Cookies create memories

Every December, our kitchen transforms into a holiday bakery. The countertop is crowded with bowls of flour, sugar, and spices, while cookie cutters clatter against the wooden table. It's a tradition as constant as Christmas itself: baking cookies with my mom and grandma. They're my memory makers, the women who taught me that cookies are more than just desserts, they're stories in sugar and dough.

It always starts the same way. My grandma ties on her faded red apron, worn soft over years of mixing and rolling. The air is filled with the rich scent of vanilla and cinnamon, a smell that feels like a warm hug. Christmas music plays faintly in the background, but it's mostly drowned out by our laughter and chatter. When I was little, I was only allowed to sprinkle the sugar on top of the cookies. I can still remember the sparkle of the crystals under the kitchen light, like tiny stars. But now, as a dough shaper, I've earned my place at the table. My grandma calls me her "cookie artist" as I roll out the dough and press cutters into it, turning simple ingredients into snowflakes, reindeer, and Christmas trees.

One year, I tried to sneak a bite of cookie dough when I thought no one was looking. My mom caught me mid-chew, and she and my grandma both laughed. Now, it's a running joke every year, they pretend to "guard" the bowl while I make attempts to steal from it. The best part comes when the cookies come out of the oven. We gather around the cooling rack, each cookie still warm and golden. My grandma always insists on taste-testing the first batch. She breaks a cookie in half and shares it with me. It melts in my mouth, buttery and sweet, a flavor that tastes like Christmas itself.

Baking cookies with my mom and grandma is more than a tradition. It's a connection to the past and a gift for the future. My grandma learned to bake from her mom, passing down not just recipes but a love for creating something together. I imagine one day sharing these moments with my own family, showing my kids how to roll out dough, or perfecting the right amount of sprinkles on a gingerbread man. To anyone else, a cookie might just be a treat, but to me, it's a reminder of the women who have shaped my life. Every batch we bake together feels like a promise to keep this tradition alive. The cookies may come and go, but the love that goes into making them is timeless and the sweetness never fades.

Writer Makayla Stirewalt is a junior at Cloquet High School and wrote this essay for Jason Richardson's World Literature class. Richardson said the assignment stemmed from reading "Beowulf." "The Vikings believed our lives have special meaning by passing down things to the next generation, and by doing so, we can become immortal," he explained. "So juniors wrote about items, skills, personality traits and traditions passed from elders and how they want to pass these to the next generation."