Vanilla Crescents

There's something special about these cookies. It's not only that they are commonly associated with the Christmas time, or that they are loaded full of walnuts, sugar and real butter, and therefore are sinfully fattening and irresistibly delicious. Meg, who never saw or tried them until my mom made them a few years back, became an expert cookie-maker. Her vanilla crescents, the very ones in the picture, carry her reputation far and wide, from our own neighborhood, where the neighbors coming from distant corners of the globe tried and enjoyed Meg's cookies, to our respective workplaces, where colleagues start asking after the cookies early in December. As I type this, fingertips sticky with icing sugar, I am glad to share in true Christmas spirit this picture of perfection. As for the real stuff--I'm afraid there'd be none left before this Christmas day is out. Ho-ho-ho, Merry Christmas and Bon Appetit!