Deb Connelly and her crew give all 323 dozen Christmas cookies away.
MEDINA, Minn. — The house in Hamel has a grand Christmas tree in the living room. But the home’s most important holiday tradition is in the kitchen.
“Hey, Michaela, turn on the oven,” Deb Connelly shouts across the room to her niece.
The oven, the microwave and assorted small appliances are working in concert.
A crew of five women scurries about.
“For me, food is love,” Deb says, surveying the room. “So, here’s cookies.”
Deb isn’t interested in a Tupperware or two filled with Christmas cookies. That’s not the way she rolls.
“Thirty-six hundred last year,” Deb says.
Put another way, that’s 300 dozen Christmas cookies, made mostly over three days, in Deb’s kitchen.
By the time this weekend is done, the women will have broken last year’s record cookie crop by another 23 dozen, for a total of nearly 3,900 cookies.
Their feat has been years in the making.
“We don’t have memories of not doing it,” Michaela …