Luc's Cookies

Each Christmas Eve, for as long as I can recall, my brother, Davis, and I would leave cookies for Santa Claus. We would place them by our hearth along with carrots for the reindeer. And yes, of course, I do realize there is no such thing as Santa Claus. Letting go of childhood fantasies is part of growing up, so my parents made sure to tell me this past summer before I left home for college. But I digress (and kid, though I did have the advantage of pretending to still believe in Santa for many years since Davis is almost six years my junior). The cookies we would leave for Santa were not just any old cookie. Certainly one could not leave Chips Ahoy, or Oreos or even “gourmet” cookies for Santa. They had to come from the heart and from the home.

My Grandmother named different types of Christmas sweets she prepared after family members. These particular cookies were named for me: Luc's cookies. They were sugar cookies, but to call them that is a bit like calling a well-prepared risotto “rice.” These sugar cookies are not for health freaks or dieters; no Splenda or honey, no whole wheat flour, no egg substitute and certainly no skimping on real, quality, unsalted butter. Horrible, dangerous things – or so the dieticians seem to want to tell us – comprise that’s only part of what makes them so delicious. The sweet, buttery aroma of these freshly baked cookies, followed by the sight of them emerging from the oven, perfectly golden discs like the sun on a bright, snow covered December's day, made me want to attack them like Joey Chestnut eating hot dogs on the Fourth of July. (Though washing the cookies down with milk, rather than water, is the preferred plan of attack). I would try to restrain myself because Luc's cookies demanded to be savored, not devoured. Sometimes I even succeeded.

Culinary experts say we eat with all our senses, but Proust would tell us we eat with our memories. And though my mother now makes Luc's cookies, the memory of my late grandmother baking my cookies makes these sugar cookies all the more special to me. And another tradition continues as well. The anticipation of Santa Claus coming every Christmas Eve, and knowing he would love those special cookies, has not stopped in the years since we learned that Santa didn't live on the North Pole but in our house. The cookies were and are gratefully consumed (which may or may not be related to the fact that my father likes to get up in the middle of the night and eat a cookie). “Santa” would invariably write a letter to us, thanking us for the delicious cookies and encouraging us to continue to be kind and loving brothers. Having the satisfaction of knowing that I pleased Santa Claus, earlier the mythical and later the one that lived with us, did, and does, bring a smile to my families faces.