Three-Color Sugar Cookies

Makes 24 Cookies.  Great for teaching the kids!  I'm including the instructions as written for kids to try.

1/2 C. butter or shortening, softened
1 C. granulated sugar
1 t. vanilla
1 egg
1 1/2 C. flour
1 1/2 t. double-acting baking powder
1/4 t. salt
food coloring (red and blue for 4th of July, red and green for Christmas, orange and black or yellow for Halloween, red and pink for Valentine's Day, etc.)

Get a large mixing bowl.  Measure the shortening and put it in the bowl.  Measure the sugar and pour over shortening.  Cream them together.
Get a cup.  Break egg into cup.
Add the egg and the vanilla to the creamed mixture.  Beat well.  You will have a smooth yellow batter.  Set the mixing bowl aside.
Measure the flour, the baking powder, and the salt into a sifter.  Sift them into a bowl.
Dump half the sifted ingredients into the mixing bowl.  Stir and stir.  It will be hard to do, but keep stirring until all the flour is mixed into the yellow batter.  Add the rest of the sifted ingredients and stir some more.  You will have a big lump of sticky dough.
Now divide the lump into three chunks.  Make the chunks about the same size.  Put one chunk on a plate or on a piece of waxed paper.  Put another chunk in the bowl you used for flour.  Leave the third chunk in the mixing bowl.
Open one of the food coloring colors and drip about 10 drops onto the dough in the mixing bowl.  Mix the food coloring into the dough until the whole dough is colored.  Repeat with the other color in the other bowl.  Now you have two chunks of dough with different colors and one left white.  Stick them all together to make one big ball.  Then roll the ball of dough between your palms until it looks like a big three-colored sausage, about 7 1/2 inches long and 2 inches around.
Wrap the roll or dough in plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator overnight so that it will get good and hard. (Or wrap aluminum foil over the plastic wrap and stick it in the freezer where it will stay good until you need it if you use it within a month or so, just remember to get it out a bit early to unthaw a bit.)
Time to do the dishes.

The next day, preheat the oven to 400.  Grease the cookie sheets.  Now take the roll of dough out of the fridge.  Unwrap it and put it on a cutting board.  Slice the dough into cookies with a table knife.  Make each one about 1/4 inch thick.  Put the cookies on the greased cookie sheets.  They will not spread out much, so you can put them close together, but not touching.  Let them bake for 8 minutes.  Get another batch ready if you have another cookie sheet.  After 8 minutes, check the cookies.  If they are beginning to get golden brown on the bottom edges, take them out.  If not, let them bake a minute or two more.  When they are done, take them out of the oven.  Carefully lift off the cookie sheet with a spatula and set them on a wire rack to cool.