Sugar Ornaments and Edible Toys

Cousin Madge’s dark eyes were glistening with cheer: “Sweet like pound cake,” she said, “sour like cranberry-tarts, everything is just right, and looks right.”¹ Madge had just stolen a peek at the Christmas tree decorations in Nellie Eyster’s 1865 children’s novel Sunny Hours, and the scene looked very much like the picture on the following page, where mother is trimming a small tree set upon a table. To the wild delight of the children in the house, she is decorating the tree with good things to eat: white sugar cookies and crullers in the shape of animals, jumbles—the cookies shaped like rings—cherries made of red sugarwork, and small baskets of confectionery.