#28: Christmas traditions 🎁
This week, we're celebrating how traditions connect us with the past, present, and future. Also, some holiday-themed links I love and a charming fiction newsletter.
Every year, my family gets together for cookie baking day. We drop the Kitchen-Aid mixer on the counter and stock up on butter, flour, sugar, and chocolate. We drink egg nog (or something stronger) and make hundred of cookies. Literally hundreds. Chocolate chips, peanut butter blossoms, jam thumbprints, mint brownies, and a Saltines & caramel concoction we lovingly call Christmas crack.
By the end of the day, we all have our hair tied up in knots and sleeves rolled up to combat the oven-generated heat. We’ve gone through all the Amy Grant Christmas albums, dabbled in Harry Connick Jr.’s repertoire, and are halfway through Pentatonix’s discography.
These days could be nothing special: they are long and laborious and make my back hurt from standing so long. But the charming domesticity of it makes me feel connected to all the women before me who baked and baked and baked for their loved ones each holiday. Like my great-grandmother, who used the same French cake iron that we use today.
And one day I’ll make these same recipes with my daughters and granddaughters. I’ll pull out the recipe cards that my grandma penned and heat up that French cake iron, smiling in the oven’s heat.
To-do list:
🕯 Turn off the big light and light some votive candles instead.
📚 Dust your bookshelves
🍊 Make a holiday simmer pot with oranges and cinnamon
🚐 Put out some treats for your delivery drivers
“Required” reading:
Currently using this DIY to decorate my tree (House of Jade)
How to get free COVID tests this holiday season (Wired)
If your holiday bakes fall flat, call this hotline (King Arthur)
Speaking of holiday bakes… (Half-Baked Harvest)
How cool is this squeegee art! (Sharece Studios)
This week’s aesthetic: baking
The heroine recommends: Heartbeat
A charming newsletter that delivers a romantic short story to your inbox every week! I love discovering new authors with this newsletter.
Click here to submit a recommendation!
A parting thought:
I hope your holiday is filled with joy and laughter 💖
xx, Annie