By December. First Christmas season in the house. The tree is in the living room corner — a real tree, because Megan always wins the tree argument — and it's tall enough to brush the ceiling. The ornaments go up: the pierogi, the "Mr. & Mrs. Kowalski," the tiny house from the craft fair, and a new one this year: a miniature wooden kitchen that I found at a holiday market. Megan hung it and said, "The kitchen in miniature." It looks like ours. Window over the sink and everything.
The house is decorated in a way the apartment never could be — garland on the porch railing, lights in the windows, a wreath on the door. Megan went to Target and returned with the energy of someone who has been waiting years to decorate a house for Christmas. The house looks like a magazine. I told her this. She said, "Pottery Barn, specifically." She is not kidding.
At the brewery, the holiday season. Gift packs, winter beers, taproom events. The sour program has three new releases for December — a holiday sour with cranberry and orange, a barrel-aged stout, and a special blend. The head brewer let me design the labels. Each one features a hand-drawn barrel and the series name in my handwriting. My handwriting is on beer labels. This still doesn't feel real.
Made a batch of pierniki — the Polish gingerbread — and a poppy seed roll for the neighbors. We have neighbors now. Real ones. The couple next door, the family across the street, the old man two houses down who waves from his porch every morning. I brought them all baked goods because this is what you do when you move to a neighborhood: you bake and you introduce yourself through sugar. Bay View traditions.
The pierniki and the poppy seed roll were the centerpieces of the neighbor tins — but I needed something to fill the gaps, something that felt festive and approachable without requiring a Polish grandmother’s muscle memory. These Rosemary Shortbread Christmas Tree Cookies were exactly that: simple enough to make in a new kitchen I’m still learning, beautiful enough to stack in a box and hand to someone you’ve only waved at from the driveway. The rosemary made the whole house smell like a wreath, which, given what Megan had done to the front porch, felt exactly right.
Rosemary Shortbread Christmas Tree Cookies
Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 14 min | Total Time: 1 hr 34 min (includes chill time) | Servings: 24 cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar, sifted
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, very finely minced
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons coarse or turbinado sugar, for sprinkling
- Optional: green sanding sugar or white icing for decorating
Instructions
- Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and powdered sugar together with a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 2–3 minutes. Add the vanilla extract and mix to combine.
- Add rosemary and salt. Stir in the finely minced rosemary and sea salt until evenly distributed throughout the butter mixture.
- Incorporate flour. Add the flour in two additions, mixing on low speed just until the dough comes together and no dry streaks remain. Do not overmix.
- Chill the dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, flatten into a disk, and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 2 days.
- Preheat and prep. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 325°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Roll and cut. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough to about 1/4-inch thickness. Cut out Christmas tree shapes with a tree-shaped cookie cutter. Transfer to prepared baking sheets, spacing about 1 inch apart.
- Finish and bake. Sprinkle cookies lightly with coarse sugar. Bake for 12–14 minutes, until the edges are just barely golden. The centers will look slightly underdone — that’s correct for shortbread.
- Cool completely. Allow cookies to rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Decorate with sanding sugar or a simple white icing drizzle once fully cooled, if desired.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 118 | Protein: 1g | Fat: 8g | Carbs: 11g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 28mg