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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

Love from the Inside Out

Climate crisis. Global pandemic. Unprovoked, bloody, destructive invasion of Ukraine.

Mass shooting of elders in Buffalo, New York. Heart-shattering shooting of children and teachers in Uvalde, Texas.

How could I possibly write about food and nutrition this week?

Grief and despair chase each other. I retreat into therapeutic practices I learned as a nutritional therapist.

We cannot change events outside our control. We can change is how we feel inside. Self-care is not selfish. It is essential. Turn inward and unfurl your love from the inside out.

By nurturing yourself, you will be better able to radiate love and positive energy to your child(ren), spouse, family, your community. By putting love into practice, we become healers in our workplace, our neighborhoods. Let’s reimagine our world, leaving aside fear, anger, despair.

Breathe

Anxiety is the body’s normal response to stress. The way you breathe can set off a cascade of physical changes in your body that promote either stress or relaxation.
Mindful breathing helps you control your nervous system so you can manage your stress and anxiety.

Breathing influences the sympathetic (“fight or flight”) and parasympathetic (“rest and digest”) branches of your nervous system. Certain techniques can promote more parasympathetic calm and relaxation, release hormones like prolactin and oxytocin, the feel-good hormone of love and bonding.

  • 5: 5 breathing. Breathe through your nose. Inhale for 5 counts. Exhale for 5 counts. Repeat 4 times. Extend your exhales for even greater relaxation.
  • 4 – 7 – 8 breathing. Breathe in for 4 counts. Hold 7 counts. Exhale 8 counts. Repeat 4 – 5 times
  • Heart breathing. Close your eyes. Place one hand on your heart. With each inhale  breathing in love. With each exhale, imagine breathing out love to your child(ren), spouse, mother, father, Mother Earth…

Mindful Eating


Prepare fresh food as an act of emotional and physical self-nourishment. It can induce a parasympathetic state by enhancing endomorphins (feel good hormones), a sense of attachment and connection. Mindful eating tips:

  • Breathe before you eat with your 5-count inhale / 5 count exhales. This will improve your digestion. There is a link between improve digestion and improved mental health.
  • Try to eat a brain healthy breakfast.
  • Reduce refined carbs and added sugar intake.
  • Eliminate additives, pesticides, fertilizers.
  • Nourish your body with good mood foods
  • Set a place mat, use a cloth napkin. Make it a daily micro-ritual.

Move
We know exercise is in important for physical health. Did you know it’s also beneficial for a range of mental health conditions, including stress, anxiety, and depression. Movement releases chemicals in your brain that trigger positive emotions, lowers stress, and improves sleep. Moving tips

  • Walking is do-able in a typical day for most people. Walk the length of the parking lot instead of looking for a parking spot near the entrance. Take a walk during a lunch break, or after dinner, for 20 – 30 minutes.
  • Stretch for ten minutes upon rising in the morning. Set a gentle alarm at work every 2 – 3 hours to stretch up to the sky, bend down to the earth a couple times. The benefits of stretching help not physical flexibility but also emotional flexibility.

Nature

Connecting with nature is effective in dealing with stress and anxiety and promotes mental health and well-being. It can lower blood pressure and stress hormone levels, reduce nervous system arousal, enhance immune system function, increase self-esteem, reduce anxiety, and improve mood.

Lacking the hills or boulders we love to climb in Bolivia, my 11-year-old and I look for trees to climb in Houston. Ever since she was little, she would press her cheek or palm of her hand on the tree trunk and encourage me, “talk to her heart center, mama.” Nature tips:

  • Get 5 – 10 minutes of morning light regularly, even if only through a window. Light can affect mood in several ways: by directly increasing availability of neurotransmitters such as serotonin, (involved in mood regulation), and by stabilizing circadian rhythms.
  • Go barefoot in your backyard or local park.
  • Grow a pot of herbs in your garden or kitchen. Parsley, basil, and mint grow easily.
  • Get an indoor plant. Exposure to plants can reduce feelings of anxiety.

Resources

What are your favorite resources? Here are some of mine. Which calls to you?

Tara Brach: Whole Body Breathing Meditation

Tara Brach is a renowned meditation teacher, psychologist, and author. She blends western psychology and Eastern spiritual practices, mindful attention to our inner life, and a compassionate engagement with our world. I love her podcast and listen to every meditation.

The Power of Breath as Medicine

Dr. Mark Hyman interviews James Nestor, author of Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art . Breathing is one of the most basic of functions yet most of us aren’t doing it right. They discuss the  science and evolution of how we breathe, and how to get better at.

Jane Goodall Hopecast

Jane Goodall, scientist, activist, storyteller, is one of my all-time heroes. I love listening to her interviews with change makers, her kindness, wisdom, and never-failing hope.

Children and Nature Network

This is a wonderful resource of free toolkits, reports, infographics, and advocacy tools to help you connect children, families, and communities to nature.