Ghost of cookies past

I’m multi-tasking right now. My company is having a virtual holiday party and I’m sitting in front of my camera wearing my Nordic reindeer sweater with my Christmas tree in the background. I’m smiling and looking for all the world as though I’m fully engaged in the virtual festivities, but I’m writing my daily writing instead. 

A week ago, I thought it was completely ridiculous that this “party,” which is really a year-end all-hands meeting with Christmas sweaters, was going to be virtual. We have to sit through a year-in-review PowerPoint and we don’t even get a snack or a glass of wine? 

Now, of course, Omicron is spreading like I don’t even know what. I can’t say “like the plague,” because it’s an actual plague. Like mold? Like gossip? Like wildfire? Pick your stupid simile. They’re all terrible. Anyway, it’s probably better to avoid a big gathering. But I don’t want to avoid gatherings. I don’t necessarily want to attend a big gathering (because I don’t really ever want to attend big gatherings because that’s just me) but I don’t want to avoid them because of the COVID. I don’t want to quarantine. I don’t want the world to shut down again. 

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Wait a minute. Are we actually sitting through a report on company demographics? Are we really talking about ISO 27000 at 4:30 on a late December Friday afternoon? Clearly there are worse things than Omicron. 

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It’s Saturday morning now, one week before Christmas. The virtual “party” picked up the pace a bit. I won the trivia contest, easily beating over 50 other employees who filled the meeting chat with good-natured (I think) complaints about how badly I was beating them. First prize? $200. I’ll take it. It’s December and I’ve been spending money like a mad woman. 

A week out is when it really starts to feel like Christmas. I am finished with my Christmas shopping. I usually shopped for Nana last but she’s gone and I don’t need to shop for her anymore and so I still don’t feel as Christmassy as I normally would on December 18, but at this time of year it’s hard not to catch a little bit of the spirit. It’s the light, I guess. It’s the light and the sense that things are winding down. 

Maybe the cookies will do it. I have to make cookies this weekend. Maybe you don’t know this about me but I really hate making cookies. Last year, though, I discovered that it’s better to make the dough on one day, and then bake the cookies the next. I’ll make dough today, and I’ll bake cookies tomorrow. If a houseful of cookies doesn’t get me Christmased up, then nothing will. 

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It’s Sunday morning. I spent the rest of Saturday morning doing minor household chores and personal tasks, doing whatever I could to avoid making cookie dough. Then I finally stopped stalling and made the stupid cookie dough, cleaned up the resulting mess (how does the faucet end up crusted with cookie dough? And the flour! Everywhere!), and basked in the glow of having completed one of my least-favorite tasks of the holiday season. 

Then my son’s swim meet was cancelled. Half of the opposing team tested positive for COVID. Everyone is panicking again. It feels like March 2020. The news is changing so fast every day. Case numbers are doubling and doubling again. We’re all going to have COVID by January. I’m just waiting for the next wave of restrictions. Schools close on Wednesday for Christmas break, but I fully expect that they’ll start the holiday break early. We all felt a little gloomy last night. We sat on the couch and watched Christmas movies but our hearts were not in it. 

The cookies are only half-finished. I made the dough yesterday, but I have to actually bake the cookies today. My 8yo nephew and 5yo niece will be spending the afternoon with us. Crazy small children and cookies are nothing if not a guaranteed recipe for holiday spirit, COVID notwithstanding. Let the cookie baking commence.