Richfield
CURRENT
Dec. 15, 2011 • V41.50
minnlocal.com
In the Community, With the Community, For the Community
Spartan girls basketball rolls on. Page 25A
Retailers carefully consider Christmas tunes
Richfield man bakes for the neighborhood Jim Braasch carries on his Christmas cookie tradition, one neighbor’s doorstep at a time
Some scale back
BY ANDREW WIG – SUN NEWSPAPERS He keeps a list. He might doublecheck it. But Jim Braasch is not Santa Claus. He doesn’t eat your cookies; he brings them to your door. And maybe the treats will end up on Santa’s plate late Christmas Eve, next to the milk. If they last that long. For 36 years, the 61-year-old Braasch has kept to tradition, whipping together the flour, eggs, sugar and lots of butter. Every Christmas, the result is the same: spritz cookies, which go in gift-wrapped coffee tins destined for long-time neighbors and family as far flung as Colorado and North Carolina. Braasch keeps a list of his clientele, about 60 in all, tracking the last few years with check marks, making sure that no one on the list goes without their spritz. They would notice if Braasch misses a delivery, because in some households, the tins are like treasure. So with cookies in hand, Braasch’s neighbors have taken special measure to keep their children from prematurely stuffing their faces with Braasch’s
75¢
BY ANDREW WIG SUN NEWSPAPERS
Weekly Super Savings!
Jim Braasch of Richfield has delivered tins of his spritz cookies every Christmas for 36 years to neighbors, friends and family. (Photo by Andrew Wig – Sun Newspapers) Weekly Super Savings! Virginia Oberg hides her ration of baked goods, which are reportedly spritz, too. “If they were out when everyaddictive. body is over,” Oberg said, “they’d be “I used to hide those cookies, because gone in no time.” my kids would say, ‘Are Jimmy’s cookies Braasch guards the recipe tightly. “I here yet?’” recounted neighbor Jean don’t even know the recipe,” said Bette Emerson, who has known Braasch for Braasch, the baker’s 89-year-old mother. about 30 years. “They’d eat them up W e e k l y S u p e r S a v i n g The s ! younger Braasch went over his before Christmas.” mother’s head in obtaining the spritz People insist there is something special in those cookies. “They are delicious. They really are,” Emerson said. COOKIEMAN: TO PAGE 14A
To some, it warms the heart. To others, it’s an annoyance. To others yet, it is a sales tool. Thus, an important decision: What to play through the PA this time of year? “Having the right Christmas music playing will keep the customer in the store longer, and make their shopping experience better and thereby they spend more money,” said Jose Brown, product manager for DMX, which provides subscription music service to retail outlets across the country, including the Twin Cities. For some retailers, the bells and xylophones start chiming Nov. 1, which means by now, some may already be covering their ears. For some it’s like, “by the time Christmas rolls around and you’ve heard ‘Feliz Navidad’ a MUSIC: TO PAGE 21A
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