Every year for Christmas, all of the kind people in our whole neighborhood distribute plates of home-baked goodies to each other. Because the majority of my neighbors are Amish, we have some absolutely amazing baked goods on Christmas day and before, and plenty of them.Beginning a few days before Christmas, they come. They walk up the driveway in their plain clothes, men in black hats or stocking-caps worn way up high on their heads, women in their white bonnets, strings dangling over their shoulders, and they bear plates full of home-baked pies, sugar cookies, thumbprints, Buckeyes, chocolate chip, snack mixes, pretzel clusters, chocolate-dipped Oreos...the list goes on. They bring them early so that folks can serve them on Christmas day.
Though my intentions are always good, I tend to bring up the rear. We pretty consistently deliver our gifts on Christmas Eve or, more often, the days following Christmas. For me, I guess, that extends the season a bit, gives folks something they can savor after all of the other stuff has run out. Sounds like a good marketing strategy, doesn't it? It's not all that intentional. It's actually justification for my being too busy to get it all done. What am I usually busy doing?
Why, baking, of course.
The explanation of where all that baking goes is simple. I have a dishonest, unrelentless sweets addict in my house who will devour anything that is not totally and completely hidden, locked-up or removed from the premises, and, furthermore, will stop at practically nothing find and consume the sweets.
My father, who lives with us, is notorious for eating sweets in large quanitities. The kids tell the story of how they locked their holiday candy into a little locker. He literally ran over it with the car to get it open. They go to great lengths to secure their goodies, but he always finds them somehow, and gets all angry and self-defensive when he's discovered. The kids have actually created a comic strip series where he is the bad guy, Sweet Tooth, and they are doing their best to prevent him from doing his dastardly deeds. When I bake cookies or make candies, buy cookies or candies, they must be completely secured, or they will, definitely, be gone. Ice cream doesn't stand a chance. Since I don't have a freezer with a lock, I must buy ice cream in massive quantities if we expect to have any. Last year, there was a sale on Breyers--$2 a half-gallon--and I bought about twelve half-gallons. Before I knew it, he had eaten over half of it. He'll consume a half-gallon in one night during a series of midnight snacks. It doesn't matter how I threaten or beg. It doesn't matter if I guilt or coerce. It doesn't matter if his blood pressure is up or his cholesterol is high. He'll just take a new medication to fix it. And, since he rides a bicycle ever day for 20-30 miles, his body doesn't look any worse for the wear (though, at a little over 60, all of his teeth literally rotted and fell out and he had to have very expensive dentures made last year). He has a sick addiction. And what's worse, if the goodies are forbidden, that's even better. If I buy him a sack of candy just for himself, he will hardly touch it. He'll give it all away to the children. But if the children get an Easter basket full of goodies, he'll have them gone before you can say Peter Rabbit.
This year, I made dozens and dozens of cookies, several kinds of shortbreads, hand-dipped Buckeyes, and a batch of vanilla caramels that had to be boiled to the right temperature, cooled for several hours, cuts into bite-sized pieces, and wrapped in little hand-cut squares of wax paper. These last little treats were placed in a grocery bag and hidden deep in the confines of my closet. All of the other goodies were consumed almost as quickly as I could make them. If they weren't hidden well enough, they would become part of a midnight snack, which I would not realize had occured until it was time to break them out to make the gift plates. This is a struggle every year, for every holiday, and during every baking session.
One evening, two of my former co-workers from the cheesehouse came by and brought us dinner. It was such a lovely thought and such a delicious dinner, and I was so glad to have them here, that I decided to show my appreciation by breaking out the caramels and giving them each a few. Goodbyes were said. Hugs were given. Greetings of the season were tossed over shoulders as they headed out the door. And I, in the busyness of it all, forgot to confine the caramels.
When it was time to make the goody plates, the entire bag-- several pounds of hand-wrapped caramels--were completely gone.
You would think I would learn. Because this, my friends, is not the first time this has happened.
Several years ago, during the Christmas of 2000, the kids and I made a half-dozen batches of caramels and hand-pulled molasses taffy. We wrapped them each in their little wax paper blankies. Our plan was to make up plates for all of our friends and neighbors (we lived in the city at the time) and go caroling. I never would have dreamed that all of those candies, probably ten to twelve pounds in all, would have disappeared. Yet when I went to take them from the cupboard, they were all gone. Every last one of them. When I asked the sweets thief about them, he confessed (which came as more of an announcement than a confession)to taking them with him to work and distributing them to his co-workers.
He gave our caramels away to people I don't even know. Without asking. All that work and time and hope was gone.
When I reminded him of this after his last caramel-scarfing episode, he didn't remember that at all. Or, more accurately, he pretended not to remember.
Because that's his other maddening trait. He pretends he didn't do it. He pretends to forget he did it. Or, with a terribly annoying smirk on his face, he blames it on The Baby (or whichever child happens to be the baby at the time). Or the dog. Or a burglar. Or the potbellied pig.
I don't know why this gets under my skin so much, but it does. It absolutely infuriates me. I feel my heart begin to race, and I feel my temper flare, and I feel I have no control, and I lose it. I say the most angry things to my dad. I guess, mostly, because I know how much work it took to make those things, or how, when I or the kids get candy as a gift, we savor it, keep it for when we really want it, and he doesn't. It doesn't mean anything to him. The time doesn't mean anything. The effort and care doesn't mean anything. It's just sugar. And there's never enough. He just scarfs it down with no apology and no compassion. Just lame jokes and a stupid smirk.
So, with all of the pre-holiday cookies being devoured as quickly as I could bake them, and all of the caramels and Buckeyes stolen by the despicable candy thief, I arose early on the day after Christmas and baked. And baked. And baked. And baked. And I stood watch over every cookie and every piece of toffee and every little peanut butter cup-- feeling guilty for being a greedy, selfish, ungrateful daughter (his indignant comments certainly never help)-- until the goodies were safely arranged on plates, sealed into baggies and shuttled to our car. Then Bo and I delivered each treat to the kind, thoughtful neighbors who had delivered their treats to us a week before. Only then was I able to relax.
Well, except for the nagging guilt that is mine as the daughter of a manipulator.
Today, I will bake several batches of Tasha Tudor cutout cookies, and I will place them on a big, important-looking plate. I will not stand guard. I will not offer them (because he won't touch them if I do).
I will just leave them sitting unattended and say nothing.
It's my feeble offering to the guilt gods.
