Christmas Baking at Grandma's House

Old-fashioned Christmas baking traditions from Grandma's kitchen — candy, cookies, cakes, and pies made together every holiday season.

Every year, our family gathered at my grandparents’ house for Christmas baking and candy-making day. My Grandma (Lora) was there, of course, along with my aunts, cousins, and whoever else could squeeze into that little kitchen. We crowded around a gray-and-white Formica table with chrome edging and metal legs, covering practically every inch of it with bowls, ingredients, pans, waxed paper, and whatever sweet thing we happened to be making next.

Gosh, I miss that table.

There was Christmas music playing on the hi-fi—Burl Ives is forever connected to Christmas at my grandparents’ house in my mind—and conversation happening in every direction. Something was always bubbling on the stove or cooling on the table. The kitchen smelled like hot sugar - a combination of scents like peppermint, cherry, and licorice.

And talk about chaos! Someone needed the measuring cup you were using. Someone else was reaching across you for a spoon. And somehow, in a kitchen that really didn’t have room for all of us, there was always room for one more.

Grandma and the aunts came prepared, too. This wasn’t a casual afternoon when somebody suddenly suggested, “Why don’t we make some candy?” Ingredients had been bought. Recipes were ready. Grandma had even purchased the candy jars ahead of time so we could fill them before we went home. Some of those homemade treats would end up on our own Christmas tables, and some would be given away as gifts, especially to our teachers.

vintage image of formica table with empty glass candy jars in preparation for christmas candy

I didn’t understand then how special those days were. I certainly didn’t know that decades later I would close my eyes and still be able to see that Formica table or hear the Christmas music playing in the background. I was a kid. I was probably mostly interested in what was cooling on the waxed paper and whether I could sneak a piece.

But those days helped shape the way I celebrate Christmas now.

So, this isn’t simply a collection of Christmas cookies, candies, cakes, and pies. I have plenty of recipe collections for that. This one is about Christmas baking day at Grandma’s house. It’s about the old-fashioned treats that showed up year after year, the family recipes we’re still making, and the newer traditions that have joined them along the way.

We’ll make the candy first, because some things need time to set. We’ll start filling the cookie trays and find room for a few cakes and pies. We’ll package up some of our goodies to give away. And eventually, we’ll arrive in another small kitchen—mine—where a new generation now gathers to bake with Nina. (That's what my grandchildren call me.)

So pull up a chair to Grandma’s little Formica table. We’ll squeeze you in.

There’s always room for one more at Christmas.

Christmas Baking Day at Grandma’s House

vintage grandma and two vintage children baking for Christmas

There are some Christmas memories that come back to you in pieces—a song, a smell, the taste of something you haven’t had in years. And then there are the memories that come rushing back all at once. Christmas baking day at my grandparents’ house is one of those for me.

I can still picture that little kitchen. By the time we got going, there wasn’t an empty surface to be found. Bowls and measuring cups covered the table. Candy cooled on sheets of waxed paper. Someone was stirring something on the stove while someone else was hunting for a spoon or reaching across the table for the pecans. We bumped elbows. We talked over one another. We laughed. And every now and then somebody had to scoot out of the way so someone else could get through.

But one of the things I remember most is how prepared those women were. They didn’t wake up that morning and decide to throw together a little Christmas candy. They had planned for this day.

Grandma had already bought the candy jars. (Side note: I still remember the little store where she purchased these jars and it wasn't a mega-store or online!)

vintage grandma and aunties putting christmas candy in jars

They were waiting for us before we ever started cooking because she knew exactly how the day would end. We would make far more candy than any one family needed, divide it up, fill those jars, and carry them home. Some would go on our own Christmas tables, of course, but many of those jars became gifts for teachers and other special people in our lives.

Looking back, I realize those simple jars held much more than candy. They held an entire day around that little Formica table. They held Grandma’s preparation, the aunts’ recipes, the cousins’ laughter, Burl Ives singing from the other room, and the wonderful feeling of being squeezed into a kitchen that technically wasn’t big enough for all of us.

Funny, isn’t it? I don’t remember wishing for a bigger kitchen.

I just remember being glad there was room for me.

First Things First: Get the Candy Going

If you’re going to have a proper old-fashioned Christmas baking day, you might as well start with the candy.

In our family, homemade candy has always been part of Christmas. Divinity, fudge, turtles, peanut brittle, buckeyes, toffee, candied nuts, chocolate-covered peanut clusters—you name it. Even now, when I put together Christmas cookie trays, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll find homemade candy tucked in among the cookies. Some traditions are simply too good to leave behind.

My mom was especially known for her homemade turtles, and I still make them today. There’s something about that combination of caramel, pecans, and chocolate that just tastes like Christmas to me. And then there’s Mom’s peanut brittle recipe, another one I’ve held onto through the years. Hers is an easy microwave version, which means you can have a batch of crisp, buttery peanut brittle without standing over a candy thermometer all afternoon.

Come to think of it, just writing about it makes me wish I had some peanuts in the house right now.

I make Christmas toffee pretty regularly, too, along with chocolate-covered peanut clusters and all sorts of fudge. And while I love the old-fashioned chocolate fudge we grew up with, Christmas is also a good excuse to have a little fun with it. I’ve made everything from festive mint chocolate fudge to hot cocoa fudge—the sort of treats that look especially pretty tucked into a Christmas tin or arranged on a holiday tray.

And, of course, there’s divinity. Few candies say old-fashioned Christmas quite like those snowy little clouds of sweetness. It’s the kind of candy that immediately reminds me of grandmothers, church Christmas gatherings, candy tins, and kitchens where somebody was watching the weather because everyone knew humidity and divinity weren’t exactly the best of friends.

That’s one of the things I love most about making Christmas candy. Some of these recipes have been handed down through our family, while others are newer additions that have worked their way into our traditions. Put them all together on one tray, though, and somehow they belong.

Maybe that’s how Christmas traditions are supposed to work. We keep making the things our mothers and grandmothers taught us to make, then add a few favorites of our own.

And before long, our children and grandchildren think those have always been part of Christmas, too.

Here are some of my favorite Christmas candies:

The Cookie Trays Start Filling Up

vintage children making christmas cookies, little boy sneaking a cookie

Now we get to my specialty: Christmas cookie trays.

For years, I made and sold Christmas cookie trays, usually as a fundraiser for one of my grandkids. And when I say I made cookie trays, I don’t mean I baked three kinds of cookies, arranged them on a pretty platter, and called it a day. I went a little overboard.

Okay. Maybe a lot overboard.

People loved those trays, though, and I loved putting them together. The kitchen would fill with cookies in every imaginable shape, size, flavor, and color. There were decorated sugar cookies, snowballs covered in powdered sugar, Christmas Crinkle cookies, peanut butter cookies, mint chocolate cookies, snickerdoodles, thumbprints, and plenty of other favorites. And because apparently cookies alone weren’t enough for me, I usually tucked little bags of homemade candy onto the trays, too.

Looking back, I suppose those cookie-tray days weren’t all that different from candy-making day at Grandma’s house. There were treats covering every available surface, containers waiting to be filled, and a whole lot of work happening in one kitchen. The scale might have changed, but the idea hadn’t: make something wonderful, package it up, and send it out the door to somebody else.

And when it comes to Christmas cookies, I still have a soft spot for the old-fashioned ones. Give me the cookies that have been showing up on Christmas trays for generations: buttery spritz cookies pressed into little shapes, jam-filled thumbprints, powdered sugar snowballs, snickerdoodles, peanut butter cookies, oatmeal cookies, and good old-fashioned sugar cookies ready for frosting and sprinkles.

Of course, I’ve added plenty of newer creations through the years. That’s part of the fun. Every generation adds something to the tray.

If you’re looking for more than the handful of nostalgic favorites I’m sharing here, I’ve got you covered. My Ultimate Christmas Cookie Collection is packed with Christmas cookies of all kinds, from the classics to the fun and festive.

But be warned: once you start making cookie trays, things can get out of hand.

I have photographic evidence. 😄

Here are some of my favorite Christmas cookies:

Cakes Grandma Would Recognize

vintage granny baking christmas cakes with two children

Cookies and candy might fill the tins and trays, but sometimes Christmas calls for a cake.

For me, that usually happens at an annual Christmas ornament exchange I attend. Nearly every year I show up with a cake, and over time it’s become part of the fun for me—deciding what kind of Christmas cake I’m going to make this time.

One year I made a coconut cake decorated with little Christmas trees around the sides, using ice cream cones to form the trees. It was festive and whimsical, but underneath all of that Christmas decoration was something wonderfully familiar: an old-fashioned coconut cake. Grandma would have recognized it immediately.

That’s really what I love about Christmas cakes. They don’t necessarily have to be shaped like Santa Claus or covered in red and green frosting to belong on a holiday table. Some of the best Christmas cakes are simply the cakes our families have been making for generations.

We have a fruit-and-nut cake from my stepmother that falls into that category. It’s not quite the traditional fruitcake people love to joke about at Christmastime. It’s loaded with fruit and nuts, and it’s a recipe our family genuinely loves—which already puts it several steps ahead of the poor much-maligned Christmas fruitcake!

Then there’s pound cake. Our family loves a good one, and my favorite recipe came from my sister-in-law’s grandmother, Moggie. There’s something especially appropriate about serving a recipe like that at Christmas. Long after the person who first made it is gone, her cake can still appear on the family table with her name attached to it.

I’m also tickled to finally have a really good spice cake in my collection. Spice cake just belongs at Christmas, with all of those warm flavors that make the whole house smell like the holidays.

But if you know me, you probably already know where my loyalties lie.

vintage granny stirring dough in mixing bowl

I will always have a special place in my heart for German chocolate cake and Italian cream cake. In fact, if someone asks me to bring a cake to an event—and I’m not making one of my usual tiered white cakes with strawberry filling—there’s a very good chance I’ll show up carrying an Italian cream cake. It’s one of those cakes that feels special enough for an occasion without needing a lot of fuss.

Well, usually.

Sometimes I bring a Bundt cake because Christmas is busy and even people who love to bake occasionally need to find the Bundt pan and call it good.

And maybe that’s another thing Grandma would recognize: some cakes are treasured because they’ve been passed down through the family. Some become traditions because we make them year after year. And some earn their place on the Christmas table simply because everybody loves them.

Here are a few of my favorite old-fashioned cakes for your Christmas table:

Pies Cooling on Every Available Surface

Eventually, if you bake long enough for Christmas, you run out of counter space.

The cookies are stacked in containers, the candy is setting up on waxed paper, there’s probably a cake tucked safely out of the way somewhere—and now we need room for the pies.

In our family, pecan pie is a Christmas favorite. I’m happy to say that I finally learned how to make a really good one, and these days I have several wonderful holiday pies in my collection. There’s sweet potato pie, which I especially love this time of year, along with coconut pie and a good pumpkin pie for those who can’t imagine the holidays without one.

But there is one pie that means more to me than all the others.

My mother made chocolate pie.

The first Christmas after she died, I decided I was going to make her pie for our family Christmas celebration. I wanted that familiar chocolate pie sitting on the table, almost as if making one of her recipes could bring a little piece of her back to us for the day.

It was an epic failure.

I couldn’t serve it. And somehow, in that mixture of grief and humor that families sometimes find when they’re trying to make it through the first holiday without someone they love, I came up with another plan.

At our family holiday gathering, there was an empty seat where Mom should have been.

I put an empty pie dish in front of it.

Even now, all these years later, I get a lump in my throat when I think about that Christmas. There was no chocolate pie in that tin, and Mom wasn’t sitting in that chair. We all knew exactly what both empty spaces meant.

I eventually learned to make chocolate pie. I learned to make pecan pie, too. I kept baking, kept collecting recipes, and kept putting pies on our holiday tables.

Because that’s what families do. Christmas comes again, even after the hard ones. We make the recipes we remember. We learn the ones we never quite mastered. We pull out recipes written by mothers and grandmothers and people whose chairs may now be empty, and for a little while, we bring something of them back to the table.

So yes, make room on the counter for the pecan pie. Find a spot for the pumpkin pie and coconut pies. And if your family insists on pumpkin, you’d better make room for that one, too.

Just don’t be surprised if the pie you remember most is the one that never made it to the table.

Here are some of my favorite pies:

When the Grandkids Join Baking Day

These days, Christmas baking day usually happens at my house.

My kitchen isn’t particularly big, either. Funny how that worked out. Somehow we make room, just like we did at Grandma’s house. We squeeze in, move things around, claim every available bit of counter space, and before long there are bowls, cookie sheets, sprinkles, and little hands everywhere.

Sometimes Grandma has an agenda.

There have been years when I was making cookie trays and needed to produce a certain number of cookies in a certain amount of time. On those days, I’ll admit it: we weren’t just making Christmas memories. We had a quota to meet!

vintage granny checking her christmas baking list

Other times, we slow things down and make something as simple as old-fashioned sugar cookies. And I’ve learned a few things about baking with little ones along the way. For example, even though I rarely decorate cookies with buttercream these days, I’ll happily pull it out when the kids come over. Royal icing might produce beautiful cookies, but it can also be pretty runny and messy in little hands. Buttercream is easier to spread, easier to decorate with, and—most importantly—more fun.

Because when children are in the kitchen, perfection really isn’t the point.

And we certainly don’t limit ourselves to the Christmas treats I made with my grandmother. We make some pretty fun things around here these days. A Churro Nutella Christmas Tree? Absolutely. Rocky Road Rice Krispie Treats? Why not? I’ve even got a whole collection of Grinch-themed treats that are perfect for little helpers.

That’s the wonderful thing about passing down a Christmas baking tradition: you can keep the tradition without freezing it in time.

Teach them to roll out Grandma’s sugar cookies. Let them taste the candy your mother used to make. Tell them whose pound cake recipe you’re measuring into the bowl. Those recipes—and those stories—matter.

But then make something completely ridiculous together.

Turn a favorite character into a Christmas treat. Cover something in sprinkles. Let them invent a cookie. Make the chocolate tree that nobody in Grandma’s kitchen would have dreamed of making. Give them permission to choose the recipe that they’ll remember.

I have a whole collection of Baking with Kids recipes, along with my Bonding Through Baking series, if you’re looking for ideas to get the children in your life into the kitchen. And Christmas is the perfect time to start.

Years ago, I was one of the kids squeezed around a little gray-and-white Formica table while Grandma and the aunts made Christmas candy.

Now I’m the grandma.

My kitchen is crowded. There are treats covering the counters. The kids are probably making a mess.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Check out some of my favorite posts:

Packing Up the Christmas Goodies

vintage grandma and mama packaging christmas goodies so they can be given away

Remember those candy jars Grandma had waiting for us?

She bought them before Christmas baking day even began because she knew we weren’t making all of that candy just for ourselves. We would fill those jars before we went home, and many of them would eventually become Christmas gifts for our teachers.

I didn’t realize it then, but Grandma was teaching us something besides how to make Christmas candy.

Part of the joy of making it was giving it away.

All these years later, I’m still doing the same thing.

My neighbors are pretty accustomed to receiving Christmas goodies from my kitchen. Some years I’ll fill tins with homemade peanut brittle or an assortment of other sweet treats. The grandkids help me put everything together, and then off the goodies go to the people around us.

A couple of years ago, I changed things up and made cookie mixes in Mason jars. I carefully layered all of the dry ingredients inside so you could see the different colors and textures through the glass. Add the baking instructions and a little Christmas decoration, and you’ve got a homemade gift that lets someone else enjoy the fun of baking the cookies.

I love gifts like that because they don’t have to be expensive or elaborate. A tin of peanut brittle. A jar filled with cookie ingredients. A little box of fudge. A plate piled with cookies and covered in Christmas wrap. They’re simple gifts from the kitchen, but they say something that a gift card never quite can:

I thought about you. I made this for you.

And once again, I find myself doing something remarkably similar to what Grandma did all those years ago. The kitchen has changed. The containers have changed. The little girl filling candy jars has become the grandmother reminding the kids which goodies go to which neighbor.

But the treats are still leaving the kitchen in the hands of people we love.

Maybe that was the point all along.

And Somehow, I Became Grandma

grandmother baking with vintage children

Somewhere along the way, something happened that I’m still not quite sure I was ready for. I became Grandma. Technically, I became Nina. That’s what my grandkids call me, and that’s a story for another day. But they aren’t the only ones who call me that. There are several other kiddos in my life who are like grandchildren to me. Their grandmother was my best friend, and after we lost her in 2013, those kids continued growing up as part of my life. They call me Nina, too.

And now, sometimes, they all gather in my kitchen. I wonder if they know what that means to me. When I was young, I was the kid squeezed around that little gray-and-white Formica table at my grandmother’s house. I watched Grandma and the aunts work, listened to the grown-ups talk while Burl Ives played on the hi-fi, sampled the candy, and carried home one of those jars filled with the things we had made together. At the time, I had no idea I was making memories I would still treasure decades later. I was just having Christmas at Grandma’s house.

That’s what makes me wonder about these days in my own little kitchen. When the kids are decorating sugar cookies, dipping something in chocolate, adding far too many sprinkles, or helping me pack treats for the neighbors, I wonder what pieces of it they’ll carry with them.

Maybe they’ll remember a particular recipe. I hope they do. But maybe they’ll remember the kitchen being crowded and that there was never quite enough counter space. Maybe they’ll remember the Christmas music playing, the smell of cookies in the oven, and being allowed to make a glorious mess with the frosting. Maybe one of them will make my peanut brittle someday and tell somebody, “This is how Nina made it.”

And maybe, many years from now, one of them will find themselves standing in a crowded kitchen with children gathered around, making Christmas treats to give away. Perhaps they’ll suddenly realize what I’m only now beginning to understand: the recipes were never the whole tradition. We were.

Grandma and the women gathered around her table passed those traditions down to us, and now I’m standing on the other side of the kitchen table, passing them along to the children who call me Nina. Someday, I hope they’ll look back on Christmas baking day at Nina’s house with the same warmth I feel when I picture that little Formica table at Grandma’s.

And if they do, I hope their kitchens are crowded, too.

North Star

vintage grandmother putting iced sugar cookies in christmas tin

This post isn't another Christmas recipe roundup. It is a trip back to our annual family Christmas baking and candy-making day at Grandma’s house, told through the food we made and the memories surrounding it.

The heart of the post (at least to my way of thinking) is that little gray-and-white Formica table with chrome edging, crowded into a small kitchen that somehow held Grandma, the aunts, the cousins, bowls and pans, candy cooling on waxed paper, Burl Ives playing on the hi-fi, and more laughter and conversation than the room should have been able to contain.

The recipes are there because they help tell the story. We start with homemade candy—divinity, fudge, turtles, peanut brittle, toffee, and the other treats that still mean Christmas to me—then move into the cookie trays I became known for making, the old-fashioned cakes and family recipes that appear on our holiday tables, and the pies that carry memories of their own.

Some recipes connect directly to people I loved: Mom’s turtles and peanut brittle, Moggie’s pound cake, my stepmother’s fruit-and-nut cake, and Mom’s chocolate pie, including the heartbreaking empty pie tin I placed at her empty seat the first Christmas after she died.

Giving is part of the story, too. Grandma bought candy jars ahead of time because she knew much of what we made would leave her kitchen as Christmas gifts. Decades later, I’m still filling tins and jars with homemade goodies for neighbors, teachers, friends, and people we love—with my grandchildren helping me do it.

And that is where the story comes full circle. These days, Christmas baking happens in my own small kitchen. My grandkids and other children who call me Nina crowd in to decorate cookies, make candy, cover things with sprinkles, and create newer Christmas treats Grandma never could have imagined—Grinch goodies, Churro Nutella Christmas Trees, Rocky Road Rice Krispie Treats, and whatever else sounds fun. The recipes have changed because they’re allowed to change. The tradition is what matters.

The emotional heart of the entire post is this:

I didn’t know, all those years ago, squeezed around Grandma’s Formica table, that I was learning more than how to make Christmas candy. I was learning how Christmas gets passed down.

I was once the child at Grandma’s table. Now I’m Nina, standing in my own crowded kitchen, watching another generation make Christmas memories without realizing yet that they’re making them.

The table changes. The recipes change. The grandchildren grow up. But Christmas baking day carries on.

Thanks for Stopping By!

I hope you enjoyed this trek down memory lane. I had so much fun re-living those amazing days at my grandma's house. We really did make a lot of candy over the years! If you make any of the recipes in this post, please leave a comment or review. And don't forget to pin some photos to your Pinterest boards before you go! I'm always so honored when folks share my recipes, especially at Christmas-time.

“One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts.”

— Psalm 145:4 (KJV)

Janice Thompson is a professional baker, cake designer, and author with over 20 years of experience creating unique cakes and desserts. She’s the creator of Out of the Box Baking, where she shares her favorite doctored cake mix recipes, tutorials, and baking tips. Learn more →

Christmas Baking at Grandma’s House: Old-Fashioned Recipes & Sweet Holiday Memories