I have a cookie problem.
Normally, this first weekend of December that’s due to descend upon us would be the time when my family would open up our home for a Christmas party with our wonderful neighbors. Every year, in preparation for that party, I bake approximately four dozen each of at least five types of cookies. If you care to do the math, that’s approximately two hundred and fifty cookies.
In addition to the cookies, I make homemade peanut butter cups, chocolate covered cherries, Oreo truffles, turtles, chocolate covered pretzels, and a large batch of fudge. I might have a candy problem, too.
It’s a tradition that probably sounds pretty familiar to a lot of you. People have been making special Christmas cookies and desserts since before there was an official Christmas to celebrate. As early as the tenth century, solstice festivals in many parts of the world involved feasting before the long winter ahead. Animals were slaughtered because meat keeps better in the cold than live animals do. Final harvests were brought in. Springtime beer and wine were aged enough to be properly enjoyed. And newfangled spices from newfangled trade routes made interesting sweet treats attainable.
Then along came Christmas with all its many traditions including baked gifts lovingly given to friends, and neighbors, and jolly fat men sliding down chimneys. Actually, leaving cookies for Santa may have been influenced by a pre-Christmas tradition as well, involving the ancient Norse god Odin and an eight-legged horse who would happily exchange small gifts for some treats.
But none of that helps me in my current predicament. Because in years that aren’t 2020, I make enough sweet treats to feed my neighbors until they are sick, take plates of goodies to share with friends at church, send snacks to the break room at my husband’s workplace, satisfy my constantly hungry children, gain five pounds myself, and even have enough left over to leave out for Santa on his big night.
Making these treats is a Christmas tradition, among so many traditions we just can’t make happen this year in the midst of Covid. My kids want to make and enjoy them all—all five varieties of cookies and each type of candy—despite the fact that there will be no large gathering of neighbors, no in-person church activities, and a changing work situation that has drastically limited break room treat-leaving opportunities.
We can’t even count on Santa to be much help. He’s always forgetting to grab his cookies on Christmas Eve and I end up eating them myself. I can’t blame him. It’s a busy night and most chimneys are probably a tight squeeze.
Yes, I can make smaller batches, but it’s still a lot. And yes, I can deliver some to neighbors, but a lot of people are understandably a little weird about accepting homemade goodies in our current environment.
So, I have a cookie problem, which admittedly might not be the worst problem to have. But it is starting to look like I’m going gain more than five pounds this year.
Author Sarah Angleton 
hahaha. I remember making tons of Christmas candy as a kid. I’m not much of a baker now.
If you find you need to rehome some of those cookies, we would give them a loving home…at least until we’ve scarfed them up.
We may have a deal!
Call them Oreo balls.
You can send me some cookies. I need a cookie problem 🙂
It is a delicious problem.
I mean those oreo truffles look amazing!!
They’re pretty good. It’s just the creme filling from a regular package of double stuff Oreos mixed with an 8 ounce package of cream cheese, rolled in the crushed chocolate cookie and dipped in melted chocolate. It helps to freeze the balls first for a bit so they don’t fall apart in the chocolate.
I suppose you could dust them with some cocoa if you’re a truffle purist, but they’re already pretty rich.
I have a peanut allergy which is possibly more hazardous than covid19 – so I’ll take the lot except the peanut ones. Thanks in advance, and I’m only too glad to stop you putting on those extra pounds.
Ok. But you have to pay the postage.
Ha! I’ve already let you keep the peanut cookies. What more could you want?
I was expecting computer problems, lol.
Now that you mention it, I do sometimes have problems with those cookies as well, much less tasty problems.
They probably have walnuts in them.
What a fun tradition you have! 🙂 I haven’t made Christmas cookies in years.
You know, since putting a link to this post on my Facebook wall, I’ve probably made more cookies than ever before. Turns out there are people who are happy to take them off my hands. It’s been fun!
That’s what freezers are for, Sarah! I have a lot of freezer food related family stories but the bottom line to most of them is that most everything tastes better frozen, or sometimes after being frozen, and I can hardly think of anything edible for which the reverse would apply. I know it’s a little late but I bet those goodies would taste especially good out of the freezer during the dog days of summer!
Ha! I appreciate that you think I could keep cookies in my freezer until summer. As you say, they taste good frozen. 😊
It look dam good, I want to eat it some much.
After posting this originally I didn’t have a cookie problem for long. Plenty of volunteers stepped up.