I remember as a boy we always had cookies for Christmas and they were home made and much better than store bought cookies. I guess I'm a Cookie Monster. Only recently did I learn a box of cookies can be resealed and the rest of the cookies eaten later. I had always eaten the entire box once it was opened - two dozen cookies is just a snack for me.

As Christmas season approaches again my mouth is watering for delicious home baked cookies. Linda's mother bakes about ten types of cookies and about 200 of each type. She begins baking in November and stores them in tins and even freezes some. The middle of November this year she gave me samples just to get my taste buds salivating for the big day when she sets them all out. After Christmas she packs me several boxes of cookies and I swear I eat them all in a week.

There is another cookie story I must tell that dates to five years ago. We were in a campground in Harlingen, Texas when Linda decided to bake post-holiday cookies. She had a recipe but our cupboards didn't contain the correct ingredients so she improvised. The smell in the motorhome was sweet as the cookies baked and I could hardly wait to eat a dozen with a glass of cold milk.

The signal on the oven beeped, telling the cookies were finished and ready to serve. Linda scooped some hot ones on a plate and set them in front of me. I gingerly picked up one, not wanting to burn myself, and took a bite. Something was wrong - I could not bite through it. I tried again and again and could not bite off even a nibble. I tried to break the cookie into two pieces and it would not break. I tried other cookies and none of them would break.

I said "Linda, there is something wrong with these cookies." (Quite an understatement) Linda kept pulling cookies from the oven and had about three dozen cooling on a large plate. We tried, but could not break or crumble any of them. I picked up a large butcher knife and whacked a cookie with the sharp edge. We examined the cookie and could not find a mark where the knife hit.

Linda mentioned a flock of birds had been hanging around our motorhome and suggested feeding the cookies to the birds. A short distance from our campsite she spread the cookies on the ground and birds immediately flew in from everywhere. After a few minutes of frenzy pecking at the cookies the birds flew away and guess what? The cookies were still intact and we never saw those birds again.

Linda's next idea was to pour water over the cookies and let them lay on wet ground overnight. The next afternoon they were still hard so she picked them up and threw them in a dumpster. That was five years ago and I know those darn cookies are still laying in a land field somewhere in south Texas still hard as rocks.

If Linda could only remember the recipe she could put J.B. Weld and quick-set epoxy out of business.