With each bite, sweet memories of Christmas

It’s the eating season. Sweets deck the desks at work. They arrive in the mail. They adorn the dessert table at holiday parties. And if you haven’t enough homemade goods on hand for holiday lip-smacking snacking, they beckon from grocery store displays.

For the time-strapped or culinary-impaired, they’re a tantalizing temptation on the way to holiday parties where guests bring delectable goodies rather than gifts.

In December, when I turn on the Christmas lights, I think there’s an underlying surge that overactivates my sweet tooth. I suspect this has something to do with savory memories that are seasoned with tastes of Christmases past.

Like me, my grandma had a sweet tooth. Whenever I visited her, she didn’t just show her love with hugs so tight they took my breath away. She showed it with time spent, playing games, listening and laughing. But most of all she showed it from the kitchen, baking dessert after dessert that tasted like every ingredient was laced with love.

At Christmastime, if we didn’t travel over the river and through the woods to see her, she’d send a package of delectable goodies. If I close my eyes, I can almost taste the divinity that melted in my mouth. I can imagine the satisfying crunch of her homemade peanut brittle.

And I can recall the lighthearted arguing over who got the last piece of rich fudge that inevitably melted a little on your fingers and required a quick lick to ensure none of its creamy sweetness went to waste.

I also remember a lot of beater licking from the Christmas cookies my mom made. She’d set some out for immediate eating while freezing some from each batch so she had a variety to put out Dec. 25.

One of her specialties was snickerdoodles decorated with holiday colors – green, red and multi-colored sprinkles that reminded me of the ornaments on the Christmas tree. The colorful sprinkles also adorned her famous brownies from a recipe that calls for as much sugar as flour, and enough eggs to qualify as a protein, especially when served hot, with ice cream.

But my favorite holiday dessert is Mom’s cut-out cookies, from an old recipe called Aunt Mary’s Plain Cookies. These can’t be compared to the insipid sugar cookies that sit at almost every holiday buffet, the ones that need icing artwork to hide the lack of taste and texture.

I don’t know who Aunt Mary is, but her cookies don’t need to get dressed up to be delectable. Like the name, the cookies are plain, an unassuming and humble confection that satisfies in a way sugar cookies can’t, making them wish they were so capable without their fancy frosting.

But my favorite cookie is delicious when dressed for the season, frosted and sprinkled in every holiday hue.

When I was old enough, I loved making them with my mom as much as I enjoyed eating them. We’d mix and roll and cut them into bells, trees, and stars, then bake until they were the perfect texture – soft on top with just a hint of crunch on the bottom. As an adult, I loved making them with my kids.

After decorating each one according to our artistic whims, we couldn’t help but eat a few, though they’re enough work we’d dole them out in limited quantities each day, savoring every bite.

While I can make Aunt Mary’s cookies, some form of a Christmas miracle, the rest of those holiday treats are mostly warm memories, rather than warm morsels in my mouth. The culinary craft often escapes me. I don’t have my grandma’s flair for flavor or a steadfast stable of reliable recipes that always turn out the way my mom’s do.

Alongside memories of cookie delights, my memory is singed with a series of cookie calamities. But that’s another column.