The Great Cookie Bake Disaster of 1987

Remember the Waltons? We were not the Waltons, not by a long stretch. However, sadly, I didn’t always remember that. And this brings us to the Cookie Fiasco of
1987, a most tragic affair from which we all continue to suffer a little PTSD whenever holiday cookies are mentioned. It all began when I had a vision of the five of us—Cartier, age 18; Gavin, 12; Samantha, 8; and John, 5---baking and decorating Christmas cookies together. You can already see where this is going, can’t you?


A quick reality check might have saved us all, but I never administered that check, Mr. Reality and I sometimes reside on different plains, as it were. I should have sensed trouble when I cheerfully announced this feat and Cartier rolled her eyes and sighed deeply. She was a pretty good sport for an 18-year-old being held against her will. Perhaps I should have seen how wrong it could go when Gavin, the 12-year-old who featured himself to be a creative artiste, began to chatter about what great designs we could make if only we had more colors and some food paint. Sense should have taken out a bat and hit me over the head with it when Samantha--only 8 but bossy enough to earn the nickname “Queenie” from her older sister—grabbed an apron and began to tell the other three what to do and how to do it. Poor John, as always, stood there, looking around and hoping that it wouldn’t end as badly as he knew it must. He was only 5 but always wise beyond his years. His only comment was, “Maybe we should just play Monopoly!” He knew a disaster when he saw it.


But no! I had had a vision of us standing around the kitchen table, decorating the cookies that I would bake. There would be joy and laughter as Christmas carols played in the background. From time to time, we would stop and sing along to a favorite, perhaps “Frosty the Snowman.” You can see how deluded I become from time to time, can’t you? I mentally write these wonderful little scripts, and then no one else follows the plot I’ve written. It’s as if they are all on different page, and besides this, they all take direction poorly!


The night before the fiasco, I made sugar cookie dough, rolled out some and cut out various shapes, using the new cookie cutters I’d purchased for the occasion: a Santa, reindeer, tree, star, bell and snowman. I envisioned a tree with green icing having silver beads carefully applied; a Frosty with raisin buttons and chocolate chip eyes and nose, a bell with bands of different colored icing. I must have been delusional.


The next morning, I baked those cookies, put them on drying racks, placed four cookie-covered racks at the four stations I’d set up at the table. I filled bowls with chocolate chips, raisins, and silver beads and placed them in the middle of the table, easily within reach of the four stations. I strategically placed the shakers of multi-colored, green, and red sprinkles next to the bowls. In additional bowls, I put out white, green, red, and yellow icing I’d prepared. Next, I placed spreaders at each station aside a plate. This was a well organized disaster; you may be assured of that.

I then retrieved my pastry chefs from various locations in the house. Cartier had to have the phone pried from her hand, which exacerbated the snit she was in. Samantha rounded up the other three. “Okay, you guys. Mom says come to the kitchen right now,” she ordered in her Queenie take-no-prisoners tone. Gavin came willingly, and John followed with a hang-dog look, going to a doom he knew awaited.

As they entered the kitchen, I beamed, explained how this wonderful experience would go, and turned on the Christmas carols. “This is going to be fabulous,” Cartier mumbled, her lips dripping with disdain as she sat at her stool.

“I get the green icing and all the silver!” Gavin announced.

“I’ll be the boss of the decorations,” Samantha admonished followed by, “John, you sit over there. That’s my seat.”

“Good times, Mom,” Cartier groaned.


It didn’t take but minutes for everything to go so terribly wrong. Gavin and Samantha wouldn’t share. Shocking, I know. “Mom! Make Gavin stop hogging the silver things.”


“Mom, John’s eating the chocolate chips!”


“Moth-er, if you want me to waste a Saturday night playing like I’m John Boy Walton, make Gavin stop hogging all the decorations.”


“But Mom, I’m making a beautiful Christmas tree like the one in Rockefeller Center! I need all these supplies. Besides, Cartier’s looks boring.”


“As if I care,” she returned as she slapped yellow icing onto a bell.


The bickering intensified, and someone grabbed a bowl from someone else, and red icing splattered onto the wall. “Look what you made me do!” screamed Gavin.


And things went from bad to worse. Right in the middle of “Silent Night,” I shouted, “We’re supposed to be having fun!” An explicative might have been inserted.

“Not my idea of fun,” Cartier groused.


“Well, it’s Gavin’s fault,” Samantha retorted.


“Everything’s always my fault. You blame me for everything!” Gavin shrieked.


John came up to me and said, “I’m sorry, Mom. This is not turning out, is it?”


My response was, “Everybody out! Get out of my kitchen! This was supposed to be fun!” I was not up for Mother of the Year, that’s for sure.


All four took this as a cue and bolted from the kitchen, leaving me standing amid the decorating ruins. I saved the six or seven cookies that were somewhat decorated and put them onto a clean plate. I then dragged over the trash can, and, in a few grand gestures, dumped out the remains of one of my many “It seemed like a good idea at the time” projects. Just for emphasis, I tied up the trash bag and stomped out to the garbage barrels with it, heaving it in with tears in my eyes and disappointment in my heart.


I wish I could tell you that I learned some kind of lesson from this debacle, but I hadn’t and still haven't. I could tell you about the Great Christmas Tree Adventure of 1988 or the Wonderful but Misguided Tour of Christmas Lights Idea of 2005, but that would be too painful. My children would be happy to regale you with all the ugly details, as they love telling and retelling the “Remember when Mom” tales. I’m just glad their psyches have healed. Mine hasn’t.