You won’t find these ladies shopping on Black Friday

By Doug Schroder

Editor

PECATONICA – For about the past 35 years DeAnn Anderson and her daughter, Raylanna, have baked bunches of cookies on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. They do so because neither one likes to shop, so therefore they bake the goodies in the comfort of their own space and then send the cookies out to people on their Christmas list.

This year the ladies baked up 20 different kinds of cookies, 116 dozen in all.

It started on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving with sisters Abigail and Bailey Englund assisting by decorating 128 gingerbread men. It took them about five hours to do so.

Then on the Friday after Thanksgiving, DeAnn and Raylana began their day at 5 a.m. with baking cookies at the Anderson’s Stonewall Cafe in Pecatonica. Many customers of the cafe are able to sample some of the goods on this day, as DeAnn and Raylana work throughout the day and into the night.

When it’s all done the cookies are packaged and sent to friends and family in such places as Pennsylvania, Florida, Wisconsin, Missouri and all over Illinois.

Doug Schroder photo Friend Tim Droege (left) assisted Raylana Anderson (middle) and her mother DeAnn Anderson (right) in their tradition of baking cookies the day after Thanksgiving. Doug Schroder photo

It’s a labor of love for the two, but it keeps them from having to do something they hate and that is shopping.