I have fond memories celebrating the Christmas season with my Italian family. Besides the religious observances, the exceptional food and baked goods were an enjoyable part of it. The season started early, right after Thanksgiving, with the baking of tons of cookies and cakes. 

As cookies go, there were the tarralle, pizzella, mastachioli, which, after a while got hard as a rock but made good dipping in red wine. Then, we rolled out the thumbprints, cuscini (a fried type of cookie made with chestnuts, and/or ceci beans shaped like ravioli), followed by biscotti and a couple others which I’ve forgotten the name.