SMA meant baking cookies was our messiest family holiday tradition
Mom made them, but decorating the cookies was a family affair
Seeking inspiration for this week’s column, I asked: “Hey, Mom. What is a favorite memory you have of our family traditions during the holidays?”
“That’s easy,” came the surprisingly immediate response. “Sugar cookies.” The two words brought a smile and a flood of nostalgia to me.
Every December, for as far back as I can remember, my mom baked homemade roll-out, cut-out sugar cookies in the shapes of reindeer, candy canes, Christmas trees, and snowflakes. My brothers and I would sit on barstools at the kitchen counter to watch the magic unfold and be a part of the process, mostly by tracing smiley faces with our fingertips through the excess flour and nibbling scraps of raw cookie dough.
There were other holiday traditions that we enjoyed — decorating the tree, wrapping presents, and putting up lights on the house outside — but the cookies were something we all did together, no matter how long it took or how messy it got. And it got messy.
Sweet, messy memories
I was the messy one, unintentionally decorating myself more than the cookies. Because of SMA, I moved slowly, dropped things frequently, needed help reaching things, and got fatigued easily. Mom would just roll up my sleeves and drape an apron over my neck, but I’d still be sticky from head to toe!
Connie Chandler and her brother Andrew decorated cookies in their own unique way as teenagers. (Courtesy of Connie Chandler)
Indeed, decorating cookies was quite the workout for me. I probably only decorated a half-dozen or so in the time it took the rest of my family to finish the other million, but no one made me feel bad about that, and I was so happy, I didn’t even notice. And everyone was so patient with me, passing me the ingredients I deemed essential to each sugary canvas.
There was no accounting for the ways the sprinkles would scatter all over the table, the floor, and my lap. Inevitably, my fingers and elbows would dip into mounds of icing and smear it everywhere, and my last cookie of the day was typically used to wipe up all the extra smudges and gather up all the extra sprinkles. It was possibly the ugliest one of the whole bunch, which I mercifully spared from public humiliation by eating as quickly as possible.
As baking sheet after baking sheet came out of the oven, perfectly golden, fluffy cookies were shoveled onto cooling racks. If we were lucky, a few would fall apart in the transfer and we got to eat them while they were still warm.
While the cookies cooled, Mom mixed up the icing — always homemade, of course. Powdered sugar lingered in the air and settled on every surface. The white icing was divided into different bowls, and each one was drizzled with red, blue, green, or yellow food coloring. Then they were stabbed with a teaspoon and butter knife, and joined by an assortment of sprinkles, so that when the table was prepared it looked like the “bangarang” feast in the classic movie “Hook.”
Each person’s cookies reflected their designer. My engineer-minded dad would decorate six cookies at a time with one color and type of sprinkles, then load up his plate with a fresh batch and choose another combination. My older brother, Andrew, ever the artist, would make a paint palette on his plate with blobs of icing and create elaborate designs. His were always the ones we chose to leave out for Santa.
My younger brother, Kevan, who also has SMA and was better known as our “joy bug” and social butterfly, would happily focus on one cookie all afternoon, but he also invited friends over to double his contribution.
Cookie decorating was a family affair. It wasn’t about efficiency or perfection, but about being together. Sometimes it’s the messiest experiences that help us find the deepest love, the greatest joy, and the sweetest memories.
Note: SMA News Today is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The opinions expressed in this column are not those of SMA News Today or its parent company, Bionews, and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to spinal muscular atrophy.
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