That's How the Wookiee Crumbles

My son, Aloysius, dressed (as always) as a Wookiee, roared his disapproval. This wasn't the first year his Dad (and my husband), Paulson, had tried to "recreate" his Great-Grandmother, Teresita's, Holiday Chocolate Cookies, or as my overly bright (and HONEST) 9 year old called them...

"Grandma's Little Crap Cookies!" Aloysius proclaimed then let out his low, sad roar of defeated contempt. I knew this roar well, it was the one he usually reserved for me in response to a request to finish his homework or clean his room.

Paulson, being VERY proud of his Mexican roots, though a generation ago he lost the name... What? Did you think the intrepid hero of this story would be named Paulson Gonzalez? No, his Mom, my pain in the lower quadrant Mother-in-law, Juanita, married a VERY Irish Systems Analyst named Gordon McGuire, still a scandal in the extremely traditional Lira branch of Paulson's maternal side.

But getting back to the disaster currently occurring in what was once my neat and tidy kitchen...

"Paulson, darling, it doesn't have to be perfect, you know?" I said, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder (which he shrugged off as if my fingers were cacti).

"NO! I'm getting it right this time! This is my year, Beth, this is my year" Paulson said, carefully measuring out drops of vanilla extract (I know, a strange ingredient for chocolate cookies, but go figure).

"Dad, it hasn't been your year since I started kindergarten. What makes you think this year's going to be any different? The pandemic? Are these going to be special Covid Curing Cookies?"

Without ever looking up from his measuring, Paulson swatted Aloysius across the bridge of the nose of his Wookiee mask. And before you start calling Children's Protective Services, Paulson was "old school" when it came to that, the one way he was pretty Hispanic was what Juanita called: being free with his hands (a habit he picked up from her, no doubt, as she was a casual swatter too).

Aloysius giggled at the assault, to him, getting his father flustered enough to give him a swat, a noogie or a backhand to the buttocks was like a certificate of merit, as he'd been needling his father since he was old enough to talk. It was their thing. They seldom hugged, never kissed, as some Latino men did quite frequently with their sons, but they were in constant contact. A playful headlock. A tickle war. Aloysius lived for the nights Paulson would put him to bed so he could goad him into body slamming him into the center of the mattress. Of course I cringed at all their roughhousing, but that was them.

However, insofar as Paulson's baking preoccupation, the boy had a point, this was getting obsessive on Paulson's part, and both of us being stuck working from home AND having to home school the Wookiee only made it worse this year. Togetherness is wonderful, but only to a point, the diversion of other people, other settings, is not only healthy, but necessary.

Paulson had been a little younger than Aloysius when Mama Teresita lay dying, and on her death bed Paulson tried to extract the recipe for what she called: Galletitas de Mierda from her. She simply smiled, and patted his little face, as she knew her cookies around holiday time were always his favorite. Beyond her tamales or her signature bunuelos, he dearly loved: Galletitas de Mierda or (believe it or not Aloysius was NOT being facetious) the Americanized name: Little Crap Cookies.

"Look, Paulson, every year you try to duplicate Mama Teresita's recipe. And every year you bake us a fine cookie, a great cookie."

"But not HER cookies!" Paulson snapped, as he sweated over a pinch of nutmeg.

"But Aloysius and I always find them delicious. We gobble them up."

"Yeah, I'm the chief gobbler" Aloysius said, then roared triumphantly.

Paulson turned to glare at both of us.

"Whoa! This is like the Penance Stare from Ghost Rider!"

My son is a comic book fan, Marvel only, he wouldn't be caught

dead reading DC.

"Don't you dare humor me with your condescending eating!"

"Paulson?!"

"Really, Dad? You think I'd tell you I liked your cookies if I didn't?! What child have you been living with for the past decade?"

"Shut-UP! Both of you!"

Okay, this was going too far. He had always been neurotic and focused and maybe a touch short with us during Crap Cookie Baking Time, but he was never mean or angry.

Even my brave little Wookiee shrank back behind me in a defensive posture, too afraid to even roar his disapproval.

"Paulson, that's enough! It's one thing to want to get Mama Teresita's recipe right, it's another thing to yell at us at Christmas."

"Yeah, Dad, you're being a jerk." Aloysius said poking his Wookiee head out from behind me.

At that, Paulson picked up a chocolate splattered spatula and said to Aloysius: "C'mere."

As he started to chase Aloysius around the island in the center of the kitchen with the threatening spatula, that's where I stepped in, getting squarely in between my dodging son and my spatula swinging husband.

"STOP! You touch him in real anger and you'll have to have that spatula surgically removed, Boyo!" I said, recalling his half-Irish roots (and mine, as I'm Dutch-Irish).

He put down the offending spatula, inadvertently flinging chocolate on my favorite Ugly Christmas Sweater and catching my little Wookiee in the eye hole of his mask.

Paulson moved back to his huge mixing bowl and his plethora of key ingredients and sighed.

"I'm sorry guys. But with all that's been going on this year... I guess I was in desperate need for some comfort food, more than usual. Mama Teresita was special to me. Beyond her cookies. And I just wanted a little piece of her this Christmas. Especially this Christmas. When we can't get together with family. Can't go anywhere. Can't have the good times we normally have. I was just trying to make Christmas a little more like Christmas this year, at least for me. But maybe I should've been thinking more about you. Family's important, but you two ARE my family. Since we've been stuck together for so long I know we've gotten on each other's nerves, but I wouldn't want to be stuck with anybody else. Can you forgive me?"

Before I could say a word we both froze as we heard it, a soft sobbing coming from beneath a Wookie mask.

Both of us instinctively rushed to him, as Aloysius crying was a rarity. This was a kid who didn't cry when he got a compound fracture playing junior hockey when he was seven.

Aloysius stripped off his mask to reveal his Irish red hair and Mexican big brown eyes, that he angrily wiped. The pillow lips and dimples were courtesy of my Dutch heritage. His face was flushed and red, as upset as I had ever seen him. To see my usually pulled together kid falling apart was startling and odd (see title of this story).

"I'm sorry, Dad. I know the secret."

"What?" Paulson said confused and concerned, as he rested a tender hand on Aloysius' shoulder.

"Madre Alma told me last year before she died. When she was so sick in the hospital."

Alma was Aloysius' Great-Grand Mother from the Lira side of the family just as Mama Teresita had been Paulson's.

"What are you talking about, buddy. What did Madre Alma tell you? The recipe?"

"No, sir. The secret. You see Madre Alma was special to me the way Mama Teresita was special to you. So she told me. There is no recipe, Dad. Mama Teresita always made the cookies every year with a little bit of this and a dash of that. Always different. But they came out the same every year because... Todo hecho con amor. She always made them with love. Maybe that's what you were tasting in every bite, Dad, when you were my age. Maybe that's what's missing in yours. Every year you make them with... Whaddya call it? Anxiety?"

At that point I was laughing through my tears at my articulate son, who proved that day he was not only smart... But wise.

Paulson was tearing up too as he hugged the boy that just a couple of minutes ago he was ready to throttle with a chocolate strewn stirring implement (meh? Latinos). Oh, and on the hugging front, I said seldom, not never.

"Aly, why didn't you tell me?"

"I kinda liked seeing you go all mental about making them. It's kinda funny, Dad" Aloysius said as he crossed over to pick up the spatula. "You can hit me now" he said attempting to hand it to Paulson.

Paulson let out a hearty laugh, the kind that I hadn't heard coming from him since before the first lock down, as he took the spatula from Aloysius and put it the big mixing bowl.

"Look, partner, obviously Mama Teresita, in her infinite wisdom, wanted us all to discover our own way of making her cookies. Put our own slant on it. I've been doing that for years and not even realizing it. But the one thing I have never done was ask you for help. What do you say, buddy? You want do it together this year?"

Oh, the gargantuan grin that grew on Aloysius' face as he beamed at Paulson.

"Can Mom help too?"

"If she wants to" Paulson said turning to me.

This sounded like more work than I was accustomed to doing during Crap Cookie Baking Time (it was bad enough I was usually the one cleaning up while my dynamic duo ate cookies while they were still gooey, fresh from the baking sheet), so I quickly interjected: "No, Mom, wants to put her feet up and leave the baking to the McGuire-Lira men."

Aloysius put his Wookiee mask back on and roared, loudly. Paulson roared too, excited and relieved to have a helper and an experience that was no longer a nerve racking quest for perfection, but rather a voyage of culinary discovery. Hecho con amor... Always... Made with love.