I woke up, let Jumie out, fed the cats, made my coffee, and sat to do my morning NYT puzzles only to discover I somehow missed doing them yesterday so there go all the streaks.

I did today’s puzzles, then opened FB (why, why do I ever do this before 9:00 a.m.?), but I did.

I follow the account “Japanese Fashion Designers,” and today, found two Commes des Garçons numbers.

Very streaky.

Immediately, I was transported to my Epic Cookie Failure of Christmas 2020.

December 2020, I made six varieties of NYT Cooking cookies and gifted a batch to all my friends. Getting the cut of the windows on the Blood Orange Poppy Seed Window Cookies “super clean” was a challenge, but the wonky homemade look of them felt sweet to me. My Color Field cookies were paler than I wanted them to be, but again, who would note the hue? Gobble, gobble.

(I ace the Gingery Brownie Crinkle Cookies, Thumbprint with Nutella Cookies, and Classic Sugar Cookies to this day.)

The Peppermint Stripe Cookies though… this was the cookie I really wanted to nail. Childhood Christmases were cousins and Santa Claus and reindeer (Dad and uncles) prancing on Grandmom’s roof. Childhood Christmases were Mom’s endless tins of cookies with the wax paper circles separating each layer and the Abominable Snowmonster and a candy cane in each stocking.

• Red petal dust, check.

• Peppermint extract, check.

• My friend Trisa hunted down the gold luster dust in Seattle for me even!

Following the directions to a T, because I’m not one to improvise in the kitchen, I could not wait to top off each gift tray with these delightful, vibrant works of edible art!

CRIKEY!!! Below you see what I was aiming for versus what I got. My white royal icing did not set. My red stripes were not bold, they bled.

“Behold!” I said to my friend Trisa when I went to her house, met her out back (2020, the Cautious Times, y’know), and delivered her sweets.

“Period Cookies!” I said.

Trisa and I are well past our period days, but every Christmas now (and sometimes in between) we raise a toast to the Period Cookies of 2020 and laugh our asses off. Ho ho ho!