All around us, mothers and grandmothers, aunts, sisters, and daughters are making magic this week. We tell our bedtime stories and sing our songs in harmony and gather at the counter to roll and cut and toss our sweet memories in sugar. If we’re lucky, we have elder voices to recite their treasured recipes or have in our possession handwritten pages with smeared cocoa fingerprints to help us recreate the sparkle of our own childhoods. The magic of the season is more ancient than history and wiser than written words. It has been passed through an endless line of mothers who found a way to bring joy to the darkness of midwinter through fire and song.

This is the season of humanity, when we cling instinctively to the warmth of each other’s beating hearts and share our love to keep from freezing. We feast not to celebrate abundance, but to revel in our survival. We light the fires to prove to the universe that we are not afraid of the darkness because we know the light is now returning, and the earth will soon be green and warm again. The frozen river will soon flow, the crops will grow, our trees will flower and fruit among the buzzing bees. Our mothers told us so, just as their mothers told them, and we all rejoice as the wheel turns again and again.

The sisterhood of mothers is a bond beyond compare. It is a condition of deepest empathy and silent understanding. A subtle nod, a quickly darted glance, a pained smile and softened eyes are the language of our commiseration, and in this season, I feel more connected to all mothers, the creators of magic and life. Our wisdom is shared freely between us for the good of us all, not hoarded or kept trademarked for our pride. I’ve become close with another mother, a colleague and a neighbor, who made my job hard to walk away from in the end. I asked my friend to share her recipe for chocolate cookies because I enjoyed them so much, I accidentally stole them all out of my son’s cookie train box, so she sent me a photo of her grandmother’s handwritten recipe, complete with cocoa smudge. This recipe is enormous — I halved it and it still made four dozen — but, with her permission, I will share her recipe as written.

Ingredients for enough cookies to share with everyone around the fire:

2 cups shortening

2 cups white sugar

1 ½ cups brown sugar

4 teaspoons vanilla extract

4 eggs

1 pint cottage cheese (small curd)

1 cup cocoa

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoon baking powder

5 ½ cups flour

2 cups chopped nuts or coconut

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream shortening and sugars.

Add vanilla and mix well.

Add remaining ingredients and mix well.

Roll in balls the size of walnuts, then roll each ball in powdered sugar. (I found the rolling process to be easier if the cookie dough was chilled and slightly firmer. I popped my mixing bowl on the porch in between batches to prevent the dough from being too sticky.)

Place on a greased cookie sheet.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.