If you've ever taken homemade cookies into work (hey, some people do those kinds of things!), you'll notice that people are always a little suspicious of them. They give them a little test nibble, ready to bolt off to the bathroom and trash the thing. And if the cookies are good, they can hardly keep the surprise out of their voice. Personally, I blame the holiday potluck for this lack of trust.
Christmas is the one time of year when people will spontaneously bring in their homemade treats, and some people have some very odd ideas of the concept of a Christmas treat. So there you are, standing by the dessert table, where someone has placed their zucchini-carrot bread because, "it's so sweet, it's really a dessert." And you get cajoled into trying the thing because the cook is in your department and standing right next to you. So there you are, with a mouthful of dry death while she chatters on about it, and you think: "Yes, you really can taste the zucchini; no, I don't believe you when you say that your kids really love it; and yes, it does make a difference that you ran out of sugar and substituted Splenda instead."
People do some strange things in the name of the Christmas cookie too. Personally, my pet peeve is the chocolate chip cookies with M&Ms instead of chocolate chips. They're always really hard, and something strange happens to the M&Ms in the baking process so that the effect is like eating sawdust filled with little chocolate rocks. (Actually, my absolute biggest problem are cookies where you think it's full of chocolate chips and it turns out to be full of raisins. It's not really a mistake, but why are some people so happy to put raisins in everything? Anything that is good with a raisin in it would be much better with a chocolate chip.) Also, those chewy candied fruits--no one likes those things, and yet people keep adding them to their desserts. Anyway, what are your Christmas dessert travesties?
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