Time, share

 It was a last-minute ask.

​

My friend needed a few extra hands to finish her holiday confection preparation as Christmas Eve descended. “Your place or mine … I will come to you.”

​

I couldn’t say no.

​

She arrived with all the supplies from her kitchen: a dozen eggs, a carton of milk, a quart of neutral oil, a sack of flour, a bag of sugar, and all the spices. She even brought measuring utensils and other dishware we would need for an assembly line of tinkering and finishing touches.

​

“These are called ‘Buneulos’,” she said slowly and clearly, nodding patiently as I repeated the word several times, emphasizing different syllables with a question-mark lilt in my voice. She gently repeated the word until my brain could settle the sounds into their proper order.

​

“That’s it! You’ve got it!”

​

She pulled out a snowflake-shaped mold that had been welded to a long, metal rod tipped by a short, wooden dowel. It gave cookie-cutter quaintness with a cattle brand vibe.

​

She worked quickly as she described what would happen next: when dipped in the thin batter and immersed in the oil bubbling in the Dutch oven, a delicate fritter would crisp up and release from the ornate family heirloom with just a few well-placed nudges with a butter knife.

​

Despite the steps that had to follow one another in precise order, the process was straightforward: measure, mix, dip, fry, dry, and finally, dust with the crystalline magic that is cinnamon sugar.

​

For now, she explained, it would be my job to blot the oil and ensure each exquisite snowflake glistened.

​

All went as planned until the first fritter stuck to the mold like glue. Then another. And another. Between each interval, we scraped and scrubbed the washed and dried the snowflake before trying again.

​

Three more times, the ancestors, it seemed, refused to give up the ghost.

​

It was a mystery.

​

We wondered aloud whether it was a Goldilocks problem; maybe the oil was too hot? Or maybe it was too cold? I wondered in silence whether it was the curse of my kitchen, a place where, under my watch, water burns to a crisp.

“Should we just let it go?” my friend asked. “It’s late, and I don’t want to tie up your night. This might just be a sign that my bunuelos are just not meant to be this year.”

​

I did not want to admit defeat.

​

And although I yet to experience what making 100 snowflake fritters would entail once we were finally “cooking with grease,” as our mothers used to say, I wanted to keep trying.

​

I also remembered a long-forgotten deep fryer that still lived somewhere in these cabinets.

​

“Maybe,” I ventured, “the fryer would keep a more consistent temperature, and that would be the solution.

​

A few minutes of futzing  … and sending the returning college freshman to the grocery for a top-off of oil … was all it took to get the assembly line up and running.

​

The boy even rolled up his sleeves and offered to help after he handed over the Wesson.

​

One batch and then another … my friend marveled as my boy, with just a twist of the wrist, made the snowflake bloom in the oil like a miracle. No prying needed.

​

He fried, I dried, and she packed towering stacks into boxes for distribution.

​

We talked, and laughed, and I loved each sweet moment.

​

“I’m so glad we persevered.”

 

The gift

 “The best gifts for mothers-in-law.”

I typed this into the search engine and waited. In short order, a few bazillion sponsored links cascaded down the screen.

​

I was not disappointed. There wasn’t anything that screamed “revenge gift,” which had worried me a bit as I mulled over the wording I had keyed in at the onset, feeling a little remorseful that the qualifier – in-law – still seemed appropriate and necessary.

​

I didn’t think my giftee would be disappointed, either. The selection available ran the gamut between tasteful and classic to playful and zany: There were stylish grippy-soled slippers; a plush robe with safe, sedate color options. Of course, I clicked away from all of those to read more about a green plastic pill case that looks as if it had been molded from an actual pea pod. But I came to my senses soon enough.

​

After flirting with the idea for a few moments before abandoning the fake “produce” in my “virtual” cart, I move on to explore the endless array of things no one really needs that, sadly, in the moment in which we find ourselves, may be made entirely of A.I.

​

Which is why I tend to feel a little adrift as I wade through all the well-meaning gift guides that media and moguls alike churn out at this time of year. Because the best gifts … we all know … require we know a little more about a person than their age, gender, and place in the family hierarchy.

​

We need to know and care about who they are and what they mean to us. We might have to pull out an old story or an inside joke. We have to make a connection.

​

Every part of me knows this as I peruse the guides, hoping to find an item that will somehow show my investment in the thought, and not just a brightly decorated box I would hand over like collateral.

​

That’s when I happened upon a piece in the New York Times that had collected hundreds of stories from readers about their favorite or most memorable gifts. It was a delightful read that gleaned sweet little snippets, telling of prized memories more than it described mere possessions.

​

It reminded me of the Swiss Army knife my father gave me for my college graduation. It was the only thing I wanted for Christmas, or maybe it was for my Birthday, when I was seven. I don’t really remember. I just know from the note that came with it that my father never forgot: “Congratulations on your graduation! You are old enough and wise enough for this now.”

​

It also reminded me of the year my sister had handed me a triple-digit gift card for a national coffee purveyor I liked, saying, “Here. This is all I’m doing this year.”  That was the year I thought of her, and said a silent “Thanks, Sis,” every time I needed a little caffeinated pick-me-up.

I know it doesn't have to be a grand gesture.

​

And it could be that I buy the slippers that look stylish, but know that the real gift will be the laughter as we sit around after our holiday meal and swap stories of our favorite gifts.

Yearning to be free

 My heart sank a little as I read the opinion after opinion heralding news from Australia that a new law, effective immediately, would restrict children and teens from using social media.

​

We all seem to agree that “kids today” are depressed, anxious, and failing to do so many things we were somehow able to master - with one hand tied behind our backs - by the time we were only half their age.

​

It’s the clothes they wear … the music …  the video games … the movies … the books … the screens … the bullying … the drugs, the sex  … are all addictions we can beat with abstinence.

​

And just as it was our impulse decades ago to keep our kids from ever being alone in the big wide world, we will now seek to keep them sheltered from the World Wide Web.

​

But as we all wax nostalgic about the lack of freedom to “just be kids,” we should really be focusing more on the “freedom” we have already etched away.

​

I don’t know a single person who would want to relive their youth.

​

Sure, they’d like to be able to do some of the things they once took for granted … like eating cheeseburgers, or staying up late on purpose, or sitting on the floor without having to think about whether their knees will enable them to get back to standing.

​

I don’t know a soul who would ever be happy going back to pay phones or navigating the roadways with a paper map folded into 27 rectangles.

​

Who would rather we lost?

​

Nostalgia shouldn’t be the foundation for policies that dictate our future. Nostalgia for our youth -  when we had limited experiences with the world and the understanding of a child - is a seductive and effective marketing tool.  It also clouds our judgment.

​

It makes us look for enemies when we are faced with a chaotic present, it helps us isolate a problem or points us to an enemy we can vanquish, and offers the hope of regaining a life we never truly experienced.

​

My cohorts worried about the threat of nuclear Armageddon and visited the bomb shelter in the school basement once. Our children worried about whether or not a gunman would get through the barricade of chairs their class had piled against the door during one of several random active shooter drills each and every year.

​

We had space and freedom to explore and to get into scrapes; they had stranger danger and organized, optimized play. We could be free in our neighborhoods and beyond once we got bikes; they could be free in Minecraft unless we insisted they share their passwords.

​

Is it possible that the chipping away at privacy and freedom in an attempt to secure temporary safety gives us nothing? If they can’t move about, or have privacy and secrets, if they don’t make decisions or get the chance to be independent in thought, aren’t we merely adding to the anxiety?

​

If we block another channel for independence, are we asking for more deception and despair?

​

There are a host of studies by the Educational Database Online that examine how constant monitoring can be detrimental to our teens’ development and mental health. It suggests that a rights-based approach to privacy policy is imperative.

​

It’s not that we shouldn’t demand more from progress and those who power that progress, it’s that we shouldn’t accept anything less than the right to control our own message, no matter what our age.

​

Parenting has never been easy, nor has growing up.

Have candy, will travel

 “Are you all packed?”

I wave my hands in the air: part acknowledgement of the question, part indignation about having been asked it.

Of course, I’m not packed.

Packing, as nature and history proscribe, means that I will be pacing around in the eight-square-foot space where my clothes and luggage reside until the wee hours of the morning, as he snores, navigating in the dark with only the flashlight on my phone and a faltering memory of where I last saw the shoe travel bag.

As usual, when I have adequate time to prepare, I find myself shoving coconut flakes and confectioners' sugar into a tote bag a few minutes before we depart for a weekend in Maine.

This is how one finds themselves emptying out the “baking supplies” drawer into a tote bag seconds before hitting the road.

“There are stores near my mom’s,” my husband says with a laugh he has cultivated to isolate the madness of my method.

This trip - part work, part family diligence, part holiday social - was also somewhat impromptu. Once we return, I’ll have only an hour or so to pull a few dozen cookies and a tin of candy out of thin air for a different soirée.

Now as part of not packing my bags during normal packing hours, I had instead decorated a cardboard box to use as a photo booth prop (and tested it with the resident cats).

I also puttered around the kitchen, quickly mixing a new favorite cookie dough that I would roll into logs and store in the fridge. They would be perfectly chilled and ready to slice and bake a mere few minutes before the party.

(I’d been testing them for weeks now, slicing and baking just one or two so as not to overindulge.)

This is when a bell tolled for a message entering the imaginary chat:

“You’re still bringing the potato candies, right?”

And just like that, my feeling of accomplishment at pre-planning a batch of warm cookies disappeared as I realised I had done only enough calculating to know that there wasn’t enough time for the Needhams, for which I’d become known.

He was schlepping the bags of piled next to the door, while I found a package of chocolate chunks and tossed it in with the rest. I contemplated bringing a potato … the secret ingredient … but decided against it, rationalizing there may be an occasion to exploit a near-future dinner’s leftover mashed.

Despite having tasks to tick off, I know there will be time to fill.

As we drive northward, I notice the depth of the snow in the woods, where remnants of it still cling to the trees. I also notice my shovel-tightened muscles have started to loosen.

I smile broadly, imagining how the work of the holidays can also feel effortless, like your mind hurtling itself into a soft snowbank depicted on an old Currier and Ives print.

Make time to enjoy the work and the play.