Only the cookie aisle at a grocery store stocks more cookies than Mary Olivero’s house at Christmas.

Olivero’s cookies aren’t for sale though. They are gifts.

Each Christmas, since she was a child, Olivero’s home was always full of one certain type of cookies — St. Joseph’s altar cookies.

The cookies are named for the Sicilian devotion to St. Joseph and their custom of having St. Joseph altars.

A St. Joseph altar is a collection of food and goods that is given as a sign of thanksgiving to St. Joseph. The collected food is then distributed into the community.

The tradition of St. Joseph altars is believed to have begun in the 16th century in Palermo, Italy. It gained popularity over the years and reached a peak in Sicily the 18th and 19th centuries. At that time, entire villages were participating in the custom.

It is believed that during a time of famine, people prayed to St. Joseph for survival. After the famine ended the villagers held a celebration in St. Joseph’s honor, and thus the tradition was born.

When Sicilians immigrated to the New Orleans area, beginning in 1880, they brought with them the tradition of the St. Joseph altar. Over 40 percent of Louisiana’s population in 1910 was Italian, and of that number more than 90 percent were of Sicilian descent.

There is no written record of the first altar in the New Orleans area, but it is believed to have taken place in a private home just before World War I. As the years passed, more and more St. Joseph altars took place in private homes for reasons such as recovery from illness and help with financial well being.

Over the years the tradition became less private, and altars began be sponsored by churches and civic and social organizations. For the larger altars, the food and goods collected were distributed to church members and families in need.

Olivero’s family, keeping with the tradition of the St. Joseph altar, gives the cookies as gifts to family and friends.

This year, with the help of her son, daughter-in-law and granddaughters, Olivero baked over 500 of the tasty treats.

“We bake until one batch of dough is finished and then we make another one,” Olivero said.

Luckily, Olivero has two ovens and can cook four baking sheets full at a time.

Olivero’s son, Ray Olivero was the lucky helper picked to man the oven and make sure the pans of cookies turn out perfect.

“I just rotate the pans,” he said. “Every seven minutes I take them out and switch them around.”

The cookies, made from a butter, flour and sugar cookie dough, are flavored with anise, sesame seeds, a fig filling, pecans or even chocolate.

Some are flat, thin cookies, others are thicker drop style cookies and some are shaped like Christmas wreaths and candy canes.

Many of the cookies are iced with homemade icing colored in a rainbow of colors and some are even rolled in crushed pecans or coconut.

Mary said different family members and friends prefer different taste and the variety ensures that there is something for everyone.

“My grandson and I like the chocolate and the anise ones are good with coffee in the morning,” she said.

She even said the recipe has been tweaked just a bit over the years.

“We added the almond flavoring,” Mary said. “My mother didn’t use almond.”

But Mary knows that the slight alteration in the recipe wouldn’t have bothered her mother.

“Oh, she wouldn’t have cared,” she said. “It would just make her happy to know that we were still baking the cookies.”

And they certainly are still baking the cookies. Mary and her two sisters, who still live in the Marrero, La. are, all bake St. Joseph altar cookies around Christmastime. Each sister usually picks a different weekend to bake so they can have plenty helping hands.

“Since we are morning people we’d usually start by 5 in the morning,” Mary said. “By the time other people would start showing up to help around 8 or 9, we would already be finished with one batch.”

It is a good thing there is plenty of work on baking days because not every family member is up at 5 a.m with rolling pan in hand.

“I’m not starting that early,” Ray laughed. “I’ll come about 8, but that is as early as I can start.”

But her son isn’t the only family help that she gets on baking days. Her grandchildren get into the act by icing and decorating the cookies.

“My daughter is in college in Hattiesburg and she planned a special trip home to help with the cookies,” Ray said.

After the cookies are baked and the icing has dried, the fun part starts. They are divided, packaged and gifted. Some people are so used to receiving cookies from Mary that they are shocked when she doesn’t have a bag or tin in hand.

“I went back home recently and saw a friend. I told him that we had baked the cookies,” she said. “And he said ‘You baked them and didn’t bring me any.’

“I told him I would mail him some.”

Lucky for her friends and family, Mary doesn’t plan on stopping the baking tradition.

“It wouldn’t be Christmas without the cookies,” she said.