Holiday Cookies, year 3
Wow! It’s been a while since I’ve logged in, and in this time Squarespace got a major facelift. I can barely navigate anything at all. And they randomly changed my blog background color to this awful BROWN… but WHY…
And this post has apparently sat in my drafts since January 30. Hard to believe it’s already October, and already time to consider whether I should go for year four. As I wrote below, looking back on year 3 it wasn’t as joyful as the prior years. It felt like going through the motions, and I never felt the satisfaction of executing a very specific vision exactly as I dreamt it, because there was really no vision in the first place.
Looking back, I barely photographed anything at all — it just didn’t feel fun.
I’m still not sure what will happen this year as I keep brainstorming on a theme. Maybe I’ll do it if I think of something that sounds fun; maybe I’ll just bake a batch of cookies for our lovely building staff and only them instead of boxes shipped around the country.
~~~ ⬇️ The draft from January 30, published as is because fuck it. ~~~
I said last year that I wouldn’t do it again, and yet, I found myself juggling a particular hectic year-end work sprint with last minute cookie production in December 2022. Surprise!!
This year’s menu felt a bit… uninspired, and it showed in the product. Whereas last year’s was as perfectly as I could have executed an entire vision, planned meticulously down to the logistical minutia, this year was sort of a mad dash to finish. There wasn’t a lot of joy in the cooking or assembly process. I remember just feeling tired and frustrated the entire time.
The Menu
Homemade Hot Cocoa Mix
Vanilla Peppermint Marshmallow Squares
Brown Butter Shortbread
Chocolate Orange Milanos
Speculoos Babka
The main reason I even started to consider doing another year of boxes was the 3-year-long itch to make hot cocoa bombs lol. The molds were only backorder for 2020 and 2021, so I thought this would be the year. But as you can see, after rounding out the box full of hot cocoa accompaniments, I ultimately decided against it.
No mouse-drawn card art this year, just a little thematic copy and a handwritten holiday greeting. I did draw a version of the card art and printed them all out, but ended up scrapping it for another idea because I just wasn’t ecstatic enough about the cards. It felt like going through the motions instead of something fun and quirky.