Inventorying my Italian American mother’s Christmas cookies

My mother rested in her hospital bed, post-surgery. At 82, she threaded her long dry fingers back and forth through worn black rosary beads. It was winter of 2010. Her slide into forgetfulness had already begun. Anxious as usual during the holidays, I grabbed a pen and began to list her Christmas cookie repertoire to comfort my nerves. My memory was slipping too. On each attempt to complete the list, I’d forget one or two cookies, or five. Still, I meditated on the cookie names like they were the Mysteries and Glory Be’s themselves.

Cavicun, Nuthorns, and Holiday Cornflake Wreaths. Warm, gooey frosting poured over Sour Cream Chocolate Drops. Lumpy chocolate logs rolled and cut into Marshmallow Church Windows.

Over beeping monitors, I counted the cookie inventory softly to the woman dozing on and off, “Twenty-eight, twenty-nine…”

Pinwheels and Cherry Winks. Peanut Butter Cup Tarts which, as noted by my mother, Betty did not refrigerate. The crunch of Fiore di Natale from Grandma J. via Aunt Palma. For Biscotti di Lemone [sic], she wrote in her binder to use the half-recipe because there will be others. There were always others. The total dozens of cookies matched the sum of ingredients and implements to accomplish the task. Flour, sugar, baking powder, soda. Vanilla flavoring, almond extract, walnuts, anise seeds. Wooden spoons—only wooden spoons—to stir chocolate chip cookie or peanut butter cookie dough. Forza to the wooden spoon.

As she cooked or shouted orders, in the background, my father would “sweat it out” over Twists twined in vats of oil. Or he flipped old-fashioned Pizzelles in their iron over the old GE gas stove, like an expert pizzaiolo. He was always the brawn behind my mother’s feats.

Intent on finishing my cookie list, I gazed up. My mother had slid further down the incline of her lumpy hospital bed. Her lips, not swathed in her usual, respectable red lipstick, moved in rhythm with the knocking beads. Her chest lifted as she breathed prayers in and out. The room’s walls glowed in blue and white lighting, and the occasional reds and greens. Perhaps Christmas weighed heavily on both our consciences.

Whenever my mother baked holiday cookies, she granted us the chance to chop walnuts in a grinder, stick a raisin in the bellybutton of Gingerbread Men or somewhere on a Sugar Cookie Cutout. If worthy, we pushed out faded fuchsia-colored Spritz dough, floured the cutting board for Pecan Nut Cups, or were asked to “listen for the timer on the Rolled Powder Sugar Balls or Wedding Cookies, would you?”

She delivered those petitions to her kids in the vernacular of her generosity. “Please, you do such a nice job making up the cookie tray.” “Company is coming…or here…or leaving soon.” And before she could finish, the green and red metal tray, checkered with Christmas symbols and cold to the touch, was shoved in the hands of someone she was forced to trust. If an empty space on the platter appeared due to our sneaky snacking, general laziness, or fear of freezing our fingers off, she demanded, “What do you mean, it’s all out?,” then turned you around and banished you to the basement freezer to stack more on the tray.

Totos, Chocolate Crinkles, and Cannoli from Aunt Catherine DeLuca. My mother kept her production of cookies as special as Saturdays in winter after sledding, when our bellies ached for warmth yet to come, and as clean as the new year after houseguests were gone. She never forgot her Italian Rolled Cookies with no Italian name, nor the rosary’s concluding prayer of “Hail, Holy Queen,” where the recitation continued, “Our life, our sweetness, and our hope.”

The above excerpt was adapted from Januzzi Wick’s new memoir, Something Italian: From Distant Shores to Family Tables, The Recipes That Held Us Together, now available at Amazon, Bookshop.org, B&N, or for bookstore orders.

Join Januzzi Wick who will appear at the Mercantile Library during her book tour on January 27, 2026, at 6 p.m. Details and registration here.