cookies

My aunt died this week. She's not been truly well for more than 30 years, but it got worse about 10 years ago when my Grandparents died. She had spent the last 4 or 5 years in a nursing home after a suicide attempt. They were wonderful at that home and helped her deal with her mental issues as best they could. How is that related to the title of this post? Cause Christmas cookies are the thing i've always loved best about her.
She had a HUGE Santa face cookie cutter(6 or 7 inches tall) that she used to make sugar cookies every year. She had some training in cake decorating from my grandmother who used to do wedding cakes so the decorations on the faces were very detailed and the frosting was always close to 1/2 inch think on the beard/mustache/hat trim. She would bag them separatly and each child would get 1 and only 1. At the time it made us all mad, now i realize how much work was involved in making them.
Her only daughter got the old cookie cutter and recipie as is proper. But this week i found a similar sized candy cane cookie cutter. I've always wanted to be able to decorate cakes and cookies. I have signed up for a beginner cake decorating class from our Hobby Lobby so now i can try to give my nieces and nephews a memory of me like the one i have of my aunt.
I've got several different batches of cookies in the fridge to bake tonight and i'll start decorating the easy ones tomorrow.