Mom's Favorite Christmas Cookie
What's your favorite Christmas cookie? Mom asks me almost daily. Seriously?! The cutouts that we frost and put sprinkles on. The ones that are the biggest pain in the ass to make and have the most sugar ;)
I'm sitting on the eve of New Year's Eve listening to Christmas carols on Pandora and reminiscing. Christmas growing up was wonderful, magical. Then maddening and frustrating (aren't the holidays always this way? :) My dad sang in the church choir, a beautiful baritone. My mom would always say she did not have a good choir voice, but loved to sing. She has a lovely 2nd soprano/alto song. Listening to the carols, I can hear their voices.
Talking with Mom this set of holidays has been challenging. She asks me every conversation if I'm coming home for Christmas, I tell her no, the flights are outrageously overpriced. I will come home in a couple of months. She says that's ok, we will celebrate Christmas when I'm home.
Our conversation topics have again diminished as her brain grasps for things that are familiar. We talk of food, weather, yarn - what she's crocheting, my cats, and we reminisce. We laugh. And her brain is having more difficulty stringing together conversations. She loses her train of thought, names of words, sometimes what words mean. It's not often, but it's there. This is one fucking sad disease. No cure. Progression is the constant - sometimes slow, sometimes fast, but always progressing.
Our family has never been one to sit in sadness and wallow though. And that is evident in Mom's wicked sense of humor, which oddly has become sharper in the midst of dementia. She loves pulling pranks, teasing and finding humor in the middle of sadness. The holidays are always a mixed bag of emotions. Joy, frustration, sadness, warmth, excitement. For Mom, it's full of anticipation and laughter and love.
Oh, and her favorite Christmas cookie? The ones with the Hershey Kiss in the middle. She and Voyageur are making them (I think today).
Back at ya Voyageur.
I'm sitting on the eve of New Year's Eve listening to Christmas carols on Pandora and reminiscing. Christmas growing up was wonderful, magical. Then maddening and frustrating (aren't the holidays always this way? :) My dad sang in the church choir, a beautiful baritone. My mom would always say she did not have a good choir voice, but loved to sing. She has a lovely 2nd soprano/alto song. Listening to the carols, I can hear their voices.
Talking with Mom this set of holidays has been challenging. She asks me every conversation if I'm coming home for Christmas, I tell her no, the flights are outrageously overpriced. I will come home in a couple of months. She says that's ok, we will celebrate Christmas when I'm home.
Our conversation topics have again diminished as her brain grasps for things that are familiar. We talk of food, weather, yarn - what she's crocheting, my cats, and we reminisce. We laugh. And her brain is having more difficulty stringing together conversations. She loses her train of thought, names of words, sometimes what words mean. It's not often, but it's there. This is one fucking sad disease. No cure. Progression is the constant - sometimes slow, sometimes fast, but always progressing.
Our family has never been one to sit in sadness and wallow though. And that is evident in Mom's wicked sense of humor, which oddly has become sharper in the midst of dementia. She loves pulling pranks, teasing and finding humor in the middle of sadness. The holidays are always a mixed bag of emotions. Joy, frustration, sadness, warmth, excitement. For Mom, it's full of anticipation and laughter and love.
Oh, and her favorite Christmas cookie? The ones with the Hershey Kiss in the middle. She and Voyageur are making them (I think today).
Back at ya Voyageur.