SHENANDOAH - Looking at all the cookies in the Trinity United Church of Christ in Shenandoah you can't help but wonder, where is the milk?
Church members were busy baking and preparing the delicious treats for sale Wednesday. The effort to start baking the cookies started after Thanksgiving.
"These just came out of the oven," John Fritz, 59, a member of the church, said as he used a spatula to remove sugar cookies shaped like little candles onto butcher paper he rolled out on a long table.
The cookies were sprinkled with red and green colored sugar just waiting to be tasted.
Cookies were shaped like snowmen, soldiers, angels, Christmas trees, ice skates, teddy bears, gingerbread men and others.
Karen Locke weighed the cookies in a plastic container using a small scale with an 8 ounce weight.
When the scale went down, she knew it was time to close the lid.
Behind her were stacks of peanut butter, chocolate chip, butter and sugar cookies. Michigan rocks were along a side wall - 104 pounds of them.
The cookie is more expensive to make because it includes dates, nuts, raisins, walnuts, cinnamon and nutmeg, according to the church's recipe, Locke said.
It is also the most popular, she said.
The sugar cookie is the second most popular cookie, Locke said.
She said the cookie fundraiser has been going on since at least 1997, records show.
This year, orders were taken for about 300 pounds of cookies. She doesn't expect many will be left for those who have a last minute craving.
"Last year, I had a little over 400 pounds," in orders, Locke said.
The cookies are sold for $9 per pound or $4.50 for half a pound. Proceeds go to the church.
In addition to parishioners ordering cookies, people from Summit Station, Tamaqua and other areas of the county order the cookies.
"People love Christmas cookies," Locke said. "It brings them back to memories of their family and when they were children."
With the busy lives people live, sometimes they don't have time to make the cookies but want that taste of the past.
During all that baking, there is bound to be some cookies that turn out less than perfect.
An aluminum foil pan covered with tin foil was testament to that. Inside were cookies that didn't quite make the grade.
"We eat our mistakes. We never give anyone a broken cookie," Locke said.
They make so many cookies that they often end up buying a new blender every few years.
"We kill them," said Cathy Fritz, a member of the church.
People call in early November asking about the cookies, Locke said.
She tells them they will be made.
"It's a holiday thing. It's something special," she said.