ast December, we started a new holiday tradition in my family— or so I had hoped. The plan was to make anonymous cookie drop-offs all over town: My kids packaged up homemade sugar cookies in brown paper bags with a couple of Christmas candies, wrote their friends’ names on the bags and signed them all “From your Secret Santa.” Then we made a list of addresses and plotted out the most efficient delivery route. It was pitch black out, but the kids thought they should wear disguises just in case.
We piled into the car, blasted Christmas carols and drove off to spread some good old-fashioned cheer. When we got to each house, the kids would hop out, shove a bag of treats into the mailbox and hustle back to the car to get ready for the next delivery. We were like a bunch of elves, and we were loving it.
But perhaps we didn’t think it through. Some people were alarmed: They heard rustling and looked out the window, deeply concerned. A couple of other families were out of town, so they likely returned home to stale cookies. And everyone else had to get past their fear of the treats themselves. I mean, would you eat unmarked cookies from a brown paper bag that was left in your mailbox? Probably not.
We’ll be making the rounds again this year, but with a few key changes to the mission: We’ll ditch the disguises, abandon the anonymity and sign our names. Seems just as festive, but far less creepy. I’m committed to making this tradition stick—plus we have some amazing cookies in this issue, and they’re too good not to share.
FOOD PHOTOS: RYAN LIEBE. PORTRAIT: KRISTEN HAZZARD.