A Christmas Story

Apologies for the blatant sentimentality, but even a bitter cynic like myself has a soft spot 'round this time of year.

For long-time readers, yes, you've seen this before. I originally published this on MySpace in 2008.

I was very fortunate as a boy. I loved to eat cookies, and in a divine act of convergence was born to a mother who loved to bake them. And Christmas brought out the best in both our talents.

My favorites were dates wrapped in strips of cream cheese dough, followed closely by cookies made of the same and dusted with powdered sugar. So good were her cookies that eventually I couldn't wait for the finished product. I organized clandestine raids on the refrigerator, looking for the melon-sized ball of tin foil that held the stuff dreams were made of.

My dough-based despoilment reached such proportions that one year my mother was forced to concoct a second batch. I was given stern warning that this second batch would remain untouched—or else.

As I grew older, I learned the virtues of consideration and patience, and waited for the transformation of dough into cookie before letting my appetite loose. But with the bottomless hunger of a teen-aged boy, this created another problem. How to have actual cookies to serve on Christmas Eve and Christmas?

The answer was obvious: hide them. But even despite my modest academic achievements, this answer was abundantly clear to me as well.

And so began a cold war-like escalation of confectionery hide-and-seek. The usual places (the closet, under the bed) were tried and quickly abandoned. My craving demanded more-sophisticated hiding places.

And they were found. The well at the bottom of the grandfather clock. The crawl space. And even the oven. 

But ultimately, all yielded their treasure.

Out of necessity, cleverness was discarded in favor of locks. It shames me deeply to admit that owing to my lack of self-control, cookies in my home were kept in a state of permanent lock-down.

One Sunday afternoon, my parents and two sisters left on what I knew would be an extended shopping trip. Industrious lad that I was, I seized the opportunity to conduct an all-out search of the premises.

It unearthed a basement storage cabinet that was suddenly and without warning locked. 

In yet-another moment of incisive clarity, I realized there must be a key and set about finding it. My search took me to my father's dresser, where in one of those slightly criminal acts of desperation I searched it. 

In the top drawer I came across an ancient leather case, that when unzipped revealed a treasure Howard Carter himself couldn't have been more awed by: two utilitarian and slightly oxidized keys that shone against the worn leather like the Holy Grail.

Excited beyond description, I rushed downstairs and tried them. Voila! Before me sat a Fort Knox of Christmas confectionery. Shelf after shelf was stuffed with cookie tins, each carefully lined with wax paper and oozing calorie-laden goodness.

My sixteen-year-old brain told me I could outsmart everyone by removing just a few cookies from each tin, thereby minimizing the appearance of theft and prolonging my access. 

Tragically, what I did not understand is that “few” is relative—especially to someone in the grips of an adolescent metabolism.

While talking to my parents many years later, they relayed a story how one of my sisters was storing cookies for a neighbor because the neighbor's kids found them everywhere they had been hidden. 

This of course revived my parent's memory of an earlier Christmas, a Christmas where they had been forced to store cookies under lock and key—only to find a sizeable portion missing.

“Was it you?” they asked.

You reach a point in life, perhaps called adulthood, where you realize the magnitude of your parent's selflessness; of the profound sacrifices they made so you could attend a good school and live in a safe neighborhood.

And after coming to that realization, you absolutely, positively cannot lie to them.

“Yes” I replied.

Afterwards, I reflected upon our conversation. And it occurred to me that after so many years without a viable cookie thief in the house, security must be very lax.

Yeah, that joint would be a piece of cake. A piece of cake I tell you.