I’m sick, guys. It’s just a run-of-the-mill winter cold and cough (although the cough is wicked), but it feels so pitiful to be sick. Whenever I feel under the weather, I revert to a younger version of myself: I want to be comforted, I want my mom, I want a warm blanket and steaming hot chicken soup and someone sitting near me.

There was a brief phase—sometime in middle school—when it was extremely cool to go to the Cheesecake Factory. If you had parents who took you and your friends there for dinner, you had real currency. Everyone wanted to have sleepovers with the girls whose houses held Cheesecake Factory potential. (If you’ve read this site at all, you’ll likely guess that my household was very much not a Cheesecake Factory household. In fact, we didn’t even have fun breakfast cereal, like Cinnamon Toast Crunch—our pantry housed the wholesome trio of Shredded Wheat and Cheerios and Grape-Nuts. The injustice of it all still stings! It’s only in my wise old age that I appreciate deeply having been raised on good, nourishing, homemade food by an exceptional cook and baker. Hi mom!)

I’ve done remarkably little cooking over the holidays, and even less baking. This is simply a consequence of the happy busyness of the season—and because luckily other people are baking and cooking for me. But there are so many excellent holiday traditions that revolve around recipes. And I do seize the chance, when I have it, to make old favorites (cinnamon rolls and sugar cookies) and attempt new, festive-sounding ones (gingerbread brioche and miniature peppermint chocolate layer cakes).

There are some good things that you can’t really have enough of, like the scent of warm bread baking, the feeling of finding matched socks in a tumble of clean laundry, or sunshine on your face on a very cold day. Other things—say, a cranberry cocktail topped with a chilled pour of Prosecco or Christmas music—are very nice but you could argue that you can very easily have too much of them.

Cozy weekends feel even more so in the winter. The rain-soaked streets are dark tonight, lit up in spots by the amber glow of street lamps. I’m sitting at a cafe on the corner of Amsterdam Avenue —I’m at a window seat watching people duck into restaurants. The ramen shop across the street has a sleek wooden bar in the front, illuminated by dozens of hanging pendant lamps. Further up, a dive bar beckons with multicolored Christmas lights and neon signs for 2-for-1 happy hour drinks and holiday-themed shots (yuck! Can it be true that once upon a time I happily threw back shots on a Saturday night? Between you and me, my shot of choice was the ‘springbok shot’—a lethally delicious combination of creme de menthe and Amarula liqueur discovered while studying abroad in South Africa).

I come from very emotionally demonstrative family. We say “love you” in place of “goodbye” on the telephone. We compliment each other; we rarely go upstairs to bed without a hug; we hold hands in public (let’s just say it’s a good thing my brown-haired, blue-eyed sisters and I all look very much like sisters). We dash off silly notes to each other. We throw out affection casually, without effort, like breathing. (With a dad who happily dresses in a Santa hat and Carhartts to take Christmas pictures with all the animals, how could you not?)

“Wait, but Po, didn’t you just give us a recipe for a pumpkin loaf? Topped with pumpkin seeds? That you promised us was the absolute best?” Why yes. Yes I did. Thank you for paying attention! But see, you really can’t have too many excellent pumpkin loaf recipes. That would be like having too many pairs of cozy pajamas or too much Champagne. Wait, strike that, you absolutely can have too much Champagne—you heard it here.

My dad sits in a wooden rocking chair in front of the fireplace. He’s wearing a wool sweater, warming his toes in the heat of the fire, and cradling my youngest niece who sleeps quietly on his shoulder. Picture books are strewn across the window seats and floor of our big open living room, which looks out over the ponds and the pastures and forest beyond. Dusk is falling in soft shadowy shades across the farm. Over in the kitchen, I lean against the edge of the countertop with one of my sisters. My mom stands across from us, making pizza for dinner.

Right on cue, winter has arrived. Thanksgiving day was bitingly cold. “They can’t hold a parade in this wind!'“ I thought as I woke up Thursday morning in New York City, struggling to take a quick jog along the Hudson River before starting our drive home to the farm. But of course they did, and of course people lined up with their folding chairs and thermoses of hot chocolate and unflaggingly high spirits because it is holiday season, exclamation point, and I take great comfort in their enthusiasm.

My mom’s cinnamon rolls have ruined me for all others. We’re all a little biased towards the foods of our childhood because they’re comforting and nostalgic.  But her cinnamon rolls aren’t just the best because they were ours. It’s not just because I can remember eating them hot from the oven, risking a burned finger to pull at the crisp edges where the sugary filling has spilled out and caramelized.