The great cookie mishap of 2025: forgotten baked goods and sisterly love | Opinion
Each December, my family and I go to Los Angeles to visit my grandparents and extended maternal family that lives in the San Fernando Valley, the adjacent canyons and the larger LA area.
And each December, as has become my custom, I bake up a storm: I make somewhere between eight to 10 dozen cookies of all flavors and varieties. This year was no different. But it almost was.
For the four days leading up to the 25th, I shopped, whisked, whipped, blended and chopped, heaving the stand mixer across the kitchen and opening the oven door at frequent intervals.
After hours and hours and hours of baking, what was produced was the following: Italian rainbow cookies; chocolate hazelnut cookies; coconut macaroon bars; pignoli cookies; and a kitchen sink-type cookies which included Biscoff cookie butter, oats, toffee bits and mini peanut butter cups.
I was particularly proud of this year’s batch, and visions of familial cookie eating danced in my head as we prepared for our annual trek to Southern California.
On Christmas Day, my parents and I packed up the car — dog in tow — and drove from Roseville to Los Angeles through torrential rain and wind. Upon arrival, while unpacking, I noticed something strange: Where was all the giant tupperware with the cookies?
In Roseville, it seemed.
Now, I’m not pointing any fingers, but a certain parent told a certain child (me) that the outdoor fridge which held the cookies had been checked and packed away in the car.
When I realized that the cookies were over 400 miles away, I burst into tears. Sobbing, I called my sister, Sloane, who was working in Oakland and driving to LA in a couple days.
“I feel so stupid crying over cookies,” I said. “But I worked really hard on them, and they came out really good.”
It had been a true labor of love: I picked out the recipes with relatives’ preferences in mind: My grandpa loves marzipan, and I thought he’d like the almond paste flavor of the rainbow cookies. My grandma and great aunt really only eat dessert if it’s chocolate, hence the chocolate hazelnut cookies.
Both my grandparents savor their respective boxes of cookies for weeks — if not months. The cookies live in the freezer, and only one or two come out at a time.
Knowing all of this, Sloane immediately responded: “I can go to Roseville and get the cookies.”
Now, if you know anything about California geography, you know that Roseville is quite out of the way on one’s journey from Oakland to Los Angeles. Yet, without hesitation or any half-heartedness, my sister immediately volunteered to rescue the abandoned cookies.
And that’s just what she did. Two days later, Sloane drove down to my grandma’s house with the forgotten cookie-filled Tupperware.
Everyone loved them: my grandpa went on and on about the rainbow cookie, and my grandma froze a good eight chocolate cookies for later.
But this is not a story about baked goods as much as it is about sisterly love — and about my wonderful and thoughtful big sister. It was the holiday miracle I will never forget... and I will also never forget to check that the cookies have been packed.
What a lucky sister I am. In 2026, may we all do big, selfless gestures for others — just because.
This story was originally published January 6, 2026 at 9:51 AM with the headline "The great cookie mishap of 2025: forgotten baked goods and sisterly love | Opinion."