It's time to bake the cookies

It’s a week before Christmas and all through the house, focus and presents are scattered about… nothing is hung by the chimney with care, and according to the calendar St. Nicholas will soon be here…

And so, even though I have too many things to do, I’ve been wondering about traditions. By definition, a tradition is the passing down of elements of a culture from generation to generation… A mode of thought or behavior followed by a people continuously from generation to generation; a custom or usage… A time-honored practice or set of practices.

Okay. We have time honored practices. We have passing down elements of culture from generation to generation. We have traditions.

Yesterday, when I mentioned to my son that I wanted the family to go out and pick a Christmas tree, he informed me he had plans to be out of town this weekend with his friends. “Besides, Mom, I just stand there until you decide which tree we bring home. You don’t need me.” Okay, we’ve never traipsed out to the woods to cut one down like some holiday ideal we see advertised. We live near a large metropolitan area. We go to the nearest corner lot that’s sprouted pine trees and pick one. It’s our tradition. And, this tradition requires that we do it together. Except maybe this year, because it seems that my young adults are creating traditions of their own. Okay, things evolve.

So, what is my tradition? Maybe my scramble to do last minute shopping and the walking in circles dazed and confused is as much a part of my tradition as anything.

Food is associated with most holidays. It is one of the elements of culture handed from generation to generation. Like Thanksgiving when a lot of us are comforted by knowing that the green bean casserole will most likely make an appearance next to the cranberry sauce because it is tradition, in my house it is expected that I will bake Christmas cookies.

I usually crank out Toll House cookies, Peanut Butter Supremes with Hershey’s Kisses blossoming in the center, along with raspberry jam Thumbprints and chocolate and coconut macaroon bars. There might even be an Italian pine nut macaroon that rivals those remembered from the corner bakery in northern New Jersey frequented by my Grandmother, aunts, and even my Uncle Al. That said, what everyone in my house waits for is my famous almond butter pretzel cookie.

It’s just not Christmas until I bake the pretzel cookies.

The pretzel cookie is a two day event, a confection requiring timing, utmost control and patience. A cookie that many have tried, most have failed and somehow, in my family only I have mastered. I tore the recipe out of one of my mother’s Family Circle magazines in 1981. The almost-thirty-year-old stained, torn, very used pages are now preserved in plastic binder sheets in my recipe organizer. I’ve consulted these pages and baked this cookie routinely -- through my single days, my newlywed years, even through my kid's baby years -- never missing one.

I’ve thought about giving up this tradition. Who needs the calories, the cholesterol, the sugar, or the gluten anyway?  Maybe I could skip it. No more crazy-lady baking. I thought about how it all came to be, this being my tradition. My mother never baked cookies. Once we were old enough, the cookie baking was left to her three daughters. Hmmmm…  Three daughters, baking cookies… you get the picture.

Thoughts of cookie retirement danced in my head. Is it time to hand over this tradition to my own daughter just home from school?

I was excited until I remembered that sometime over this past summer my father had handed me the festively decorated cookie tin that I gave him last year. He had said he hoped he got it back filled again this year.

The pretzels are one of his favorites.

I don’t have a prayer.

It’s time to bake the cookies.

Sooo… hear me exclaim as I sign off tonight…

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.”

(and, Peace to all you bakers out there.)

Where have all the spokespeople gone?

It’s official. It’s time to bring back the spokesperson, the pitch man, the all knowing professional whose job it is to advise the world on why his or her product is superior. And, I don’t mean talking lizards or those animated bears that hide rolls of T.P. in the woods.  I mean a good old fashioned Madge, Mr. Whipple, Fred the Baker, Aunt Jemima, Betty Crocker. I’ll even take the little old lady who once asked the world, “Where’s the beef?” … somebody to inform us consumers of the attributes of things most of us take for granted, like toilet tissue.

Enough with the cartoons.

Somebody find today’s Mr. Whipple, please.

Charmin’s animated bears are now advertising “Enjoy the Go” while stashing their rolls of squeezably soft Charmin on low hanging branches somewhere in the forest. Ok, bears in the woods… enjoy the go… huh? For me, this campaign only brings to mind that age old question “Do bears s*#t in the woods,” not what makes the product better than your average two ply sheets. These bears are not convincing me to buy this product. 

In the recent past, Procter & Gamble has shown us these bears with scraps of tissue on their bottoms. Horrors. Thank goodness the bears thought to switch to Charmin. How though? Did they pillage a pic-a-nic basket or station wagon parked at a campground? Wait. That was Yogi, another famous animated bear. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that these days this Papa bear should be advertising recycled paper to save the trees surrounding and protecting his home that’s being destroyed by suburban sprawl.

Recently, the bears, Mamma and Papa (post “go”) join hands and with a Barry White like song seductively playing in the background, snuggle on a sofa in front of a crackling fire and wink at the viewer suggesting perhaps a romantic interlude. Charmin, parodying an erectile dysfunction Viagra like ad, huh? Perhaps I should be grateful that Momma and Papa didn’t sit in matching claw foot tubs watching a sunset. There seems to be quite a few of those tossed out on beaches, overlooking lakes, and in the woods.

Dennis Legault, a Procter & Gamble Charmin brand manager, once said that actor Dick Wilson deserved much of the credit for the product's success. Wilson’s, Mr. Whipple character was "one of the most recognizable faces in the history of American advertising." I agree. I’d also add that the uptight grocer who begged customers “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin” made some sense. Soft T.P. in a grocery store guarded by a curmudgeon who was himself a lover of that squeezably soft paper -- brilliant. When was the last time you saw a bear in your local supermarket purchasing dry goods?

I’m sure Mr. Whipple must have a grandson, a nephew, somebody that can take over the store and remind us NOT to squeeze the Charmin, somebody so devoted to the product that they can give us guidance.

Come on Madison Avenue, give me an expert. Flo can’t do it all.

 

Does She... or Doesn't She?

“Do You Need Product?”

It was a simple question really, but as I heard the words, I felt my head cock to one side like my dog, Jack when I ask if he wants to go for a walk.  

I listened, and then my eyes glazed over for a moment or two.  I pondered the word need… Necessary?  Required?  To be in want?  Hmmmmmm. Aren’t most of us women “in want” of the perfect hairstyle, color, makeover, man?

I thought about the countertop, drawers, and cabinets in my not very large bathroom already crammed and overflowing with bottles, jars, tins, in various shapes and sizes. Most tried once or twice and then discarded. Not discarded all together mind you, just living in the land of oops, that didn’t work like in the salon discarded.

Still I heard the words, what was that small spritz bottle you used, come out of someone’s mouth. Apparently, it was mine. “Volumizer,” she responded, smiling that all knowing smile while the loud and shrill otherworld cha-ching rang somewhere in the salon’s altered state background. I could have sworn that she glanced at all of the other gurus who were busy snipping, shaping, or straightening someone’s style. A small smirk seemed to graze all of their faces in one synchronized swoop.

“Sure, I’ll take a bottle of that.” What could it hurt? Somehow, she’d managed to make my new look seem as thick and full as twenty years ago.  Okay, so I already knew I was buying a bottle of something I’d use once, maybe twice, hopefully three times, and that would be that. Still, I could dream, couldn’t I?

I returned home and my son went straight into his usual bout of snickers. “What?” I wanted to know.

“Got your hair cut?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Just that, it’ll never look like that again.”

“Now, wait a minute.” I countered. “I can do this one.”

“Yeah right,” he chuckled, and flew out the door.

Well, okay, maybe he was right. I’ve never actually had the style the stylists gave me for more than a day.  It’s true. No matter what product I buy from them to ensure that I’ll achieve the result that they do, it just doesn’t happen. My hair has a life of its own. It does what it wants. Humidity… it’s big, wavy, curly, wild woman hair. Middle of winter… it’s as smooth as if I’d spent hours with the straightening iron. The color… well, these days, let’s just say that we’re never really sure what shade it’s going to be after a week or two.  Or three.  Or six.

You know what?  It’s so much effort, time, and energy. And for what?  My son is right. It’ll never look just walked out of the salon perfect when I do it.  After all, as my other resident expert, my daughter likes to remind me… “She’s a professional, Mom. Geeeeez.”

So, at my next appointment in six, eight, maybe ten weeks when I finally can’t take it anymore, and once again sit in that mesmerizing chair, staring at a face that I’m starting not to recognize, fanaticizing about a fabulous new look, I’ll be prepared. When she comes in for the close and I hear, do you need product? I’ll stay strong… for about a minute, I’m sure. Then, I’ll remember that she is a professional and somewhere in my brain the age old reminder that Only her hairdresser knows for sure will rewind and play.

You know where this will end. I’ll hand over my credit card because, mostly, I do need product. Don’t we all? Just ask your favorite professional.

Carol Sabik-Jaffe lives and writes near Philadelphia, PA, with her husband and two kids. She’s not sure if she’s ever liked her hair on day two.