 sticks) softened

2/3 cup sugar

3 egg yolks

3/4 teaspoon almond extract

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

Cream butter; add sugar gradually and cream thoroughly. Beat in the egg yolks and gradually blend in flour. Fill cookie press. Form cookies on ungreased cookie sheets, using the desired shape disk. Decorate with colored sugars, sprinkles, etc. Bake 8 to 10 minutes. Remove at once to cooling racks.

Don’t forget the zip

Brenda Smutny, Greene

We are not sure which part of our family made it first, but this molded salad has been a longstanding holiday tradition. One year a friend hosted a holiday dinner and asked me to bring green salad.

I dutifully brought some mixed salad greens. She looked at me kind of funny when I handed her the bag, and then said, “I didn’t want you to bring salad greens. I wanted you to bring THE green salad.”

We laughed a lot and it became part of this tradition.

The recipe: Zippy Salad

1 20 ounce can crushed pineapple

1 cup low fat mayonnaise

1 cup low fat cottage cheese

1 small package each sugar-free lemon and lime Jello

1 tablespoon (or more) bottled horseradish — the ZIP

Drain pineapple; add enough water to make 2 cups. Bring to a boil and add Jello. When partially set, add the remaining ingredients. Better if made the day before serving.

Chocolate alternative

Gabrielle De Moras, Lewiston

They are great to add on to the festive container of goodies as a Christmas present along with the fudge and peanut butter kisses, for fruit lovers. They’re easy to make, and they don’t cost too much money. Sometimes (people) are gluten-intolerant or chocolate-intolerant, and so I thought instead of a box of chocolates I would make something they could eat.

The recipe: Christmas Delights

1.5 cups broken walnuts

1 cup seedless raisins

1 cup pitted dates

2 tablespoons honey

Put a half cup of nuts through a food chopper, then set aside. Now put the rest of the nuts, raisins and dates through the food chopper a little at a time. Add honey, mix well. (Add another tablespoon if too dry.) Butter hands and roll mixture into balls, then roll balls into the half-cup of set aside nuts. Makes two dozen balls, no cooking needed and gluten free.

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