Thanksgiving Blessing Cookies

In Canada, Thanksgiving is the second Monday in October.  The weekend prior to Thanksgiving I was in Michigan with one of my online girlfriends, at the huge Bronner's Christmas store in Frankenmuth, where I found a large maple leaf cookie cutter.  This year, along with my homemade pumpkin pie, I decided to make some Thanksgiving cookies for Hubby's family feast with the new cookie cutter.

I started with my Mom's classic Sugar Cookie recipe.  After the cookies were completely cooled, I made a Glaze Icing using:

2 cups icing sugar,
2-3 TBSP milk,
1/4 tsp extract

(I used almond for one batch, maple for another and vanilla for a third).  I split the icing batches into different bowls for different colors and flavors.  I then added food coloring to each bowl to get my autumn colors:  orange, red, yellow, green and brown.

Once the cookies had been glazed and left to harden for quite a while, I then took a food coloring marker to write on each cookie.  The ones in the top picture are the Thanksgiving Blessings I wrote on the general cookie plate,

 but I also took some of the cookies and made place setting "cards" for each dinner plate at the table:

Since making these cookies, I've picked up a new set of leaf cookie cutters at Golda's Kitchen which I can't wait until next Fall to create an entire "forest" of fallen leaves to accent my Thanksgiving Blessing cookies and name cards.