Religious Experience

Today, now officially three days before Christmas Eve, is awesome. The day each year when I suddenly decide that I like Christmas. But--where did all the time go? There's so much to do! There's the frosting of the cookies. The wrapping of the gifts. The making of the antipasto. As well, there's the arranging of miniature pickles on a plate. The forcing radishes to look like roses. The stuffing olives with bleu cheese. The replicating a 1/4" scale Westminster Abbey out of Wheat Thins. Then, the moment of silence happens. It's just a lull but I find that I've come to rely on this one silent moment each year to renew and make 'blank' my life and brain. Then, on the day itself, there is the Doing Of Nothing. This state of being interrupted only occasionally by the experience of The Eating Of The Christmas Cookies (made lovingly by my mom) of which there are several varieties: There are the cut-out frosted cookies which are crisp, decorative and not-too-sweet. There are the chocolate layer cookies that cannot be explained other than to say that there are never enough of them (which I believe is by design). And, incredibly, there are the Russian tea cakes which melt in your mouth, transport you to a better place, solve all of your problems and somehow make you accept your own mortality--even if only briefly. Oh, and there are the pretzels dipped in chocolate for which I have no opinion.