Cookies have been a welcome addition to festivals and holiday rituals for as long as baking has been recorded, and its custom continues to this day. Everyone has their favourites. For some, buttery shortbread is the answer; others enjoy spicing things up with some gingerbread, or, if you’re like me, you might prefer something laced with chocolate and nuts. During this festive season, every gathering seems to harbour a plate or two of the delicious morsels. Any way you slice it, cookies are a tasty and traditional part of Christmas.
One December, my dear friend Cyndi and I combined efforts and spent a fun-filled day baking holiday treats. We drew up an extensive list with foolish confidence in our ability to accomplish it all in an afternoon. Unfortunately, before this event, Cyndi fell prey to some slick advertising on the cover of a glossy magazine featuring directions on constructing an “Old English” gingerbread cottage with a thatched roof in five simple steps.
“It looks easy, Helen!” she enthused, brimming with the calm self-assurance of a rank amateur.
I arrived at her door that morning, laden with the usual baking ingredients: chocolate, flour, butter, sugar — did I mention chocolate? Lightheartedly laughing in anticipation of the fruitful day ahead, we fell to work amid the happy clatter of pans. Her large, pristine kitchen gleamed in the morning sun as we briskly bustled about our many tasks. Fools!
After a laborious day of loaves, fudge, tarts, cookies and squares, we realized it was five o’clock. Cyndi had only started rolling the gingerbread, a dark, evil-looking concoction repeatedly cracking under the strain of preparation. I poked fitfully at an unpleasant mass in the bottom of a saucepan that bubbled angrily, not unlike some Shakespearean cauldron brewing a foul potion. Clouds of flour had settled in our hair, aging us before our time. Streaks of some ungodly mixture decorated our faces, and we occasionally stumbled on weakened limbs as we trod on nasty, sticky bits littering the filthy premises. Leaning heavily on the sink, I gazed at my friend through the acrid haze of burned tarts and said, “There’s a lesson to be learned here.”
Further to this fiasco — the crowning achievement of the day — was the English country cottage in five simple steps. It had, in fact, become a terrifying apparition in roughly 67. The hateful magazine had included photos of a glistening kitchen and a beaming first-prize winner standing proudly beside her beautifully appointed structure.
Cyndi stood amongst the rubble of her kitchen, grim determination etched on her face as, in a final gesture of defeat, she plugged in her hot glue gun and resolutely welded it together. Muttering darkly to herself concerning idiot prize winners, she lavishly plastered shredded wheat to the roof with a second round of mucilage, pushed hopefully at a wall drooping almost perpendicular to the table, and stood back to squint at it with listless eyes. Turning towards me, she spread her hands in resignation.
“It doesn’t look anything like an English cottage … it looks like a deserted African hut from the pages of an old National Geographic.”
Yes, our favourite holiday treats may take on many forms, but as long as memories are made and good times are shared, you can overlook a little glue here and there. Christmas cookies are an enduring tradition to be enjoyed by one and all.
Get baking!
