As Advent begins, my grandma's kitchen fill with the fragrance of cinnamon, cloves, and cookies made with a blend of almond and flour. Among the most beloved holiday cookies is one we called Mandelschnitten. Since the Middle Ages in Germany, almonds were considered a precious ingredient, symbolizing festivity and prosperity. Because they were so expensive they were saved for the holiday season, and events like weddings.

Many of these cookies developed in the German monestary found that the ground nuts mixed with sugar would keep fresh all winter, unlike cookies with all flour instead, as long as they were in an air tight container like a tin. That is why my grandma always gave us her cookies in a cookie tin.

For me, these cookies carry an especially personal meaning: they were my father’s favorite, lovingly baked each year by his German mother. That tradition, passed down through generations, reminds us that almonds don’t just enrich the flavor—they connect us to family, memory, and the joy of Christmas itself. As time went on we started to make these all year around, they are perfect with the afternoon coffee that was a tradition.