Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, one thing truly made the Christmas season feel official. We were a procrastinating sort of family- the tree generally didn't go up until Christmas Eve- and that's when we were feeling particularly ambitious. No, what really made the season feel Christmassy was when my Mom would come home from the grocery store in the evening with a pint of eggnog and a box of Salerno Jingles cookes- anise flavored shortbreads in the shapes of tress, wreaths and elvin shoes. They had red and green sugar sprinkled on top, and for many, many years, I refused to eat red and green colored sugar on anything else, because I believed they gave Jingles their distinctive taste.

As my brothers switched from fighting over which t.v. station to watch to fighting over who got seconds of eggnog (I don't know why my mom never figured out that a pint was not enough for eight people), the red of bloodied noses and the green of sibling jealousy created a special aura of Christmas magic that would rival a Martha Stewart Christmas Special.

Now I'm all grown up and trying to make the season feel Christmassy, despite the fact that I don't go to Church anymore and I did my shopping way back in September. I went to Tryst last night and had an eggnog that was so spiked with brandy I couldn't even finish it (I should have had bourbon, hmmm). I've been looking all over the internet and stores to find my beloved Jingles, but they're nowhere to be found. Has the Salerno Cookie Company stopped making them? Are they simply a Midwest thing? Salerno is a Chicago-based company- maybe they just don't send them out to the East Coast. If I can't get Jingles, I may have to go along with a proposal brought before me last night- the Progressives in Exile Declaration of War Against Christmas. There will be Santas in effigy and we will create an army of insurgent reindeer.