When we started planning our recent Cookie Box giveaway, we were not aware that our own father and grandfather, who suffers from dementia, would enter hospice care this week. For those who have never experienced this event in the life of a family member, it’s a tender time. A team of professionals steps in to help make the final weeks or days of a loved-one’s life more comfortable, and to support the family emotionally as they prepare to say goodbye. This was all according to Dad’s wishes.
Based on the quick decline we’ve seen in Dad over the last few days, we decided that despite Covid-19, it was time to let the long-distance children and grandchildren know that if saying goodbye was important, it is time.
In our area, we are blessed to have declining COVID numbers and local policies that permit gathering in small numbers. What we had not anticipated was Mom’s fierce declaration that while she appreciated our efforts to keep Dad isolated and limit the number of visitors, she needed her grandchildren. Long vaccination waiting lists had prevented her from being vaccinated at this point, so we masked up, got out the hand sanitizer, and sent out the message that the grandchildren were welcome to come and be near Grandpa, touch his hands again, and tell him he’s loved.
But it wasn’t until yesterday that the whole beautiful story of PlaydateBoxes came full circle for me in this photo:
Grandma and grandkids learning to make Hot Chocolate Bombs
This is a Grandma who has turned cookie-baking into a mission. The last 40 years of her life have been all about opening her home and her cupboards and her heart to other people. Comfort food isn’t a trendy catch-phrase in this household. It’s a way of life. This is an 80-year-old woman who can single-handedly cook a meal for 300. That’s another story entirely, but the point is this:
This month’s cookie baking box is not about making cookies with a grandchild. Cookies are merely the conveyance. Cookies are the excuse to get a grandchild and a grandmother (or mother, or father, or any beloved grownup) into the same space with a child so that they can create a memory and a relationship.
The important part of this box isn’t the cookie mix, or the apron, or even the recipes we’ve included. It’s the excuse to spend some one-on-one time. It’s the excuse to let a child know you are “irrationally crazy” about them.
Grandma RaRa with her Grandson
To help you potentially deepen the conversation you have in the kitchen, we’ve included small cards with “Ten Things I Love About You” conversation starters. We’ve included a sheet so you can talk about your favorite kind of cookies and write down a recipe together in your own handwriting. We’ve included an opportunity for you to snap a photo of yourselves (in your matching aprons) so you have proof that the day happened. Someday, like us, you will realize that life is indeed short, and that licking the spoon might be an important part of the memory.
Chocolate Bombs are made by shaping melted chocolate inside of a silicone mold. Once you seal two halves of chocolate together with some cocoa mix inside, you have a hot chocolate bomb. Place one in a cup and pour hot milk over it. It will “explode” to add hot chocolate mix right into your cup. Stir and enjoy!
The three kids you see in the photo above live in three different states. They are cousins. But they are also best friends. They know each other intimately even though there’s a 600-mile span between their homes. That’s because Grandma is intentional about creating family connection.
Gathering and food, and crazy 60-person family vacations (imagine finding rental properties to accommodate all of us before the days of Airbnb), snow sculpting contests, weekly Sunday dinners, weekend camping trips, Easter egg hunts for the entire neighborhood, homemade doughnuts at Halloween, and a host of other family gatherings organized by Grandma have kept our family ties intact so that in times like this, being together is a blessing. And because it’s a blessing, we can handle the fact that it is also hard.
Grandpa and Grandma with some of their daughters and Granddaughters
Cookies aren’t the point. You can skip the box entirely. All you need is a Zoom connection or a FaceTime call and you can bake cookies together on opposite sides of the country. But Grandma and a grandchild sharing the same space, having a conversation, and becoming friends, That is exactly the point. We hope you’ll test the concept, then feel the connections build. As you do, you’ll be able to understand and begin to create Grandma magic of your own.