Daron's Guitar Chronicles Volume 12

962 Shining Star

Shining Star

Of course it turned out that Christmas cookies are not just any cookies you happen to bake for/on Christmas. There was a specific kind of cookie that Claire had in mind. She told Landon all about them while we were rolling out the dough and using cookie cutters, all about how making these cookies was a family tradition. I had no memory of making these cookies before, but you know, I figured maybe I was banished (or hiding) in my room while that was going on...?

So the thing with these Christmas cookies is the baking is just the first step. Then comes the decorating.

We made some covered with a white icing and some without, and then you basically paint on them. I had been exaggerating to Bart but it turned out I wasn't exaggerating at all. We easily made over a hundred cookies. Maybe it was closer to two hundred. They had to cool sufficiently before they could be decorated, and only two cookie sheets at a time could go in the oven. So it was a multi-step process. This really did take all day. We had to take a break for lunch. Or maybe dinner? Or both? Most of what I remember was just baking endlessly, batch after batch.

Not that this was a bad thing. It was something to do, and Landon seemed very content to be part of what the grown-ups were doing. And the grown-ups, maybe in a rare occurrence, weren't fighting about anything.

We were just about to start the decorating process when Courtney turned on the TV and looked to see if she could find the variety show Bart had mentioned. She stood in front of it, clicking through the channels with the remote in her hand. "Does Janine still believe that popular music is the contagion of the devil?"

"If she does, well, it's Christmas music, right?" Claire said. "What could be more innocent?"

"You used to believe it, too, you know, Mom." Court found the channel and pumped up the volume.

"Well, it made a certain amount of sense when you think about it." Claire spread the decorating supplies across the dining room table. "Music leading people into temptation and all that."

"Temptation and all that?" Court repeated.

"Don't play dumb with me, child. Music is seductive. It sedates your logic and stimulates your..." She trailed off as Landon climbed up into his seat. "Revs your engine," she said instead.

"Okay, but–"

"It leads to making some very poor decisions sometimes," Claire said firmly, and then changed the subject by talking to Landon. "Are you ready to decorate some cookies?"

The decorating is the really fun part of the process, of course. Although we had made some cookies with the cutters shaped like snowmen or the candy canes, most of the ones we made were shaped like stars. Stars upon stars upon stars.

I forgot about the show for a while. I don't remember exactly who was on it. When I think back on it now I hear Burl Ives doing "Holly Jolly Christmas," but I'm not sure if that was really part of it or if my brain is just filling in something that seems logical–or maybe substituting something I saw as a kid. That's probably it since by 1991 I'm not sure Burl Ives was really still doing that kind of show? Anyway: it was various famous people singing various Christmas songs, often in duets with other people, and I wasn't paying that much attention. I was concentrating on painting my stars with icing of many colors. I was making them kind of psychedelic, with radiating stripes and streaks like fireworks, using lots of colors and sprinkles. I looked over and Claire's were in a kind of progression. They started out very sedate, with neats rows of silver balls criss-crossing the icing, and only one color per cookie, but the ones she had done more recently were much more like mine. Much more, well, rock and roll, I guess. She smiled at me when she saw me looking and held one up for approval.