Keebler Cookie Elf

It was usually at this time of the year when I would start buying quantities of butter only fit for the "Two Fat Ladies." See, the Keebler Cookie Factory of Ambrose Avenue would be churning to get ready for the bonanza, otherwise known as the holiday cookie frenzy. I don't know when I started this tradition that had devolved into sheer spectacle. As I bought pounds of butter and quantities of sugar reserved for most restaurateurs, the swell of the holiday spirit would propel me from one humongous warehouse store to another. This spirit of giving would last as I set up my kitchen for endless hours of butter being whipped in my stand mixer. I would, of course, have purchased an endless array of tins, scoured in, yet another, discount store that requires much patience. All this preparation usually took over a week, the break or the 'quiet before the storm,' as the cliche goes.

Once the imminent day arrived, I would wait until my kitchen cleared of kid and husband, getting dressed in sweats and t-shirt. The Ipod, the ever trusty companion, would be cranked on 10, the oven on to 350 degrees, butter on the counter for it to be room temperature, and all other accouterments on the ready. I usually started the day by baking an easier cookie like chocolate chip. But since this is me, I would bake five dozen chocolate chip cookies, so that by the time I was finished with this particular kind of cookie, I had enough storage boxes stacked full of cookies to start resembling a Mrs. Field's outpost. I would then move through my repertoire, honed over many years of this madness, baking for a full 8 hours.

The first day was always cheery--this living of some domestic fantasy I must have harbored underneath all that feminist outrage. My son would arrive home happy the house was full of aromas that would always be the stamp of the holiday season. He would be only too happy to sample a cookie or two before eating the takeout Chinese dinner I ordered since cooking a meal in my factory was out of the question. My churlishness and outright antagonism didn't start until about day three of this lunacy. It was usually the last day of baking, or let me say, the last night as I scrambled to finish the last batch of nut balls that my rage about having started this ridiculous tradition started to spill out into my French country kitchen. My husband, thankfully with a sense of humor, would note that the angry elf was now in residence, having replaced the earlier happy elf.

Once the factory was officially closed, every stick of butter used in one recipe or another, I would count the large plastic containers laden with cookies--a number that is too embarrassing to write down for public consumption. All of this hard work, truly inexplicable, would result in the fun part of packaging cookies into the tins for distribution to neighbors and friends, some of whom counted on the arrival of these tins as surely as watching the rerun of "Frosty the Snowman" on ABC.

As I organized our move, I packed enough baking utensils to do a mini-version of the cookie baking bonanza. It is inconceivable for my son that I wouldn't bake for the holidays. I don't know if subconsciously I've done some number insuring he, my son, would forever be looking for some nouveau, postmodern, Martha Stewart in a future spouse. If so, I offer my mea culpa ahead to all the possible candidates--this from the French, Deconstructionist, Marxist, Feminist, and cookie elf.