Cookies

[talon]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2034674,00.html

This is not what Cookie Day is about.

Plain jane cookies are as welcome as the fancy-schmancy ones. There is no contest.

You bake the cookie that is either your favorite or is your specialty and if we end up with half a dozen different chocolate chip cookies, so be it.

I like trying out new recipes and experimenting, so no one (sometimes not even me!) knows what I'll make for Cookie Day, but I rely on D's snickerdoodles, and M's oaties, and J's peanut butter cookies every year. I know those will be there and be good. K alternates between his thumbprint cookies and his pumpkin spritz bars.

We don't make a booklet of the cookie recipes or demand that people leave spouses, pets, or children behind. We don't send invitations because everyone knows it's on December 12th every year. We don't dictate what type of cookie or the ingredients. Some cookie exchanges say all cookies must be home made - we don't. Cookies are cookies. While we prefer home made because that ties in with the whole concept of Cookie Day, we know that things happen - the batch burns and there's no time to bake more! You break an arm or a finger or get a serious paper cut. Bakery cookies, and even Oreos, are acceptable. It's cookies and the concept is the important thing - the getting together, the sharing, the stories, the bonding, the celebrating. We can celebrate with vanilla wafers just as easily as with chocolate macadamia meringues shaped like mangers and gilded with real gold. We don't require an RSVP - do you RSVP to a ritual or other religious service? See, so we don't demand RSVPs. Either the spirit moves us to attend or it doesn't. We don't specify a quantity other than "lots". And while it's nice to pretty up the cookies and show them off on fancy platters arranged in decorative ways, it's not essential.

Our rules are simple: show up and bring cookies. You can take your share of cookies home in the box you brought - it will be emptier of your cookies and fuller of other people's cookies.

We don't do prizes. This isn't a contest.