An American reader passes along that photo of a Christmas display in the Italian city of Gubbio, where his sister lives. He also sent the images below, with the following commentary:

Feeling very nostalgic this year, I made the Hungarian filled cookies my grandmother made when I was a kid. They came out so well that my first taste and I was instantly a small boy in my grandmother’s kitchen, being offered a cookie from her big copper tin. I even made the apricot filling from the old Hungarian cookbook she bought in 1963 from a local church. I’ll make some prune ones next (lekvar) for my father.

Memories are bittersweet things, but cookies make everything better.