When our brand-new oven died, for the second time, in early December, I was sadly facing down the very real prospect of a cookie-less Christmas. My preferred method for 95% of my cooking is to use actual heat because I think it’s universally agreed upon that you cannot microwave a batch of cookies. (I typically only use the microwave [which I can’t write anymore without thinking about Nigella Lawson] to heat water for my nightly cup of tea.) I even hesitate to warm a cookie in the microwave, though I’ve done it.

(My freshman year in college, when my mother used to mail me boxes of homemade chocolate chip cookies, my roommate developed a system where she’d take the lid off of her little electric hot pot, put a couple of inches of water in it, and set it to boil. Then she’d take a foil pie pan, pop a couple of holes through it with a pencil, put the pan on top of the boiling hot pot, and put two of my mother’s chocolate chip cookies in the pan, where the steam would come up through the holes and gently warm the cookies into a miraculous state of crispy goo. This was in the golden age before cheap microwaves, and my roommate was a genius.)

Anyway, I’m a little slow these days and it took me an entire long, sad week after our oven died to realize that the full-sized toaster oven sitting on our counter, that I regularly use to toast bagels and cook frozen pizzas, could also, probably, bake small sheets of Christmas cookies.

Behold, at right, my first attempt at toaster oven Christmas baking, in this terrible photo of some chocolate-dipped spritz-type cookies that Brian has dubbed Lady Toes. I am sorry that he has given them this name because now I cannot see them as anything other than long yellow amputated toes with festively decorated toenails, and that made them a little hard to enjoy. Not impossible, but there was a definite hump to get over before putting the first one in my mouth.

A week later, after the oven repair people called and said the part they needed still hadn’t come in, I decided to put on a brave face and toaster-oven up a batch of Unfussy Sugar Cookies. They don’t look great. Toaster ovens heat up fast and the interior space is a lot smaller than a regular oven so stuff bakes in half the time. If you’re like me and think, “Oh, I’ve got a few more minutes until they’re done, I’ll just scroll Instagram,” you will be throwing a lot of burnt cookies in the trash. Or, I suppose, if you’re truly like me, you’ll say, YAY BURNT COOKIES and eat them anyway.

HIT PUBLISH AND RUN AWAY

It’s taken me like seven attempts to finish this post but before I go I want to send to you an actual, genuine wish for your highest good, and for the happiest holidays possible in these disheartening times. I don’t want to brag, but my boyfriend has a face like Christmas itself and our holidays have been simple and homey and I couldn’t have asked for more* but every joy has had a layer of sadness. I try not to let it all get to me. I post dumb stuff online and hug people and do my best at work, but I don’t feel much like I’m Helping. Sometimes it feels like the only thing I can do to help is not give up.

*besides a working oven

So even though I fluffed it this year and didn’t always manage to put up a monthly post, I’ll try it again in 2022. I’ve found that one bulwark against despair is connection, and putting words online for other people to read and respond to is a satisfying way for me to reach out and be reached back to. So you are invited to stick around here if it feels right and bail if it doesn’t. I’m not going to get sappy on you, but I want to manifest a little more love in the coming year, and this is one way to try.