Christmas Cookie Rules

My daughter was baking last night, and made six loaves of the most heavenly-aromatic Banana Nut Bread that has ever assailed my nostrils.

Even the family mascots, Dazzle and Sophie, wanted some—and they usually only beg for chicken morsels when we’re cooking.

Alas, the Banana Nut Bread loaves did not fare as well as they smelled, because after setting them on the counter to cool, three of them looked like the Great Boling Sinkhole, and most likely will be candidates for Cool Whip Camouflage:

That’s where you fill the collapsed space with Cool Whip, and then add a decorative Cool Whip sculpture on top to make the presentation of the flawed loaves more appealing.

The stuff still tastes phenomenal…but they don’t look too swuft for Holiday presentations.

There are rules for cooking at Christmas that we must all abide by, but there is also an unspoken Code of Christmas Cookies that was originally instituted by Moses in the Wilderness as an incentive to guarantee holiday baking around the world will continue without end, amen.

Here are the rules you must observe when making Christmas Cookies:

1. If you eat a Christmas cookie fresh out of the oven, it has no calories because everyone knows that the first cookie is a test, and thus calorie free.

2. If you drink a diet soda after eating your second cookie, it also has no calories because the diet soda cancels out the cookie calories.

3. If a friend comes over while you're making your Christmas cookies and needs to sample, you must sample with your friend. Because your friend's first cookie is calories free, rule #1 is yours also. It would be rude to let your friend sample alone and, being the friend that you are, that makes your cookie calorie free.

4. Any cookie calories consumed while walking around will fall to your feet and eventually fall off as you move. This is due to gravity and the density of the caloric mass.

5. Any calories consumed during the frosting of the Christmas cookies will be used up because it takes many calories to lick excess frosting from a knife without cutting your tongue.

6. Cookies colored red or green have very few calories. Red ones have three and green ones have five - one calorie for each letter. Make more red ones!

7. Cookies eaten while watching "Miracle on 34th Street" have no calories because they are part of the entertainment package and not part of one's personal fuel.

8. As always, cookie pieces contain no calories because the process of breaking causes calorie leakage.

9. Any cookies consumed from someone else's plate have no calories since the calories rightfully belong to the other person and will cling to their plate. We all know how calories like to CLING!

10. Any cookies consumed while feeling stressed have no calories because cookies used for medicinal purposes NEVER have calories. It's a rule!