Coooooookies!

Like most people, especially fellow Cancerians, I experience a major upwelling of memories around this time of year.
I say Cancerians because we are more tightly attached to our past – people, places, things and memories – than any other sign of the Zodiac. So the saying goes, once the Cancerian crab’s claw grasps something, it never lets go. That’s why we have a hard time parting with possessions and mementos that everyone else would toss out without a second thought.
So when I set my Wayback Machine for my childhood Christmases, I’m awash with memories of:
Lying under the Christmas tree, gazing up at the lights and my reflection in the blue, green, gold and red glass ball ornaments.
My dad’s fascination with the early Noma Bubble Lites.
Christmas presents like the Hopalong Cassidy cowboy outfit, the Gilbert Erector Set, the Gilbert Microscope, and the little Cub rotary printing press with moveable rubber type and later my first transistor radio – a Channel Master AM model that had an earphone that let me listen while slogging through the snow on my newspaper route.
My mother’s Christmas cookies.
My mother was a good cook within her culinary range. Being a Registered Nurse, she had a horror of parasites and disease and consequently she overcooked hamburger to the point of crunchiness. Her turkey often had the dry consistency of cardboard. But there were also some things she did supremely well. Chief among them were an absolutely spectacular version of pumpkin pie, a killer glazed ham loaf and her Christmas cookies.
I found myself hankering for cookies the other day, so I went up to the attic and rummaged around in the jumble of boxes until I found the contents of Mom’s kitchen tools drawer, which included a couple of aluminum 1950s cookie cutters. One is a Santa Claus in profile with sack of goodies slung on his back and the other is a Christmas tree. There’s a red plastic gingerbread boy cookie cutter floating around up there somewhere, but I haven’t found it yet.

Maria understands and values my attachment to the past, which I find remarkable in a Gemini. But then she also had an empathy for my mother that no other woman – my first wife included – ever seemed to have. Maybe it’s because Mom was a Gemini too. Maybe it’s because she encountered my mother at a point in life where Mom was more vulnerable. At any rate, she uses a lot of my mother’s kitchen equipment and keeps Mom’s recipe file and red-and-white checked Good Housekeeping Cookbook in a place of honor.
So it was natural that Maria would be eager to whip up a batch of Christmas cookies using my mother’s cutters and what she supposed was the recipe.
I just finished the last two of them with my afternoon coffee and, for awhile at least, all is right with the world.