All I need for Christmas is a piece of paper with built-in memories. There's no assembly required. Batteries are not included. Or needed. This Christmas gift runs on love.

        The piece of paper is a 3-by-5 card. Yellowing at the edges. Smudged. Stained. Dusted with flour. Sprinkled with sugar. Splattered by egg yolks. Flavored with vanilla extract and salt. Tinted red and green from food coloring. It's my mom's recipe for Christmas butter cookies.

        During the holidays, she gets out the recipe and props it at an angle, between the open lid of a white, enameled metal box and a host of other well-used 3-by-5 cards. All the better to read the instructions, bake cookies and make memories.

        Her kitchen isn't the only place in town where this happens.

        With variations, this scene has been played and replayed throughout the Tristate during December.

        Family recipes have been hauled out. Another baking season links the past with the present so it can be handed down to the future. Rituals pass from generation to generation like a recipe for Christmas cookies.

Butter cookies

        The writing on the recipe card is in my mom's hand. Letters flow in dark blue fountain pen ink.

        A plump B fattens Butter. A smiling C kicks off Cookies. Slanted S's start Sugar and Salt. A tulip-shaped V begins Vanilla.

        The recipe's author and age are unknown. My mom remembers the day — 50 years ago now — when Bob, the clerk at the corner grocery store, told her how to color the dough.

        “Gee heck, Marian,” he said. “It's easy.”

        Green for Christmas trees and wreaths. Yellow with a speck of red for the Three Wise Men's camels.

        She came up with the idea for the multicolored swirl of dough that eases from her cookie press to form a favorite shape. An astronomer would call it a spiral galaxy. In my mom's kitchen, this cookie is known as the star of wonder.

Time to remember

        The recipe has been copied by my wife and sister. Now, each holiday season, they take worn 3-by-5 cards from their recipe file boxes.

        Memories are baked into each batch. Babies have grown into adult bakers. But they are remembered as toddlers. No one has to save butter and egg money anymore from spare change to bake cookies at Christmastime. But those days are not forgotten.

        None of these memories is written on the recipe card. But they are there. Call them secret ingredients.

        The women in my family bake for tomorrow's big day with one goal in mind. They want everything, as my wife always says, “to be just right.”

        That means perfect.

        According to my mom's instructions, the cookies “must be baked until they get tan on the edges.” That way, they come from the oven tender and flaky. Not chewy and tasting of raw dough. Not too brown and rock hard. But just right.

        From time to time the family bakers gaze from their kitchen windows.

        During those rare timeouts, they make silent wishes for the coming year. For health. For happiness.

        For everyone getting the same, nonreturnable gifts.

        Peace on Earth. Good will to all. And an old 3-by-5 card with a hand-written recipe for butter cookies and memories.

        Columnist Cliff Radel can be reached at cradel@enquirer.com; 768-8379; fax 768-8340. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/radel

Gas explosion levels home
Spirit uplifts despite past year's downers
Christmas closings
Northern Ky. Christmas closings
Saks subsidy controversial
Terms of preliminary Saks deal
Other projects that received city subsidies
Charter schools get low grades on tests
Charter schools hinder CPS cash flow
Shirey gets interim job offer from Springfield
Killer sought in Walnut Hills shooting
Local Digest
Observers flock to join bird count
RADEL: Tradition bakes new memories
Woman serving holiday cheer
You Asked For It
$61K grant aids environmental cleanup efforts
Congrats
Good News: Helpers awarded tickets
Grants assist tourism promotion
Pet shelter seeks funds for facility
Site search might be extended
Stories, photos sought for Mason history book
Ohio lags in college degrees
Power lines under lake could serve U.S., Canada
War: Distance can't shield Kentucky
Coal-truck weight is at issue
Son says he killed father who threatened to kill family
State gains political advantage on projects