I Gained 5 Pounds In One Day

How can something so fun be so fattening?

When we lived in Oregon and Colorado, Keith's Mom used to send us a box at Christmas filled with all sorts of wonderful goodies. The kids loved to set out an assortment of Grandma's cookies every night at dinner. It became a privilege to make the "assortment."

The care packages stopped when we moved to Iowa and lived 9 miles away from her. But that also meant year round access to the goodie maker. She still made delicious cookies at Christmas and our kids loved our extended family Christmas gathering when Grandma brought her assortment.

In addition to Grandma Vik's goodies, my Mom also sent goodies. Bon Bons to die for and fudge that nobody else can make the same way.

For years we took getting Christmas goodies from the Grandmas for granted. About six years ago my Mom stopped Christmas baking. Now she sends food packages from Swiss Colony which are nice but not the same.

Keith's Mom doesn't make cookies very often anymore, let alone at Christmas. At 85 she's winding down and does a little less every year. Sigh!

So here we are up in Northern Wisconsin, 470 miles from Keith's family, 1800 miles from my family. No Bon Bons, no fudge, no Lefse, no pies, no assortment, no Christmas Eve party at Aunt Karen's, no cookie exchange, no Christmas Open House at our old bank (the granddaddy of all assortments).

This week two different families gave us a plate with cookie assortments. I was touched and appreciated it so much. It's a little thing, but God knows how much we like our assortments. It's most likely not a good idea to get comfort from food, but as you can probably guess by looking at our Christmas pictures, we do.

Because we didn't gain enough weight eating the assortments that were given to us, I dug out recipes for the Grandma's traditional goodies. I have this phobia about making Keith's Mom's recipes because I can never make them as good as hers. But I have a college degree. How hard can making fat pills be?

We spent Saturday on a sentimental baking spree: Dipped Oreos, Strawberry Cake Balls, Homemade Snickers Candy, Birds Nests, Date Ritz cookies, the extra fattening Bon Bons. Of course, these recipes all need to be sampled to make sure they taste right. And it's really hard to tell with just one so alot of cookies went down our gullets.

After cooking all day, earning tired legs and a sore back, royally messing up the kitchen, feeling buzzed from consuming too much sugar, and gaining five pounds in one day, I had an epiphany. I wearily watched the clock turn midnight as I washed the last counter and put cookies in containers, and thought, "There may be a good reason the Grandmas stopped doing this."

But after a good night sleep, we were proud of our accomplishments. By golly, we had made our own assortment.

If we can keep our grubs off, hopefully there will still be some left when Andrew and Rachel get here next week. I live for moments when Andrew eats something I made that I know he'll like and he smiles and says, "Thanks, Mom."

There you have it. Messy cars, muddy shoes, and cookies in the cookie jar. Life is good.