Holiday Chips Ahoy Cookies!
I’d originally intended to bridge Dino Drac’s Halloween and Christmas seasons with some non-holiday “neutral” posts, and while I’ll still probably do that, this couldn’t wait.
Google tells me that Holiday Chips Ahoy aren’t new for 2012, but tonight was the first time I’d even seen them, and if I could paint a picture of that moment, you’d see me with a head-wide smile, rendered in acrylics.
Look, I’m trying to keep my Christmas madness in check. The explosion will come soon, but I know it isn’t time for it yet. Cookies like these are no help at all. I can’t look at this package and not get the immediate urge to cue up that one Paul McCartney song everybody but me hates.
The bag (Can we call this a bag?) is terrific, mixing a snowy white base with icy blue wintry things. You may take the “Holiday” moniker to mean that these are nondenominational Chips Ahoy cookies, but actually, they’re more like all-denominational Chips Ahoy cookies. Looking over the bag’s various slogans, we’re wished a merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah and a happy Kwanzaa.
I have a feeling I may have misinterpreted the meaning of “denominational.” You’ll live.
The package’s decorative symbols go along with that theme. There’s Christmas’s tree, Hanukkah’s menorah, and Kwanzaa’s “unity” thing, which looks a bit like two paper clips. I dig it.
I should confess that I’ve flip-flopped on the “Christmas vs. Holiday” issue. After spending so many years screaming “CHRISTMAS” at audiences partly composed of folks who do not celebrate it, I’ve come to accept “Holiday” as a fair-for-all necessity. Nabisco was right to pander so broadly.
The cookies are handsome. Each looks like an alien world. Mixing regular chocolate chips with festive red, green and white chips, they’re as picturesque as they are delicious.
Ever hear of lac bugs? Kerria lacca, if you want to get technical. The females of that species secrete the resin we use to make shellac. Lac bugs have existed for millions of years, but I remain firm in the belief that God created them just so I’d have some way of preserving Holiday Chips Ahoy cookies in 2012. I can’t eat them forever, but with a quick dip in bug juice, I can look at them until the day I die.
Sensing that a photo of a bag and a photo of a cookie would not give this entry enough visual appeal, I went ahead and made Holiday Chips Ahoy ice cream sandwiches.
Good ones, too. I used peppermint ice cream, which had crushed bits of red and green candy pieces swimming around in it. Then I dipped the sides into bowls of sugar crystals, because if you’re already eating two cookies and a giant spoonful of ice cream, you might as well go all-in.
The results were dangerous. Like I mentioned, I’m trying to keep my Christmas spirit in check. If the sight of the Chips Ahoy package had me rocking out to Paul McCartney, the sight of these sandwiches has me halfway up the attic stairs, looking for the box marked “manger.” DANGEROUS.
But maybe there’s another way to look at this. Maybe the sugar-dipped Chips Ahoy sandwiches helped me ladle off the excess. Maybe doing this now will help me get through the next week or two without doing too much more.
We’ll see, I guess. If the next post is about how I always wanted the baby turtles from My Blue Heaven, then it worked. If the next post is a tribute to Uncle Louis, we’re all fucked.
I, too, packed up Halloween this weekend…but given all the financial trouble I’m having and my recovering ankle, I’m not sure if I’m feeling in any kind of spirit right now, never mind Christmas. Though peppermint ice cream cookie sandwiches might taste good.
yep lac make shallac but the red in the cookies might come from a bug called cochineal. probably fake red dye but it could be cochineal bug food coloring. i like to think the red in the red&green is bug-derived dont u.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal
I am starting to become annoyed with people that say “I don’t know if anybody mentioned this because I cannot read any of the comments because I am lazy/don’t have time” and then they mention something everybody else has mentioned.
Also the whole it’s not Happy Holidays it’s Merry Christmas thing. Other people are from different backgrounds and cultures. Saying it should be Merry Christmas is in a way saying everybody should be like you and believe in what you believe in and that is very disturbing to me. I celebrate Christmas because it’s fun. I keep it very secular. When I have a kid they will celebrate it how I do. But whatever makes other people happy as I always say. What if you were Jewish? Wouldn’t it be annoying to see Christmas everywhere? People never think about how other people feel. Just how they feel. I think companies should name products whatever they feel comfortable naming them. Ok rant over.
DJ D Nice!! I have records I need to sell too. Not as cool as AC/DC lol. They are from an estate sale, so it is more like Olivia Newton John and Lenny Dee. I bought everything in the box for 29 dollars, and I already sold something for 30 out of that box. So everything else would be profit.
Just curious, how much is your Dad selling them for? Do you know? Thanks.
I like shitty junk food as much as the next guy, but I can’t get behind peppermint ice cream. Without the candy bits, I could see how it might be delicious, but those crunchy, glass-like candycane pebbles are too much to stomach.
Love the review, though. Keep up the great work, Matt.
I’m a bit relieved that only one person felt the need to soapbox his/her exclusion of all holidays that are not Christmas. Why not just say Happy Holidays during the Holiday SEASON and say Merry Christmas ON Christmas, Happy New Year on New Year’s, Happy Chanukah to those who celebrate on any of the nights of Chanukah…. To say Merry Christmas exlusively for several weeks just seems like a jerk thing to do, like you’re proving that you have zero acknoweldgement of anyone who isn’t just like you. “Happy Christmas to you…and you…but not you.” (oh snap. Now I’m on a soapbox – sorry!)
Those ice cream sandwiches look great! And you really can’t go wrong with Chips Ahoy!. And I am with the others who like that Paul McCartney song. It’s actually one of my favorite Christmas songs.
Goob: He mostly had them marked somewhere between $10-20, depending on the record. He had a lot of Bee-Gees stuff, some Grand Funk Railroad, Abba and a few bands I’d never heard of. That’s what was left over after I picked out all my stuff.
DJ D Ok thanks. I think I would do that then have a sign that says if you buy 5 then it’s 25 or something like that. Our local Goodwill has a sign that says 5 for .99 cents over the VHS tapes even though they are .99 cents a piece. I never see more then one at a time that I like lol.
HA! Now I know I’m not the only one that likes Paul’s Christmas song…”Simply having a wonderful Christmas time!”
Halloween decorations are just about all packed up. I guess I’ve had enough but on the other hand I never seem to do all the Halloween things I want to do. It’s all over.
But I have to recount this tale of victory wherein I was able to get a bargain on close out merchandise.
Rite Aid had a really nice skeleton which looks surprisingly real and I was able to pick it half price a few days before Halloween. I was wating for it to go on sale so I kept stopping in and prowling around suspiciously marking my time by pretending to look at the price of deodorant or toothpast or adult diapers. Finally on the monday before the 31st I went in to the store to find Mr Skelly gone. I held down my tears and was about to chalk it up to another disappointment in life when I saw him in a shopping cart at the end of the registers.
“Is the skeleton for sale?” I inguired.
Judy, the very nice saleswoman working the register didn’t question a grown man wanting to purchase a fake skeleton, she just told me that it was being held for a customer.
“Maybe I’ll stop in tomorrow to see if it’s still there” I said. Then I purchased a Heath bar because I love toffee more than I love my teeth.
The next afternoon I did indeed stop in and lo and behold there was Mr Skelly laying in the same cart full of returns.
Apparently the customer who wanted him had not returned but had called in again requesting he be held for one more day.
I didn’t push the issue but the manager, seeing the desire in my eyes and the wad of cash in my hand sold it to me. “Halloween’s tomorrow” she said.
“I can’t hold it any longer for someone who might not show up.” She also gave me a free bag of candy for not getting angry when I couldn’t buy it the first time.
So it’s on my front porch now. I intend to put a plastic turkey drumstick in it’s hand for Thanksgiving and a Santa Cap on it’s head for Christmas. Maybe I’ll even put an empty bag of those Chips Ahoy cookies on the chair next to him and glue a few crumbs to his teeth.
And now whenever I pass that store I think about the woman who didn’t get the skeleton and I feel bad. Maybe I should have gone for joint custody.
Goob,
I get what you’re saying, but that’s kind of like if you created a holiday to celebrate Ninja Turtles and called it Mutagen Day, and it caught on and everyone celebrated Ninja Turles, then years later someone comes along and starts saying that they’re going to call it “Alien Salamander Day.” They can call it whatever they want, but it doesn’t change the fact that it was created with a specific purpose and with a specific name, and you wouldn’t be wrong to to tell them that it’s Mutagen Day, not Alien Salamander Day.
Let Christmas be what it was meant to be when it began, and let the other holidays during that time be what they’re supposed to be, but don’t try to force Mutagen Day into being Alien Salamander Day.
I’ve found that the Jewish folk I know really don’t give a shit about “Happy Holidays” vs. “Merry Christmas”. Rather, they seem to prefer what I prefer: have the Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah stuff sit side by side, but don’t dilute both by grouping them together. As for Kwanzaa, I am very much against it. The creator of the holiday (Maulana Karenga) tortured black women and (presumably) murdered fellow black men. Not to mention his intention of the Holiday was to drive african-americans away from Christmas and Hanukkah. Africans who look at the customs of Kwanzaa have said its just a cluster of words and imagery that have no real meaning to Africans. I’ve yet to meet an african-american who celebrates it anyway.
/soapbox
Barry, that sums it up pretty well.
I generally say Happy Holidays. I choose to say it because I am wishing others a happy season and I don’t know what they celebrate usually. Why would I wish a stranger who may or may not celebrate Christmas a Merry Christmas? I think it tends to be kind of pretentious to wish everyone a Merry Christmas just because you happen to celebrate it. If I know what they celebrate I say the specific greeting, otherwise for strangers it’s Happy Holidays!
Barry I knew a black kid in high school that celebrated it. One kid said what do you do for Christmas? He said he didn’t have Christmas he had Kwanzaa. And this other kid said what is that I have never heard of it. And he pretty much said it was like Christmas. With food and presents.
I am an Atheist so like I said before my Christmas is very secular. And I know I have met people that assume you believe in God. And when you say you don’t they are very shocked because they assume everybody does and are like them. Which is offensive to me. Then after that happens they see you in a different way. Not to get on another rant lol but people like to think that the reason why I am an Atheist is so I can do what I want without any consequence. They obviously don’t know me that well and how my conscious works. But because of my beliefs I would not deprive my child of a Christmas. And besides I celebrate it because it’s fun.
Ok that’s it, I won’t continue arguing about it. I don’t want to run this discussion into the ground. I just think it’s arrogant and immature to say I need it my way and not anybody else’s way. They need to conform to what I want.
I don’t mind that some people like to say happy holidays, but they apparently mind that I and lots of other people like to say Merry Christmas. Oh well, tough titty! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!
lol…Ultraman, you cray-jay but I agree with you.
I shout Merry Christmas like George Bailey running down the snowy streets of Bedford Falls! If someone doesn’t celebrate Christmas, that’s up to them but don’t be “that person” who makes a huge deal because someone says “Merry Christmas” to you. It’s like people want to be a bummer to everyone else. If I know someone celebrates another holiday and I can remember what it is, I’ll say “happy – insert holiday here” but if I don’t I say Merry Christmas.
Thanks for fixing the XE Christmas Jukebox. I really missed it.
Just finished listening to Charo’s rendition of Feliz Navidad.
I brought these cookies a few days ago, and they’re addicting, as in “I can’t stop eating them!”.