Who will help me…bake? Who will help me…decorate? Who will help me…sort and wrap? Not I said everyone. But if I said, Who will help me be remembered? What then?

It’s not that I need the help, its therapeutic work for me, and nostalgic. I have rituals that surround the cookie making and I get lost in the music I’m playing the smells I’m smelling, and the memories of those in whose steps I’m following. My mother says it’s all in the hands that makes the food taste the way so and so made it. I get that, sometimes I actually see that when I watch my hands and they don’t look or move like mine.

I’m not sure if people even really enjoy these cookies each year. We’ve become a society of gift cards and obligation rather than traditions and giving from the heart. I’m saddened sometimes that there isn’t anyone I can teach these recipes to or pass along the little book of secret ingredients. Although my dear Dina and Daniel give me hope each summer when we make “Mommy’s favorite cookies”. That’s about as close as I come to sharing and teaching and laughing and seeing the end result light up their faces.

I know some of my nearest and dearest appreciate the work and the love that goes into this gift each year. Those of you that have swooned over the first bite of a pignoli nut cookie, or squirreled away the Italian cookies in the freezer to be pulled out one at a time when needed, or dipped an anisette cookie in your coffee at three in the afternoon, or tasted one of each as soon as you got them know that these aren’t just cookies. You know this is my gift to you from generations past and my contribution to their legacy.

There would be no greater gift than to have someone join me in the kitchen as I choreograph several trays into and out of the oven, mixing bowls and cooling racks all the while listening to Andre Boccelli assure me that my busy hands are honoring those who came before me and that somehow these cookies won’t disappear when I do.

And so while the little red head was trying to teach a lesson on the virtues of a good work ethic and personal initiative I’m trying, as always, to teach a lesson in legacy. Hoping that someone will want to hold tight to holiday food traditions, my holiday food traditions, before they need to be recreated later on…much later on. Anybody?