Deer Antlers and Peanut Blossoms

The story of the Weaver family tradition that occurred each December

during the opening week of Pennsylvania buck hunting.

In our family, the opening day of buck hunting was a big deal.  To my dad and brother Jeff, it meant a vacation-a few days at the cabin.  Only days after celebrating Thanksgiving, our thoughts would turn to preparations for their yearly trip to the cabin, and the fun my mom, sister Wendy and I would have at home while they were away. 

Daddy would clean his gun and make sure everything was ready.  Then they would pull their heavy, fluorescent orange hunting pants and coats out of boxes that were stored in the cold attic. 

 Now they were ready to join grandpa and dads’ brothers for the drive to my uncle Tommy’s cabin, the family hunting cabin. Grandma had planned the menu and bought all the food the hunters would need for the next three days in the mountains. All of the men would find a quiet spot in the woods on Monday morning to sit and wait for a big deer to wander across their path. In the evenings they would play card games late into the night.

Weaver Family favorite game - Haus

 At home, my mom, sister Wendy and I, would wait by the telephone each evening for a call from daddy.  “Did anyone get a deer?” Wendy and I would whisper, anxious to hear if any of the hunters were lucky enough to shoot a deer.  That would mean deer bologna and other yummy deer meat treats to come. 

Meanwhile, it was time for our annual cookie bake!  Deer hunting and cookies go hand in hand.  You see, when my dad, grandpa, and uncles, and the older boys were hunting, my aunts and all the other children would come and spend a day at grandma's house.  Each aunt would bring at least 2 batches of cookie dough to bake in grandma’s oven. 

It was there, in the cozy country kitchen, that dozens and dozens of cookies emerged from the toasty oven that was kept busy baking from morning till evening.  Not long after the first batch of cookies was pulled from the oven, little fingers would be reaching up to the table where the cookies were cooling, to grab one of those cookies that made our mouths water. But only the sneaky ones got a taste early in the morning.  The rule was clear-no cookies until lunchtime!

My cousins and I were put to work icing cookies and creating masterpieces with green and red sprinkles, M n M’s, and chopped nuts.  If we were lucky, a cookie would break in our care.  (We were allowed to eat those!)

My favorite job was peeling the green, red, and silver foil wrappers off of the Hershey Kisses that would top the Peanut Blossoms.  To make Peanut Blossoms, we would scoop some of the peanut butter dough into our hands and roll it into a small, one-inch ball.  Next the ball was rolled in sugar and set onto cookie trays to bake.  When the cookies were just about done, my mom would take the tray from the oven and then we would press a kiss into each cookie.  Back to the oven for 2 more minutes-just enough time to soften the chocolate.  The end result: a soft, sugar coated peanut butter cookie with a Hershey Kiss on top that melted in your mouth.  

At the end of the day, everyone had warm rosy cheeks.  Aprons were smudged with flour and chocolate.  Tired from a hard days’ work, and proud of our accomplishments, the prized cookies would get divided so that each family could fill their Tupperware containers with a variety of Christmas cookies.  After eating the evening meal of pizza, we would head home to fill our freezer with fresh baked cookies, all ready for the upcoming Christmas season.

Baking cookies wasn’t the only thing we did to prepare for Christmas while dad and Jeff were away.  Mommy would unpack our Christmas decorations from boxes out of the attic.  She would set our small artificial tree up on a table and Wendy and I would hang ornaments and tinsel on its branches.  We hung our stockings from the mantel of our large stone fireplace, and our Rudolph and Santa Claus pictures on the doors.

Tenderly, my mommy would set up a manger scene on the mantel and surround it with greens cut from the backyard pine tree.  By the time Daddy and Jeff returned from deer hunting, the house had been transformed into a Christmas wonderland! 

Every once in a while dad would actually shoot a deer and the first thing we would do when he got home was to run outside and greet him and then look at the deer on the back of his pickup truck.  Like the green and red sprinkles, or the Hershey Kiss on top of the cookies, it was the deer’s antlers that determined the true success of the hunt. 

How many points did the antlers have?  A 10-point buck would be like a warm Peanut Blossom cookie. You can’t beat it.  A spike buck with only 2 short antlers would be satisfactory. Kind of like a sugar cookie with no icing or sprinkles!  It’s good, but could be better!

After showing off the deer, daddy would take it to a local butcher.  The butcher would then prepare the meat and package it into venison steaks, ground meat, and my favorite, bologna.  Mom would add the packs of deer meat to the freezer alongside our dozens of Christmas cookies. 

The opening week of buck hunting sure was a big deal in our family.  I’m sure the guys would have a lot of deer stories to tell.  But if you would ask my cousins, I think we’d all agree that the cookie bake was our favorite part of deer hunting!  The best part about it was that if the guys came home empty handed, we still had plenty of cookies to eat!