On Second Thought

When I was around eight years old, I made my first batch of sugar cookies. They were more awful than you can imagine.

Now that I think about it, that may be when my family’s “you have to bring paper plates to the next holiday” tradition was born. If it was, then I had to bring paper plates for a very long time because when it came to sugar cookies I had no quit in me.

I was so bad at making sugar cookies that my sister, Kay, called them Ellie Mae cookies in honor of Ellie Mae Clampett from the Beverly Hillbillies whose cookies were used by her granny as door stops and hockey pucks.

Kay was not wrong.

Making edible sugar cookies gave me a purpose few things do, and it was more than the shame of bringing paper plates to the Hamilton Christmas. It was something I inexplicably wanted to be good at, so I persisted.

Finally, late in the third decade of my life, I found a super secret sugar cookie recipe and made it my own. Three decades later, I still make them and nobody calls them Ellie Mae cookies.

With the egg and flour stained recipe as my guide I began my annual pilgrimage to cookie land last weekend and it was like a Christmas prayer.

I baked for three straight days, and I kind of looked like a chef. Okay, I was wearing an apron and that might be the only thing that made me look like a chef, unless chefs also cook in comfy pajamas and headphones while wailing the latest Adele album.

Sugar cookies aren’t the only thing I have conquered in my life, but they may be my favorite. Plus it’s like Xanax with calories and vanilla frosting.

My hope is your Christmas prayer is as tasty and heartfelt as mine has been.