On Christmas morning in 2021, I woke up at my parents’ house, laced up my shoes, and got ready for my usual morning walk. My mom, however, had other plans. She wanted us to make my grandmother’s coffee cake—one of those old, cherished family recipes that had never been written down with any real precision. I had actually asked her for that recipe a few months earlier, and upon seeing it handwritten on Christmas Eve, I thought I’d perfect it on my own and make it “just right” the next time we were together.
But my mom, in her enthusiastic way, insisted that we make it right then and there. I hesitated. I wanted to go for my walk, I wanted to take the time to get everything perfect, and I had my own idea of how and when we’d recreate this piece of family history. But that morning, my mom was so excited, so full of that energy she always had for family traditions, that I said yes.
We spent twenty minutes putting together this imprecise, memory-laden recipe. I went for my walk afterward, and when I came back, we had coffee cake for breakfast. It was impromptu, impulsive, and perfect in that moment.
I didn’t know that would be the last Christmas I’d spend with my mom. She passed away the following summer, and I never got to share that “perfected” coffee cake with her. But looking back, I realize the perfection wasn’t in the recipe. It was in that morning, in her joy, and in making the coffee cake together, even if I thought it could wait.
So this Christmas, I just want to say: make the coffee cake. Do the little thing, even if it’s not perfect, even if it interrupts your plans. Because those are the memories that last. And in the end, they’re more perfect than any recipe could ever be.