Monica Comas Novelist
Journalist
Avid Cook

The holiday season is waning. Another year is drawing to a close. And, if you’re anything like me, you’re still eating Christmas cookies.

Perhaps you too felt memories’ indelible handprint upon your center as you went through familiar paces these last few weeks—the cooking, the baking, the minting of fresh moments. Maybe emotions rose up, caught you off guard. Maybe that happened and yet…and yet…there was a poignant sweetness underpinning it all. Recollections so mighty you need to catch your breath are born from love. And that love stays. It’s the mightiest of recalls.

So much in life right now is tricky—maybe it’s your own health or the wellbeing of someone you love. Maybe the contentedness of your children or your fur babies is what’s consuming you. Maybe it’s the worries that come with being a caregiver. Maybe it’s concerns that are financial or questions involving a higher spiritual power. Maybe it’s an amalgam of all that.

My point is everyone is facing something involving a thicket of pressures and emotions that, honestly, can be difficult to navigate—and that’s before you even consider the broader world outside your front door. Modern-day living…it’s not for the faint of heart.

Which brings me back to the cookies.

The holidays ending and the year winding down always leaves me in a reflective mood—I know I’m not alone here. For whatever reason, I keep thinking about all these cookies I’ve baked (and, one more time with feeling, am still eating—anyone else?)

There’s such comfort in holiday baking. I have a handful of favorite recipes that I make every year in addition to my mom’s pecan tassies. I got into chocolate making decades ago, so I make some sort of chocolate confection as well. So much sweetness, the kind that lingers on the tongue and summons happiness just focusing on a simple, perfect treat…it holds power. And what I got to thinking about was, with life’s myriad complications, what I want to do is make this sweetness last longer. Longer than a single cookie. Longer than a shard of salted chocolate nut bark. Can we keep unspooling the sweet in our lives…and how?

It’s not that I have any answers here, but summoning some sweetness from our everyday life, from moments however small, feels like a worthy endeavor to me right now. And so, here’s to closing out this holiday season on a sugary note, but perhaps more importantly, holding that delightful taste close and carrying it with us as we walk into a new year together.