Missing Rainbow Cookies
For the last three years, I have not gone home for Christmas. Logistics were hard so we would often spend two weeks at Thanksgiving at home and then a lot of Facetime and packages sent during Christmas. One of those packages and something I have enjoyed my whole life with my father was a traditional Italian cookie he would make from scratch every year, we called them Rainbow Cookies, you may know them as Napoleon Cookies, Seven-layer Cookies or Venetian Cookies.
They were a staple. Dad wouldn’t let us eat them until after dinner, well, except for the initial taste test, and everyone raved about them. All the other food was phenomenal as well, but nothing beat the Rainbow Cookies. Dad would send packages to people all across the country who once had the cookies and waiting every Christmas for more. He made five trays of cookies; each tray held 100 cookies. He would then ship three of those trays and keep two at home for Christmas. It took him forever to make these cookies. They would sit over night to be topped with chocolate the next morning, then sit for hours before being cut.
As dad was cutting them, I also seemed to find ones that had imperfections. They were no good and needed to be ate right then. My dad would laugh at me and tell me to save some for other people. But frankly, I did not care about anyone else getting dad’s cookies, they were mine. I would always hide a tray for me for after Christmas.
I waited all year for Rainbow Cookies. This is the first year I am spending without Rainbow Cookies. The first year without our tradition and the first year I realized I took it for granted. There will be no cookies, no FaceTime with Dad, no exchanging of gifts, no nothing.
Now this is not the end of Dad’s Rainbow Cookies, so for those you who have had them, I will be making them again. Just not for a while. My heart needs to heal a little before I take on something my dad was so amazing at doing. This is a tradition I plan to share with my children when we are lucky enough to have them.
