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What I Learned After I Ate the Last Sugar Cookie

Will the crumbs of last year carry into this one?

I gnawed through the last of the seasonal sugar cookies last night. And all I had to show for my effort was crumbs on the couch.

I should confess right here — we baked those suckers almost three weeks ago. What made me think they’d still retain any holiday goodness?

The multiple sticks of butter. Cascading mountains of sugar. The nutmeg and the whipping cream. Yes, my MIL had more than one “extra ingredient” for all of her year-end treats. But even the best of things gets hard and stale with time.

That’s why, I think, we still had a few sandbakkels left. A Norwegian nod to the birth of the Baby Jesus. Formed with butter and margarine — and an abundance of brown sugar — with “a heaping teaspoon” of cardamom, a sub-tropical spice with hints of eucalyptus and rosemary. The recipe card scribbled by my husband’s Aunt Wanda insists that the teaspoonful be more than overflowing.

These gems, which could be called sugar cookies after a fashion, are molded into special tins. They smell like Christmas.

While I was dusting the more traditional cookie crumbs from my T-shirt, I thought about raiding the cupboard for a remaining sandbakkel or two.

I reached to pry the lid off the container storing the last Norwegian “sand tarts.” Just then Moker, the real Scandinavian in the family, came up behind me — I offered him the festive confections, but he turned me down.

“No, you baked them. You should finish them,” he said in the spirit of Post-Christmas Cheer.

Sandbakkels don’t crumble in the same fashion as other cookies. They seem to last forever, too. Must be the kind of lard — butter and margarine — I beat into the batter.

We split the difference and shared the last few bits of Christmas Past. And I learned the crumbs of recent celebrations can only lead us down the trail to a delicious New Year.