For some reason this year, I’m having the hardest time getting into the Christmas spirit. It was a struggle putting up the decorations, and I wasn’t overly motivated to do any shopping or gift making. Even now, I should be finishing up my gifts and cards for the ladies at work, but I just don’t feel like it.
And cookies. I’ve usually got my baking done by now, but I’ve been putting it off and putting it off. Today, I finally pulled a few recipes and decided to get to it. Well, I got through one batch of molasses cookies before my spatula snapped in half. I was just done after that.
So as I sat here stewing in my bah humbug, something occurred to me. I’m 53 years old. This is the age my mother was when she declared she would no longer bake Christmas cookies. She just hated doing it, and after doing it for almost thirty years and four kids (at 13, I was the youngest), she was just done.
And so at 13, I took up the spatula and continued the tradition of baking tons of cookies for Christmas. I made my dad’s favorite hermits, cutouts, chocolate chip, peanut blossoms, and others as I found recipes. For a long time, I loved doing it, and of course, I loved eating the fruits of my labor.
It seems like things have come full circle as I’m now just disenchanted with the whole mess. Is it just my age? My life circumstances? I’m not sure. My older son started college this year, and while he’s home on break, it’s obvious that he’s on the verge of spreading his wings and leaving the nest. My younger son will be 16 in a few days, and he’s ready to find a job to start saving for college or whatever he decides to do after high school.
I always vowed not to turn into my mother–something I suppose a lot of others have said at one time or another–but it seems in some ways, I have. I’m looking at the broken spatula as a harbinger of this new stage of life. I know change is inevitable, and is really the only constant in life, but I can’t help feeling a bit sad, as well as a bit apprehensive.
What will this new stage of life bring? What will my kids do with their lives? And who will carry on the tradition of baking Christmas cookies?
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