Cookies on the Doorstep

Every December, my friends and I have a cookie exchange party, with eggnog and Christmas music. This year, we couldn't get together. So we did a doorstep version.

Each of us baked twelve dozen cookies. Then, on a Saturday afternoon, we drove around town and left a tin on each other's doorsteps, rang the bell and ran back to the car, waving from the curb.

By the end of the day, my kitchen counter was covered in tins: gingerbread people, Mexican wedding cookies, lemon bars, Norwegian krumkake, my friend Rosa's famous chocolate crinkles. My kids got sugar on every surface of the house.

Then one friend's daughter had an idea. We each left extra tins on the porches of neighbors we didn't know very well. The older couple across the street left a thank-you card in my mailbox the next morning. Two other neighbors brought cookies back. Now I know their names.