Sweets for Sister Scrooge

THIS YEAR, CHRISTMAS spirit (I’m so, so sorry to report) is somewhat elusive. I’ve been through the wringer, between family health scares and emotional ups and downs and financial instability (and let’s not forget Joe Lieberman!) and I’m just done, done, done with 2009. While I’m looking forward to snowy winter vacation days home with my kids, with a fire in its ‘place and eggnog at hand, I just can’t muster much ho ho ho. Nonetheless, I did load up my cart with sugar and flour this week, because moody or not, it’s time to bake cookies. There’s just one little problem:

I’ve written before about my Christmas cookie tastes and traditions. This year, I’ll probably muster the energy for bourbon balls,  a batch or two of rolled and cut-out sugar cookies, some of the best chocolate cookies ever, and perhaps I’ll even get the candy thermometer out and make pecan pralines. 

All of these are echos of my childhood, a direct line to the sweets my mother loved to make this time of year. But the treat I’m pining for is one I’ve never actually made. This year, what I really want to make is a cookie whose recipe I read once, and tucked away for safekeeping some mysterious place I’ve never been able find again. Years later, I can’t get this unknown, untasted cookie out of my mind.

The recipe was ensconced in an essay (I remember it being in the New York Times magazine, or maybe the Fashions of the Times supplement, but a search of the Times archives has proven fruitless) about giving gifts, and the writer made a persuasive case that a small amount of something precious was worth infinitely more than a bushel full of junk, food or otherwise. Her offering of choice was a delicate cookie made with brown butter, a cookie so good that recipients waited for it every year.

The writer’s friends knew full well that they’d receive just a few of the fragile, hard-to-make treats, each meant to be savored, rather than snacked away into oblivion. But the gift was so full of care, the recipients swooned. Whomever that writer was (and oh, sisters, if you too clipped this essay, and saved it, you’ll be the heroes of my holiday!) she made a point that rings true now, in particular, when we’re all hanging in after a year of stress and recession. It’s better to do one small, heartfelt, beautiful thing, than a bunch of less-sincere gifts or gestures.

Me, I’ve already warned sister-friends that while cards are in the mail, gifts are mostly foregone this year. But I’ll be bringing small treats to friends I visit through the holidays, a cookie or six, or maybe a jar of homemade plum conserve I put up earlier in the year. And I hope that they all know that the size of the thought behind them is way, way greater than the scale of the gifts this year brings. What are you doing for sisters and friends this year? Share your holiday secrets with us!

Related posts:

1. My First Year as a Sister WAY BACK WHEN, when lovely Margaret Roach first told me...
2. ‘Yams’ With a Side of Sisterhood WITH THE BEGINNING of the winter holiday juggernaut breathing down...