Weekend Reading
January 5, 2025

A quick little story about cookie boxes.

For the past two years, it’s been my intention to make cookie boxes as holiday gifts for my friends and family. I haven’t gotten around to it, thanks to long work hours and busy months of December.

When I told this to a friend a few weeks ago, her reply was, “God, Gena. That’s a lot.”

Moments later, she qualified the reaction, noting that half of the effort would be to gather up the requisite materials: the tissue, the ribbon, the cupcake liners, the boxes themselves.

“Oh, but I have those things,” I said. “I’ve purchased them two years in a row. I just haven’t gotten around to the actual baking.”

“Well, if it’s truly something that would bring you joy,” she replied, “then I hope you can make it happen.”

How to explain that this is the very definition of something that brings me joy?

At some point when I was in middle school, I got a copy of one of Martha Stewart’s Christmas books. I hadn’t grown up baking, and I quickly fell in love with the process as I taught myself to make Martha’s sugar cookies.

Baking sugar cookies for friends and teachers became an annual holiday tradition. Even toward the end of high school, when I was immersed in academics, I’d put aside the time to make boxes.

The tradition was put on pause when I went to college (no oven) and during eating disorder relapses, when I had no interest in making or eating sweets.

But I was able to revive it for periods of time as a young professional and working graduate student, always happily. There’s never a year when I don’t want to go to the effort; there are only years when I can’t carve out the time.

A few days ago, as I stared at my unused cookie box packing materials, I wondered what was keeping me from making and delivering cookies now that I have a little time off from client appointments?

Nothing but my sense that this is something I ought to have done it before December 25th.

There’s also the fear that everyone is too maxed out on holiday treats to welcome a few more. But isn’t it nice to celebrate a new year with something sweet?

I decided that it is, and I went about making my cookie boxes on Friday and yesterday.

A few years ago, at the recommendation of my friend Kris, I read Tim Mazurek’s fun and cheeky article, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Christmas Cookies.”

Mazurek makes the point that every day cookies shouldn’t be Christmas cookies, and vice versa. Basically, I agree.

Consequently, I don’t bake my chewy oatmeal raisin cookies or double chocolate chip cookies for Christmas.

Instead, this year, I made:

Last week I wrote about embracing the full twelve days of Christmas.

It feels appropriate that I’ll start delivering cookies to my loved ones today, which is the second-to-last of those twelve days.

It doesn’t really matter whether the boxes are new year’s gifts of holiday gifts. What matters is that they have indeed brought me joy—and a quiet, but important lesson in trusting my own timeline.

Happy Sunday, friends. Here are some recipes and reads.

Recipes

1. A really good looking vegan vodka sauce.

2. I got very into making my full-sized vegan Wellington this year; now these mini Wellingtons are calling my name.

3. Love a versatile vegan veggie side dish, and these cauliflower florets and green beans fit the bill.

4. I’ve recently fallen in love with miso butter beans and greens, which has me thinking about all of the ways in which miso can be used as an umami-rich seasoning for legumes and vegetables. I’m eager to try Joanne Chang’s red miso glazed carrots.

5. I think that these vanilla oat latte shortbread sticks might have to end up in next year’s holiday cookie box, whenever it may be.

Reads

1. I’m a little embarrassed to say that I’m not familiar with dyspraxia, or as it’s known in the US, developmental coordination disorder (DCD). Thanks to Jenny Hollander’s article in Marie Claire, now I do.

2. An interesting look at why we so often procrastinate on small, necessary tasks.

3. It’s a little disconcerting to know that Saturn’s rings will disappear (in the sense that we won’t be able to see them) in 2025.

4. Though four hours is too little for me, I do qualify as a short sleeper and always have. It’s interesting to read about others like me, and the highly individualized phenomenon of sleep adequacy in general.

5. Maybe you’ve heard that it takes twenty-one days to make or break a habit, but is that true? This article investigates.

Slices of dark brown bread have been topped with a braised bean dish.

I haven’t had much time to meal prep this weekend because I was busy with my cookie boxes. But I am planning to make a big batch of my slow cooker white beans in tomato sauce tomorrow. I’ll be stirring them  into pasta or piling them onto toast in the days ahead.

It’s also going to be a good soup week (read: very chilly outside), and I’ve got two pounds of carrots waiting to be turned into carrot ginger soup with roasted chickpeas.

Hope you’ve got something cozy lined up to eat—and maybe something sweet, too.

xo

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