Christmas Cookies

By seventh grade, I was flunking math. This explains how I came to decide that a fun and easy holiday project would be to make cookies of the Twelve Days of Christmas.

In my head, I thought, well, twelve days, and a set for each verse so we can sing it to the cookies somehow, so I'll make a triple batch of dough, and that'll be fun.
I started out very motivated. It went well for a surprisingly long time. Butter, flour, sugar, salt, eggs. Flour the countertop, roll out the dough, cut with cookie cutters, roll the scraps, re-roll, cut some more.

It never, ever, occurred to me to bake them out of order, so the first pan into the oven held: a partridge and a pear tree; two turtle doves and a partridge and a pear tree; three french hens, two turtle doves and a partridge and a pear tree. And the second pan was four calling birds, three french hens, two turtle doves, a partridge and a pear tree, and two (out of five) golden rings. I only had one bird cookie cutter but that's ok, because I could frost them different colors.

I was halfway done, musically! This was going great.

Out come the first two pans, and now three golden rings, four calling birds, three french hens two turtle doves and a partridge and a pear tree. Then six geese-a-laying and of course a little egg for each one, fiiiiiiiive golden rings, four calling bir– ok, two calling birds.

Rest of the calling birds, hens, doves, partridge and a tree, but there's room for swans. The bird cutter does not work for swans. So I stretched their necks, and got three of them a-swimming. But I ran out of dough. That's fine, I mean, I'm already at seven, so I'll make another triple batch, and just refrigerate any extra for another time.

Four more swans a-swimming, geese and eggs, three goooooooooold rings. Two more golden rings, four turtle doves, three french hens, two turtle doves, a partridge, and a pear tree.

I made frosting and started icing the cookies. Green for the partridge, so it matched the tree; blue for the calling birds; ink for the French hens; cream for the geese and white for the swans.

I was getting tired but I was already on eight. Yay! I thought of doing eight girls and eight cows, but I could see that was madness. Somehow, I then decided that eight girls and eight buckets was sane. Three buckets had to go on the next pan. Seven swans. Three geese and eggs.

Three more geese. Three more eggs. Five gold rings. Four calling birds. New pan. Three French hens, two turtle doves, a partridge and a pear tree, and I could get six ladies dancing, which was just milkmaids without the pails and one leg bent and oh god why was I not done with this yet and I needed to make more dough.

Night came. Nobody dared walk through the kitchen. Someone brought me food from McDonald's. I had eaten a lot of dough. My sister went out and got more butter. I descended into a fugue state of measuring, mixing, rolling, cutting, rolling, cutting baking, frosting.

Three ladies dancing, eight maids no buckets. New pan. Eight buckets, no maids, seven swans. New pan. Six geese, six eggs, five gold rings, one calling bird. New pan. Three calling birds, three French hens, two turtledoves, a partridge, a pear tree, and two lords a-leaping. New pan. Eight lords, one lady. New pan. Eight ladies, one maid, two pails. New pan. Seven ladies, six buckets, one swan a-swimming. The singing had taken a desperate and manic tinge. New pan. Six swans, six geese, six eggs. New pan. Five rings, four calling birds, three hens, two turtle doves. New pan. Partridge, tree, seven pipers, which are the lords, but with straight legs and a little dough flute, which turns out to be a bad idea because they mostly break off, but I can't stop to think about any alternative.

More dough. New pan. Four pipers, four lords. New pan. Six lords, three ladies. New pan. Six ladies, three maids, two buckets. New pan. Five maids, six buckets, three swans. New pan. Four swans, six geese, six eggs, five rings. Four birds, three hens, two doves, partridge, tree, and at last, at long last, the last verse: two drummers and four drums. New pan. Eight drummers, four drums. I was crying from exhaustion and sugar crash. New pan. Two drummers, four drums, five pipers. New pan. six pipers, two lords. New pan. Eight lords, three ladies. New pan. Six ladies, six maids. New pan. Two maids, eight buckets, six swans, two geese, four eggs. New pan. Four geese, two eggs. Five gold rings. Four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and, it can't possibly be true, a partridge and a pear tree.

It was two in the morning. There were so many cookies. So many cookies. It looked like the scene of scene of grisly cookie carnage.

I fell asleep in my floury sugary clothes. I couldn't face frosting, and I gave them to everybody else to eat. I was done with them.