Spiced Cherry Bells

Christmas week approaches. The temperature has held in the teens for ten days now and the cattle are settled and the calf shed is at capacity and the house is decorated as much as the house ever decorates, which is to say a small tree in the corner of the living room with the same ornaments Mom has been putting on it for fifty years and a wreath on the front door and a candle in the kitchen window. We are not a decorations family. We are a quiet-Christmas family.

Cole and Tara will come down Christmas Eve and stay two nights. Tara is twenty-three weeks. She is starting to slow down — not dramatically, but visibly — and she takes a nap in the afternoon now, which is a thing she has never done in her life. Cole has been doing the cooking when she is too tired. He is becoming a competent cook, which had not been certain for the first thirty years of his life but which has emerged in the second half of his marriage. Tara has been a good influence. Tara has been the influence.

I shod three horses Tuesday and Wednesday — three appointments I had been putting off because I had wanted to be sure I could get to the Christmas trip, and the weather held, and I knocked them out, and I am clear through January now except for the one mare in Hobson who is overdue but whose owner is patient. The waiting list for after the new year has grown to twelve. I will not be bored in 2025.

Patrick had a steady week. The medication is in a good rhythm right now and he sat at the kitchen table for an hour Wednesday writing a letter — the first letter I have seen him write in two years. He uses a fountain pen Mom gave him in 1985. The handwriting is shaky but legible. He would not show me the letter. He addressed an envelope. He stamped it. Mom mailed it Thursday from town. I assume it was to Cole and Tara, for the baby. I will not ask. He will tell me what he wants me to know. The letter being written at all is the news.

Tom Whelan and I cut a Christmas tree from the lot behind the south fence Wednesday afternoon. We have done this every year since 2019. We pick a small Engelmann that needs thinning, take it home, set it up in his living room next to the fireplace where he plays cribbage with himself or with me when I come over, and we drink coffee and look at the tree for a while and then we hang one ornament on it — one ornament, every year, by a gift exchange we made up the first year — and we leave the rest of the tree bare. Tom calls it the Single Ornament Tree. The ornament this year was a small wooden horse Tom had carved himself in October. He gave it to me and I hung it on his tree and he hung the one I had given him on his own tree at his own ornament hook — a small tin star I had cut from a tomato can in November and beat into shape in the shop. We drank his coffee. We did not say much. Tom said, on the way out, Merry Christmas, son. I said, Merry Christmas, Tom. The tradition is small and stupid and precious and I would not trade it for any larger tradition.

Cooked Sunday a beef tenderloin Patrick had requested specifically — he is asking for things now, more often, which is good, and which I am following without comment. Two pounds, salted overnight, seared in a hot pan, finished in a hot oven for twenty minutes, rested ten, sliced thick. Béarnaise sauce I had made for the first time in three years from butter and tarragon and shallot and egg yolks and white wine vinegar, the kind of sauce that requires attention but that you can make if you focus. The sauce was right. The tenderloin was perfect. Patrick had three slices and ate them slow and at the end he closed his eyes and said, This is a meal. Just this is a meal. Mom looked at me. I looked at her. Three words from him about the food, in addition to the four about the meal — that was the whole review, and it was a five-star review, and I am thirty and I have made my father a meal he closed his eyes for and that is a thing I will not forget. Saturday cookout was nine men. Marcus made ninety-eight days. Two days from a hundred. He is going to make it. I am sure now. The fire helps.

The tenderloin was Patrick’s meal and it was exactly right, but Christmas Eve was Cole and Tara’s visit, and I wanted something waiting on the counter when they came through the door — something that didn’t need explaining, something you could just reach for. These Spiced Cherry Bells are that kind of thing. Small, a little festive without making a production of it, the kind of cookie that fits a quiet-Christmas family without embarrassing anyone. I made a batch the day before they arrived and left them on the cutting board next to the coffee. That was enough.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 32 min (plus 1 hour chill) | Servings: 36 cookies

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
36 maraschino cherries, well-drained and patted dry
1 cup powdered sugar (for glaze)
2–3 tablespoons maraschino cherry juice (from the jar)

Instructions

Whisk dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and salt. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and 3/4 cup powdered sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Mix in the vanilla and almond extracts.
Combine and chill. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir until a soft dough forms. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour, or overnight.
Preheat and prep. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Pat the maraschino cherries completely dry with paper towels — excess moisture will prevent the dough from sealing.
Shape the bells. Scoop out roughly 1 tablespoon of dough and flatten it in your palm. Place one cherry in the center and wrap the dough up and around it, pinching the top closed and gently shaping the bottom into a rounded bell. Place seam-side down on the prepared baking sheet, spacing about 1 1/2 inches apart.
Bake. Bake for 10–12 minutes, until the bottoms are just barely golden and the tops look set but not browned. Do not overbake. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely before glazing.
Make the cherry glaze. Whisk together 1 cup powdered sugar with 2–3 tablespoons of maraschino cherry juice until smooth and pourable — it should coat a spoon but still drip. Add a few drops more juice if needed to reach the right consistency. The glaze will be pale pink.
Glaze and set. Spoon or drizzle glaze over each cooled cookie. Let stand at room temperature until the glaze is firm, about 20 minutes. Store in an airtight container at room temperature up to 5 days, or freeze up to one month.

Nutrition (per serving)

Spiced Cherry Bells — Something Sweet for a Quiet Christmas