Here we are, two days after THE BIG DAY and I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a breather. I’m planning on sleeping in, eating leftovers, a few Christmas cookies, and maybe playing some board games with the family including the Princess of Boston and Mr. Smiles. They are old enough now to play real games way past the Candyland and Go Fish stage old enough to keep score and plan winning strategy. And old enough to thoughtfully partake also with strategy in one of the most special of seasonal pastimes eating Christmas cookies.

Christmas cookies are a part of the season’s rituals as much as Christmas cards, carols and candy canes. But eating those goodies is not a planned activity like visiting relatives or returning ugly gifts. Nobody ever says, “I’m sorry I can’t meet you at three o’clock, I have plans to eat five cookies.” Oh, sure, we might eat five cookies in the middle of the afternoon, but we don’t put it on the calendar. We just chip away at it slowly, one 75 calorie mouthful after another.

Eating those luscious cookies is almost a full time job but it is only seasonal work after all. Experience is helpful but not necessary. It’s mostly on-the-job training with the little ones learning quickly that it pays to stake out your target and either hide your favorites or beat the enemy to the coveted goodies. He who snoozes loses. However, little people very often have that snooze-time advantage. Those who wake up at six can often polish off a few frosted snowmen, a handful of snickerdoodles and some oatmeal scotchies before the appearance of any adult needing a cuppa java.

For 25 or 30 years I’ve made two cookie favorites one for each child from recipes that were culled from the cookie exchange I belonged to many years ago. My daughter loves rum balls rich, chocolaty, and yes, definitely rummy. My son adores peanut butter balls. . . the ones with the coconut and graham cracker crumbs dipped in chocolate. Two talented friends supplied those recipes and they are sacred. Like anything good, they’re a bit time consuming but they’re the mandatory cookies.

I do love it when I have the extra time to make the other standards the cut-outs, sugar cookies and oatmeal specialties. And since this year that wasn’t possible, I trotted myself off early to the Methodist Church cookie walk and made off with a few dozen goodies so the cupboard wouldn’t be bare upon arrival.

Then a week later, one of the wonders of Christmas happened. As I said in my last column, the way this squeezed season was happening, 2014 was not going to be the year for extras. Even the basics were going to be a challenge. And somebody heard me well actually, she read it a guardian angel, a true Mrs. Santa, one of the most wonderful women I’ve ever known.

This angel is from Sugar Grove and she swooped down last week on the day I was the lowest. In addition to the craziness, I had a stomach/G.I. thing going and couldn’t even contemplate cooking. When Susie rang the doorbell, I just moaned. “Richard, I can’t see ANYONE. Please.”

And so I heard dear Richard at the door chatting with a cheery female voice I couldn’t quite identify.

When she’d left, Richard walked in with what appeared to be the world’s largest Tupperware container, topped with a smaller one, both stacked under an enormous festive Christmas bow . . . and a card from Suzie. She had left this huge gift of homemade cookies, a gift of enormous labor, a gift of love, a gift straight from her heart. . . . because that’s the only way that Susie knows how to do things.

Between the way I was feeling and what I knew was ahead Christmas week, this gorgeous present might as well have come from Tiffany’s. She gave me exactly what I needed, when I needed it. Susie is one of those rare people whose aorta pumps direct messages from the heart to the brain with no stop in between. I was overwhelmed. And so enormously grateful.

Gifts like Susie’s are difficult to say thank you to because no matter how you say it or how much, it’s never adequate. And she didn’t get to see the eyes that widened and the small voices that oohed and aahed over the enormous cache of scrumptious goodies. I counted 14 kinds of cookies, all of them labeled separately in zip locks with overflow loosely filling in the cracks in the big container. The small container was all homemade candy fudge, chocolates, brittle, bark. Holy Hershey!! How can one person do such a lovely thing that literally brings so much happiness? Yet when I called she pooh-poohed this grand gesture “it was nothing.” Well, Susie, it was everything to us. And they are all delicious.

Honestly when I look back at my life and the surprises and grand gestures that thoughtful people have given from their heart, they’ve been some of the most humbling experiences. I’ve always felt undeserving of such kindness, such largesse. It constantly amazes me how many good, thoughtful, caring people are in our world. I have to remember in this season of giving that more of us choose that way of life than the nutcases we read about or watch on a daily basis.

As we head toward the new year perhaps many of us can take some of this giving spirit forward. I’ll be needing “pay it forward” overtime to make myself worthy of Suzie’s generosity and get rid of this extra cookie weight. Oh it can’t be too bad, right? Lemme see 75 calories times 12 or 13 times a day and I wonder how long the cookies wil last? I did eventually manage the rum balls and the peanut butter balls so that’s only 130 extra.. The family leaves tomorrow and, just in case there are any cookies remaining, I think they should take them over the river and through the woods AWAY from grandmother’s house. Sounds like a plan.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. And I’ll bet that with just a little effort in the New Year we can all pay it forward from our good fortune in this life. I’d bet my last cookie on it.