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My Austrian Christmas Cookie Tradition

As the holiday season unfolds I’m filled with gratitude and a touch of nostalgia. For years, I hesitated to share my mama’s beloved legay of Austrian Christmas cookies and love. As a functional nutrition therapist, it felt like a contradiction—celebrating rich, butter-laden treats while advocating for balance and health. But I’ve come to realize that food is so much more than calories and “eating healthy”. It’s about connection, tradition, and love. And these cookies? They are pure love, passed down from my mama’s kitchen to mine.

My Christmas Cookie Process

Step 1

Baking begins in November. My daughter and I prep our butter-based cookies: vanillekipferl, Linzer cookies, and a nod to Texas — pecan thumbprints. And a fourth variety that from year to year: Pistachio “coins”, cardamom orange or poppyseed cookies.

Step 2

I freeze the unbaked cookies. And put them in ziplock bags (with parchment paper in between the layers) until December.

The first weekend of December, we dive into gingerbread house-making with my daughter, cousins, nieces and nephews; it’s a chaotic, happy memory-making, friendship-bonding time with cousins and nieces and nephews

Cookie by cookie—a Hansel and Gretel story brought to life with authentic lebkuchen:

🌲 trees and 🍄‍🟫 mushrooms

🦌 deer, foxes and 🐇rabbits

🦆 duck pond and ☃️ snowman

🧙 the witch, Hansel, Gretel

🌟 big stars, ✨ little stars, lots of stars

It’s not just cookies – laughter, friendship and memories are also in the making!

I’m always astonished anew each when the house stands cemented only with icing. 😂

Step 3

In the days after the gingerbread forest is all set up, I bake our butter-based cookies. We fill them with raspberry preserves and dusting others with powdered sugar as the cookies require.

Step 4

Then come the meringue-based cookes:  Hasselnuss Busserl (hazel nut macarons) and Pignoli

Step 5

Once ready, cookies go into festive tins, until they ready to be shared throughout December…

Step 6

Cookie boxes are made into gifts of appreciation for teachers, hostesses and friendship. Each bite is a way to spread holiday cheer, and share something meaningful with others. Little tokens of connection and care.

Step 7

I open the cookie tins to make platters that enhance my table for holiday brunches, tea time with friends and after-dinner-desserts.

Until needed the cookies stay safely out of sight. It’s part of my strategy of  Prep Your Kitchen to Support your Brain Health this Holiday Season.  If cookies are in the kitchen plain sight, no amount of will power will stop me from eating a cookie or two – or three! each time I pass by. Out of sight is out of mind.

If this all seems overwhelming, keep in mind that it is a process that’s evolved through trial and error over decades. 💪

A Tradition of Gratitude and Connection

The holiday season is about so much more than food. It’s about the people we cherish, the rituals that help us feel grounded, and the memories we create. These cookies—rich with love and history—are a part of our family’s way of expressing gratitude and spreading happy energy. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, the winter solstice, or any other tradition, this season invites us all to connect, reflect, and share in being present in the moment.

Wishing you and yours Love 💕 and Light ✨ this holiday season!


What about you? What holiday tradition brings you joy this time of year?

I’d love to hear your favorite recipe, custom, orrituals in the comments below.

Together, let’s celebrate the shared spirit of the season! ✨

Resources

4 Tips to Minimize Holiday Sugar Overload

7 Key Nutrition Tips for Brain Health during the Holidays

Prep Your Kitchen to Support your Brain Health this Holiday Season

Pistachio Salmon Holiday Dinner

Generous golden sunshine
pouring down from an azure blue sky
A glorious summer day
this Christmas Eve in our Cochabamba valley
embraced by Andes mountains
in the heart of Bolivia
Perched on a kitchen stool
my mama is rolling out gingerbread dough,
Shaping rabbits and deer and stars,
Hansel and Gretel, the witch, and her house
Fragrant aromas of gingerbread trees baking,
a whole forest in the making
Fragments of happy childhood memories,
an ember of love that glows anew
every December
Looking back now, my heart wonders
how much she must have been dreaming
of a white Christmas in Salzburg
Working her own Austrian baking magic
dozens and dozens of indescribably
delicious cookies in the making,
each lovingly shaped
into bite-size tastebud heaven
Suddenly stolen from us
in a car accident,
on a November morning
she’s been gone now
for more than thirty years
a love so great, I miss her still
Yet every Advent when
spices and honey and eggs
roll out into Hansel and Gretel,
a witch and her house,
the forest, the animals and stars
She is here, a love so true
that the gingerbread making,
baking and decorating
connects us again and through me
my mama and my daughter
Love fills my heart and overflows
Sharing our gingerbread magic
to wish you and yours
Love and Light this holiday season

Girlfriends’ Holiday Brunch

Pumpkin Granola Parfaits with cranberry orange sauce, smoked salmon frittata and pineapple pomegranate with mint make a pretty, delicious, and healthy brunch table. A celebration of 10+ plant foods!

Read more

Nutrient Rich Granola

Homemade granola + good fats is an excellent transition from breakfast cereal. Enjoy with whole-milk Greek yogurt or kefir for sustained energy and to avoid blood sugar spikes.

  • Quick, easy and robust breakfast
  • Never boring because there are so many combinations
    • Spices
    • Nuts/seeds
    • Dried fruits (add AFTER baking)
    • Fresh fruits – bring seasons into my breakfast bowl – berries, peaches, and plums in the summer, sweet potato and pumpkin in the fall, cranberry, and gingerbread flavor in the winter.
  • Mix into fruit salad
  • Use for chia pudding toppings
  • Sprinkle on top of oatmeal or quinoa breakfast bowls for texture contrast

Variations:

  • Almond joy: use almonds for the chopped nuts, add 2 cuts shredded, unsweetened coconut. Optional – add 1/4 teaspoon almond extract when mixing melted coconut oil and maple syrup
  • Orange Cranberry: zest 3 – 4 oranges (depending on the size and how distinct you want the orange flavor) and mix in to the oats. After baking the oatmeal, add 1 1/2 cup dried cranberries
  • Banana Bread: Add 2 pureed bananas to the melted coconut oil and maple syrup mix
  • Lemon Poppyseed: zest 3 lemons, add zest to oats. Add 1/4 cup poppyseed
  • Pumpkin pie: Add 1 tablespoon pumpkin spice mix to the oats. Mix 1 cup pumpkin puree with melted coconut oil and maple syrup
  • Moroccan Sweet Potato: Add 1/2 tablespoon Golden Milk spice blend to the oats. Add 1 cup sweet potato puree
  • Gingerbread Granola: Add 1 teaspoon ground ginger, 1 teaspoon cloves, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg


Pistachio Salmon Holiday Dinner

The wild mushroom soup, the contrast and color of pistachio on salmon, the jewel rubies of pomegranate with wild rice make this a beautifully elegant dinner.
With its filling made of bourbon-soaked tart cherries and apricots, coconut and bittersweet chocolate, the cake makes a spectacularly scrumptious dessert.

Read more

Recipes

Nutrient Rich Granola

Homemade granola + good fats is an excellent transition from breakfast cereal. Enjoy with whole-milk Greek yogurt or kefir for sustained energy and to avoid blood sugar spikes.

  • Quick, easy and robust breakfast
  • Never boring because there are so many combinations
    • Spices
    • Nuts/seeds
    • Dried fruits (add AFTER baking)
    • Fresh fruits – bring seasons into my breakfast bowl – berries, peaches, and plums in the summer, sweet potato and pumpkin in the fall, cranberry, and gingerbread flavor in the winter.
  • Mix into fruit salad
  • Use for chia pudding toppings
  • Sprinkle on top of oatmeal or quinoa breakfast bowls for texture contrast

Variations:

  • Almond joy: use almonds for the chopped nuts, add 2 cuts shredded, unsweetened coconut. Optional – add 1/4 teaspoon almond extract when mixing melted coconut oil and maple syrup
  • Orange Cranberry: zest 3 – 4 oranges (depending on the size and how distinct you want the orange flavor) and mix in to the oats. After baking the oatmeal, add 1 1/2 cup dried cranberries
  • Banana Bread: Add 2 pureed bananas to the melted coconut oil and maple syrup mix
  • Lemon Poppyseed: zest 3 lemons, add zest to oats. Add 1/4 cup poppyseed
  • Pumpkin pie: Add 1 tablespoon pumpkin spice mix to the oats. Mix 1 cup pumpkin puree with melted coconut oil and maple syrup
  • Moroccan Sweet Potato: Add 1/2 tablespoon Golden Milk spice blend to the oats. Add 1 cup sweet potato puree
  • Gingerbread Granola: Add 1 teaspoon ground ginger, 1 teaspoon cloves, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg