Nan Taylor's entry into the world of Christmas cookie-baking began somewhat mysteriously, or perhaps magically.
In the 1970s, a stranger walked past her home on Havre de Grace's Union Avenue and, out of the blue, handed her a recipe for a chocolate-covered coconut candy.
"I was sitting on my front porch writing, and a woman was coming down the sidewalk, and I noticed she was walking to me," Taylor recalled. "The woman walked up to me and said, 'I think you would like to have it.'"
Taylor tried the recipe, which she called auspicious because her husband liked coconut-chocolate eggs at Easter and this seemed to be a Christmas variation on the treat.
It would be years, however, before Taylor, who helps make cookies for the annual cookie sale at Havre de Grace United Methodist Church, would become a more frequent baker.
"I really wasn't good in the kitchen until I was about 60," Taylor, now 71, said. "Finally it clicks in your brain."
The Havre de Grace resident is one of the countless people who bake cookies as a Christmas tradition, a way to give a uniquely delicious present and a chance to slow down during the holiday season.
"We live in such a busy world today that little things like that are a more old-fashioned thing to do. I think people pause a little bit," Taylor said, noting she gives cookies to her children and relatives.
"I don't know what got me started with it. I guess children, and they like cookies," she said. She has three adult children and eight grandchildren. "It's a treat, and it's not real big. It's just fun to give them something that makes them smile."
She added that offering something homemade is also special.
"What you make from scratch is different from what everyone buys in the box," Taylor said.
'Gift of love'
Tomas Meyer likes baking cookies so much, he teaches others how to do it.
For the second year, the Bel Air resident is leading Chez Tomas Christmas Cookies, a continuing education course through Harford Community College, scheduled to be held Dec. 9 and Dec. 16 at Fallston Middle School.
Meyer, who has taught various cooking classes through the college for 32 years, said he and his wife, Carol, had begun serving cookies to students after other classes.
"They became so popular that in September, people start asking for them," he said.
The Meyers make thousands of cookies, about 15 different kinds, starting in October. They can make so many because the cookies are very small, so it's easy to try more than one.
"I have always enjoyed having a lot of different kinds. I like being able to taste more than one," Meyer said.
He and his wife churn out bar, spritz, macaroon, biscotti and sandwich cookies, among others. His wife's favorite is a Paris wafer, a sandwich cookie made of pastry dough with sugar in between.
"It melts in your mouth because of the pastry dough," he said.
Meyer enjoys rum balls and an unusual chocolate-vanilla swirl cookie that is sliced and baked, although he does not like to play favorites with cookies.
"I always say the last one was my favorite," he said.
A favorite of his students is a white chocolate-chip mint cookie that features fresh mint.
"We like to use our own mint when we are making our cookies, so that is why we make them in October," Meyer explained.
Meyer said he has cooked since he was a child, though he has no professional training.
Baking cookies is a major holiday tradition for him. His Christmas card even features a picture of the cookie tray, with the inside wishing that the sharing of Christmas cookies reflect "God's love shown in His gift to us, a Savior, that we may have eternal life."
"If you want to give somebody a homemade gift, you are giving something of your heart," Meyer said about the concept of giving Christmas cookies.
"It's a gift of love," he said.
'A fun day'
Three different Forest Hill women are all taking part this year in an annual tradition of meeting with family or friends to share cookies and Christmas wishes.
For years, Becky Schaller has been meeting with relatives for a day of baking. This year, she met in Monkton on Sunday with her two sisters, mother and her sister's mother-in-law.
Like many other families, they listen to Christmas music and catch up on their lives.
"It's really just a fun day, because we can make any kind of cookie that anyone likes to make," Schaller said. "My mom always baked cookies with us around the holidays."
"Everyone stopped their busy, crazy schedules and hung out," Schaller explained, adding "it gets a little crazy" with five grandchildren, ranging in ages from 3 to 11, usually around.
Schaller likes to make chocolate-chip cookies "because I like to eat the dough," and she always makes peanut-butter blossoms with a Hershey's kiss on top.
Her sister, Rachel, makes a "fantastic" sugar cookie with homemade icing, and her mother always makes a shortbread cookie from a passed-down recipe.
"Those are our favorite," she said.
"I think everybody likes to eat cookies, and Christmas is just the acceptable time to do it. That's the time to let your diet go," Schaller said with a laugh about the idea of baking for the holidays.
"My family loves the holidays. We are all Christmas nuts," she said. "It's just nice to take something back, and you are doing something productive. Just having that family time is really special."
Jennifer Lynch's family, meanwhile, starts baking at 7 or 8 a.m. and goes until 11 p.m.
"Every year, my aunt and my mom come over and we each make, like, four batches of cookies," Lynch said, explaining the tradition began about 10 years ago.
"The kids would help, whoever was available to be here," she said. Lynch makes cookies with red-and-green M&Ms, "holly tree" cookies from green corn flakes with red cinnamon circles and peanut-butter blossoms.
Lynch said she spent years making and decorating cookies while working at Giant supermarket.
About her family's long day of baking, "it's just special," she said. "It's that time of the year for all of us to get together with the children and just be together. It's a lot of laughs, a lot of hard work."
Larissa Arist, another Forest Hill woman, is hosting a cookie exchange for the Bel Air-based Harford Community Church.
Women from the church will meet Dec. 13 with pre-baked cookies for the fifth annual exchange.
"The main reason for our church really to do this is a chance for the women in our church to fellowship together," Arist said. "More importantly, it's just an opportunity for us to get together during the season. Everyone has their own thing they like to make, but I would say in our church in particular, I can't say anyone has that long tradition [of cookie-baking]."
"It's more about the fun of trying something new and different, and being open to that," Arist continued, saying people like to pull recipe ideas from different websites.
"I really think in today's day and age, people like to be inspired by what's on the Internet," she said. "I am not a huge baker. Do I like to make Christmas cookies? Absolutely."
Arist said she likes to "mix it up" every year with her cookie selection, and hopes to try making egg-nog cookies this season.
Besides giving cookies to family members, she also shares them with neighbors.
"I live in a more rural area, so I feel like it's a great way to make that extra effort to connect with people that you don't normally talk to the rest of the year," she said.
She also thinks baking cookies at Christmas is nostalgic, as well as a source of community.
"I think probably it takes people back to their childhood. We are living in a day and age where you are trying to keep some traditions up and create your own," Arist said, explaining she is in her 40s and recalls her mother and grandmother baking cookies.
"As an adult today, you want to recreate those kinds of memories with your children, for your children," she said.