As Christmas approaches, my house is filled with the smell of baking cookies. Year after year, I spend December evenings baking with my children -- traditional sugar cookies, rugelach, chocolate-dipped melting moments, pecan balls, stained glass cookies, hazelnut shortbread, regular shortbread... Our family's tradition is to set aside one day before Christmas and invite friends over, bake and decorate with them, and give them each a plate of cookies to take home. And then we give away the rest.

But this year is different.

Oh, I'm still baking, still inviting friends, and still giving away much of what I bake. But as I spend time in the kitchen, I can't stop thinking about some of the people I met over the last year who cannot bake. Some don't have an oven. Others don't even have the flour to bake with. Still others are bedridden. Or crippled.

In Mexico, I met a couple devoted to helping the destitute. Paul and Tere chose to live in a small plywood house like that of the poor with whom they work. They run three soup kitchens and have built over 200 homes for the destitute. Their house has no running water, no toilet, and no electricity, yet they live there by choice.

Perhaps they do have an oven. But I think of them when I bake my cookies.

In a Mexican dump, I met people who dig through the trash for their food. I returned to the dump day after day, drawn there by the openness and warmth of the individuals I met and befriended in that squalor.

I think of these people when I bake cookies.

In Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, tens of thousands of street children earn their living in the streets by begging. When we were caught in traffic, I saw them swarming around stopped cars. We handed out bread or granola bars when they came to our window.

I think of them when I bake, and ache inside.

In the Mother Teresa AIDS Orphanage, I saw 400 HIV-positive children playing, reaching for my hand, clinging to me, wanting to be held and loved. Since they are orphans, they will never bake with their mothers.

I think of them when I bake with my children.

Last year on a grey Rochester day just before Christmas, I visited an acquaintance in a hospital, thinking I might cheer her up. She suffered with rheumatoid arthritis for 50 years and was about to have her leg amputated. Although she would soon be wheelchair bound for life and her hands are twisted to the point of being almost useless, she exuded joy and optimism. I came away humbled. She cheered me up.

She will never be able to bake cookies. I think I'll bring her some.

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