Thrown into the Mixing Bowl

The holidays have come and gone and I followed the same recipe I always have in the past and it is called "tradition". I am looking at my results and it is like a cookie cutter stamping out the same cookie over and over, the same Christmas as the year before and the year before that and so on.
Over the last couple years I have contemplated "what can I do, to change up Christmas" as it has kind of becoming a blur, because of the look a like copies of each year. The first thoughts of needed change have come with the fact my children are growing, moving to far away places and we all have jobs that seem to keep us apart on holidays. I have felt lonely and a need for change, but what? In this last year I have also added the thoughts regarding a healthier holiday. Just quick thoughts about needed change doesn't really get results. Even though I think about it, that cookie cutter just stamped out another Christmas without a new recipe.
I guess I should follow all the wisdom in magazine articles and set goals in writing, make an action plan, write a new recipe. When you want change, but fail to write a recipe you will get the same old cookie, because you will fall back on the recipe you already know all to well. I let that happen as I have yet to come up with an ingredient list and instructions as to how to make it happen.  Prep work is not exactly the fun part of anything, it is the results! I have to do the prep work for the results to be enjoyed. I think part of my problem is that I am not sure what the end results will be or exactly what I want them to be. I am afraid. I don't have the complete taste or hint of the spice that will be in the end result. I read a quote lately, "You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step" Dr MLK Jr  I feel like I keep taking that first step trying to attempt a new recipe, but then I go for what is easy and don't complete the rest of the staircase. I get out of breath, uncomfortable and stop and step back to what I know best, my comfortable place, the nice cookie cutter I use all the time. Possibly afraid of what is at the top. The not knowing, but I can't think of anything negative so why not, right?
I am a big lump of dough trying to figure out what I want to be. I easily let others shape me and mold me with requests of " oh your going to make ________ for Christmas, right? I love those!" or "We are having _______for" breakfast, dinner, Christmas eve whatever the traditional cookie cutter has produced in the past. I don't like to disappoint and what I have done is created tradition, a tradition that needs to be changed. I need to be the head chef and not only for me, but the whole family. Show them all a new recipe and that change is an adventure to be tasted. There will still be memories, new memories and not the same cookie year after year.
I have mentioned in a past blog that I don't really bake very much, but at Christmas all hell breaks loose in the kitchen and batches and batches of treats get made in a very short window of time. Why, because it is part of the tradition. In a 24 hr period I made 2 loaves of banana bread 1 w/ nuts 1 w/o nuts; 3 batches of  different types of cookies = 144 cookies; 3 batches of fudge  1 w/ nuts 1 w/o nuts and 1 peanut butter fudge = 60 pieces; 1 batch of scones = 16 pieces; and 2 types of dip for all the crackers and chips and it was devoured by mostly 3 people in a little over a week.  I did give a little of it away, but not much. All of the  ingredients I wanted to try and avoid, yet devoured, because I did not take the time to write out a new recipe.That lack of planning has resulted in extra dough on my body. I am back at the bottom of my mixing bowl wanting to rise to the top and be formed into something new.
This season I have grown to a new understanding of myself. My Christmas's are a reflection of the year. I keep picking the same cookie cutter, because it is easy to stamp out what I know. Basically this years results looks alot like I just got beat from one side of the bowl to another, rising and falling like a yeast dough. I went back to where I said I did not want to ever return...the temp of 300 +. In order for my results to change I need to venture out, write down a new ingredients list and the instructions to change the shape of my cookie. It is time to roll out the dough and do some prep work. I tried a few new things this last year. I had pinches of different seasonings and I liked it. I will add the new seasonings into my ingredients not by teaspoons full, but tablespoons and cups full and look for more ingredients so the formula results in the flavors I desire and want in my life. I will no longer be the cookie cutter, I am the chef! Head chef!  A new year and beyond with new flavors to behold...head Chef!
Whats cookin' in your life? any new ingredients? Lets all get out of the mixing bowl and become the chef, molding a new recipe for the year and years to come! Yes, Head Chef! Yes!