My mother has a recipe for cut out sugar cookies from an old cookbook that everyone always says is the best sugar cookie they’ve ever had. When I was a kid my mother used to bake these cookies with us all the time. She had cookie cutters for any number of holidays. I’m pretty sure baking this cookies with her engendered my love of baking. As such I used to (and still do) bake for fun.

At some point during my childhood my sister and I got Ronald McDonald cookie cutters as the toy in our Happy Meals. I don’t ever remember using them, but they lived in the container with all our other cookie cutters. That is until I was around 13 or 14. My friend Erin and I used to bake these sugar cookies a lot when we lived near each other as young teenagers. For some reason we found this Ronald McDonald cookie cutter hilarious. We insisted that there had to be at least one Ronald McDonald cookie in every batch of cookies. It became a thing, and we still have fun with it.

At some point after I moved out of my parents house I stole one of the Ronald McDonald cookie cutters to have as my very own. I admit I don’t always make a Ronald McDonald cookie every time I make these cookies, but I enjoy the memories every time I pull out my cookie cutters and see it. When Erin gave birth to her son I made her an entire batch of Ronald McDonald cookies. The first time she told me she made these cookies with him, I knew I had to pass along our tradition. I searched on eBay and found one of the Ronald McDonald cookie cutters to send to him.

I was baking Christmas cookies this past weekend and decided I needed to put the Ronald McDonald cookie cutter to use. I pulled him out and as is tradition made a single Ronald McDonald cookie. It made me happy thinking about all the batches of cookies Erin and I baked together.