One of the many blessings of teaching at a small university is the familiarity and friendship I share with my colleagues and students. This conviviality is taken most literally in times of holidays; this Advent season, I have been delighted to share in deliciously spiced pumpkin bread, delicately iced sugar cookies, satisfying wine biscuits, and scrumptious raisin puff cookies. These treats have been exchanged in break rooms, hallways, and even parking lots! Most recently, my husband and I were the recipients of a brilliantly flavored cream pie—given to us by some of our students. Its title, they informed us, was the “Peppermint Express.” As peppermint is a favorite of mine, this was an excellent way to usher in the fourth week of Advent!
Sharing home-crafted sweets not only marks friendships and relationships in the present, but reminds the baker, and possibly the recipient, of the tradition and past of these desserts. The raisin puff cookies, for example, are the recipe of a French grandmother. The wine biscuits (made by my husband) are a treasured family recipe, noted down in a well-worn (Italian) family-composed cookbook. Connections across time, space, and nationality have been sealed with an exchange made out of an abundance of blessing. We have resources for flour, sugar, butter, eggs, ovens, electricity, transportation, and the freedom and safety to stop in a parking lot and exchange raisin puffs for wine biscuits.
Food reminds us to be thankful, and to rejoice in our blessings and our ability share our lives with one another. As Advent winds into its final days—the O Antiphons which precede Christmas Day—how can we share of our abundance and blessings? Can we give more than cookies, and give to our food pantries? Is our local congregation participating in a fundraising event for this Christmas season? Can we donate to our community’s local charities, whether for the homeless, for children, for animals, or the environment?
As we enter the O Antiphon days here at my university, things grow increasingly quiet, as our little community disperses for a much-needed break. I will keep contemplating myself how I can give from the abundance of my blessings…even if I am entering the countdown to Christmas on a delectable Peppermint Express.
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