Awhile ago, a friend went through a difficult time acting as a caregiver to a dying relative. She told me she felt like a fish out of water since she’d had no training at being a caregiver. I told her that her presence and her patience were the best gifts she could give and to leave the other “tasks” to the many professional people who were there to help her. When I got home, I made a batch of bumblebee cookies and sent them to her with a note of encouragement.

Christmas trees! Christmas ornaments! Christmas Cheer! It’s time to bring out all the decorations and decorate everything in sight. More importantly, it's time to fill the house with the smell of fresh-baked cookies. Chocolate is one ingredient that’s at the top of my holiday baking list. And what could be a better treat to start the season than these dark chocolate sandwich cookies filled with white chocolate ganache. Yum. These pretty trees and ornaments are one of my favorite treats to bake and they’re a cookie that my whole family loves to eat.

For the most part, I prefer my Halloween cookies to be cute and cheerful rather than scary and ghoulish. This year I did some of both. These Cheerful Pumpkins were the cute kind and my Chubby Witch Fingers were the scary kind. I made the pumpkins in three sizes, a bit like a family with a Papa, Mama, and Baby. Oddly enough, all our trick-or-treaters this year were in family groups, too. Dads accompanied their little ones to the door, while the Moms stood in the background smiling.