It’s not that they’re opposed to shopping. Debbie Frediani and Carla Roop aren’t part of that Buy Nothing Day bunch shunning consumerism today on the Friday after Thanksgiving.
It’s just that they have other plans. The longtime friends are baking cookies.
So what, you say?
They’re not only baking dozens and dozens of cookies, they are honoring a tradition with a 40-year history.
"We were 12, now we’re 52," said Frediani, of Everett. "We’ve been friends all these years. It’s what kicks off our holidays," she said of the baking marathon.
Frediani’s mother, Joanne Wallin, remembers the Friday after Thanksgiving in 1963 when her daughter, Debbie, and Carla Johnson, buddies at North Junior High in Everett, decided to bake a few cookies.
"They were in seventh grade," said Wallin, 71, of Everett. "The next year it was a few more, and then a few more the year after.
"Now I go over and do the dishes," added Wallin, who’s on her third year of cleanup duty in Frediani’s kitchen. "The minute they dirty something, I grab it and wash it."
Wallin is learning what the bakers have known all along. When the flour flies, it’s a festive way to usher in the holidays.
"They have Christmas music going the whole time. With that music and the smell of those cookies, it’s the beginning of the Christmas season," Wallin said.
They make at least 14 types of treats, doubling or tripling batches, said Roop, a first-grade teacher at Kellogg Marsh Elementary School in Marysville. "We split it all, fifty-fifty," she said.
On the recipe list are spritz, thumbprints, snowballs (at my house, they’re called Mexican tea cakes), almond logs, chocolate-covered peanuts and cashews, "and fudge, of course," Frediani said. "And we try some new ones every year."
A confection of choice is Roop’s mother Dorothy Johnson’s million-dollar fudge recipe.
Childhood memories play into the pleasure of making family specialties from butter and sugar. "My grandmother was Scandinavian; she made the best cookies," Roop said. "When I was young, it was my job to arrange the cookie trays."
All three women show great restraint once the baking is done.
"Rarely do we even taste them. The smell actually gets to you. We stick them in the freezer, and I take mine to work to share," said Frediani, who works for the Everett School District and has two grown children.
Roop shares with co-workers, hosts a holiday open house and on Christmas day takes cookies to the Everett Gospel Mission men’s shelter.
The goodies are no secret to friends out shopping today. In the midst of the baking, acquaintances will drop by for samples. "Everybody asks me, are you doing it this year?" Frediani said.
They take one break, for a lunch of turkey sandwiches.
Turkey? Frediani laughed. She wasn’t the cook on Thanksgiving. Her mother prepared turkey and pumpkin pies.
For a friendship that’s survived four decades, Frediani and Roop feel lucky.
"We’re kind of like those Ya-Ya’s," Frediani said, referring to the novel and movie about an enduring bond between a circle of Southern women.
The two get together with other friends from junior high days. "Every Christmas, we have a dinner at my house," Roop said.
Those Buy Nothing Day people — it’s sponsored by the Vancouver, B.C.-based Adbusters Media Foundation — might be pleased with the bakers today, but that wouldn’t last.
"When we first started, we were too young to go shopping. Now, I wouldn’t battle those crowds for anything," Frediani said. "Eventually, we do get to the mall."
"I love to go out shopping," Roop said.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com
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