Confessions of a former holiday cookie Grinch
+ a few very good cookie recipes & joyful miscellany
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I remember the first Christmas Hunzi and I shared after moving in together three years ago. Finally equipped with a kitchen all my own and no roommates, I had a vision of us collaborating on elaborate holiday cookie tins to share with friends and family. What I intended to be a whimsical expression of holiday cheer quickly spiraled into several days in a row of me being elbows-deep in many pounds of flour, in a constant state of near tears, and behaving like a total Grinch to Hunzi in my quest to make all 14 treats that would fill our tins (yes, there were actually 14 different offerings—see below for the hand-drawn cookie decoders I also included with each). Hunzi, half-joking, half-not, started calling our apartment The Factory.
Lessons learned from that ill-fated year: No one is judging your worth by the impressiveness of your cookie box offerings. No one needs 14 different types of cookies/treats. (And especially no one needs those treats to include homemade candied citrus peel that requires three rounds of blanching). Attempting to get your attachment needs met through gifting cookies at the expense of mistreating your loving partner is not advisable.