My Mother's Cookies

My mom was great at making "cut-out" cookies.  You know, the kind of sugar cookie where you roll out the dough, cut out shapes, bake them and then decorate them with frosting.  I think her mom made them before her.  She made them not just for Christmas but just because.

I don't know how many times as a child I opened my Polly Pal or Holly Hobbie lunch box, the metal kind with the matching thermos, and smiled at a cookie smiling back at me.  On a regular basis she made circular shaped cookies frosted white with pink dot eyes and a pink smile.  These are some labor-intensive cookies yet I was always surprised by them.  She worked full time - I don't know when she ever made cookies when I was in elementary school.

By middle school we were making them together.  She rolled the dough right out on the counter top, deftly using a rolling pin to make it an even thickness.  She cut the shapes and in the same movement scooped the shape up off the counter and onto the cookie sheet waiting nearby,  After they baked to a perfect color they popped right off the cookie sheet and onto the cooling rack.  Then we'd ice them together.

Her favorite was the Christmas Tree frosted either white or green and then she'd take a toothpick and dab on different primary colors to look like lights and remind me of the ceramic lighted Christmas trees that my grandparents and great aunt made and decorated their homes with.

Once in a while I get ambitious and try and replicate the cookies. Unless I drench them in flower they stick to my counter and I spend a lot of time cajoling them up with a butter knife only to have the shape destroyed by the time it flops onto the cookie sheet.  I reshape them with my fingers but they never look as good.  

I wish I had thought to ask my mom to make a bunch so I could freeze them in dozens.  She wouldn't have had to ice them.  But maybe just bake 200 dozen, or maybe 500 dozen.  To last the rest of my life.

Luckily my daughter seems to have learned the cookie-baking skill from her Grandma.  I wonder what foods my kids will miss when I'm not here to cook it for them.  It seems like every adult I know could name a food that nobody could make like their mother.  Sort of reminds me of an underlying theme of a book I recently read, Recipes for a Perfect Marriage by Morag Prunty / Kate Kerrigan.

This year I started a new cookie tradition - the Melting Snowman.  My fifth grader helped put the buttons on.  They are sort of like the cut-outs but you start with the drop-n-bake circle cookies.  If I'm here next year, then I will make them again, and every year after that.  My youngest will remember them as his childhood Christmas cookies - since he never really got to know my mom or her cookies.

Dreading the New Year

I work in a school with ESL students so I speak a lot of Spanish all day long.  Spanish is my third language.  Portuguese is my second.  Last Friday, when we were released for Christmas break, I decided to listen to Brasilian music on my way home - a good, healthy dose of Portuguese to make sure I wasn't forgetting the language.  One of my favorite songs came on, "Sutilmente" by Skank.  It's sort of a love song.  The singer says, when I'm sad - you hold me, when I'm crazy - you let me be, when I'm silly - you cover for me.  The bridge really got to me though.  

Mas quando eu estiver morto

Suplico que nao me mate, nao

Dentro de ti, dentro de ti

When I'm dead, I beg you not to kill me inside of you.

To me that says the singer doesn't want to be forgotten after they die.  It says they want their loved ones to keep their memory alive within their hearts.

And that's when it hit me - through my tears for the beautiful sentiment, My lack of Christmas spirit this year is not becuase after Christmas we will tell my youngest child the truth about Santa Claus.  (He's in 5th grade, I don't want him to go to middle school and not know the real story.)  I realized that I don't have the Christmas spirit this year because after Christmas comes the New Year.  The year 2017.  The year that I may die on July 12th.  I don't want the year to start because I don't want my life to end.  

My brain tells me I should make the most of these days and create beautiful memories for my children.  But my subconcious is reacting with fear - and the fear is winning.  My brain tells me to push the fear aside and focus on the positive, but apparently I haven't done enough Sudoku because my brain is weak.

My Last Meal (f.u. to Life Insurance)

For a couple of years now I've said that I hope to have a nice lunch with my older children on July 12, 2017.  Usually I envision that happening at La Madeline.  Sometimes I consider the possibility / irony that I'd have a fatal car accident on the way to lunch.

Why I think of La Madeline for this occasion I don't know.  I go there infrequently but I always enjoy its casual but quiet and comforting environment.  

The other day I was reading a restaurant guide for San Antonio describing the local newspaper's top picks.  One of them was the Brazilian Steakhouse - Chama Gaucha.  I've known this restaurant was in town for over a decade but I've never been there.  Much as I would love the Brazilian environment, I am just not the type to pay $50 per person for a meal.    

There are a couple of other similar restaurants in town.  Even before Chama Gaucha arrived there was a smaller, less-marketed restaurant.  One day when I was still a single parent my mom gave me an envelope on Mother's Day that had cash in it with a designation that I take myself and my kids to eat at that Brazilian Steakhouse.  (Oddly - recalling that now that my mother is 3 years gone brings more tears to my eyes than it did at the moment.)

Back to reading the guide book though - it was then I decided that my potential last meal will be at a Brazilian Steakhouse.  If I die before I receive the credit card bill for the meal - then my estate can pay it and it won't bother me one bit.  If I'm still alive when I receive the credit card bill - then I'll see it as one more opportunity to praise God for life.  And since I won't be paying life insurance premiums anymore (see post October 19) - I'll have a few spare extra dollars to pay the bill. 

Have You Seen My Christmas Spirit?

This may be my last Christmas on earth.  This may be my last chance to create wonderful Christmas memories with my children.  I thought I would be SO in the Christmas spirit.  I thought I would have that motivation magically energize me to be like that episode of "Two and a Half Men" (Santa's Village of the Damned) and look like Christmas threw up all over my living room.

Instead I feel more overladed and somewhat apathetic than other years even though I really don't have much going on.  My gate decorations were haphazardly done in four different sessions and it looks the worst it ever has.  My pre-lit tree is dying a slow death and every year for the last couple of years we've been adding extra lights to it.  Normally we do the tree on Black Friday but this year it went up over a week later.  I ran out of lights and didn't want to wait to get more.  I decided we could just live with less lights and a big dark gap on our tree.  Not because I was eager to get the tree up but because I was eager to get it over with. I loathed doing the lights and tinsel and then fussed at my 11 year old to do the ornaments.

I used to have Christmas music playing 24x7 in my house.  This year I barely even listen to the station in the car.  Instead I'm listening to an audio book - not even related to Christmas.  Years ago JCPenney gave out Christmas buttons and I got a lot.  I used to wear at least one every day in December.  I don't even know where they are this year.  And I have yet to wear an Ugly sweater.

On a positive note - I did make the BEST batch of eggnog I've ever made using the same recipe I've been using for years.

My plan is to spend time with the family - especially the youngest.  Over Thanksgiving break we cuddled every day on the sofa and watched a movie.  I think for Christmas break we will play a game every day.  Because that's really what I want for him - to plant memories.  If I over did the decorations this year then they might notice the absence next year.  However it goes, if I'm not here next Christmas, it's going to feel different for them.  So hopefully quality time is the best thing I can do for them.