Cookie conundrum: How friends, strangers helped Arlington Heights man maintain a holiday tradition
It was five days before Christmas and Neil Hemmer's family was facing a holiday challenge: For the first time in Hemmer's memory, there would be no Christmas cookies from his grandmother.
Hemmer said his 82-year-old grandma baked 300 or more treats each year to “make our Christmas season feel magical,” until recent health issues made that impossible.
“It's one of her favorite traditions,” he said. “I can't remember a single Christmas without Grandma's Christmas cookies.”
Hemmer, 27, took to the Facebook group Everything Arlington Heights to inquire where he could buy holiday cookies.
Instead of the bakery suggestions he expected, Hemmer received sweet responses from friends and strangers who wanted to share their homemade goodies with his grandmother.
Lori Henkels was the first of eight bakers to volunteer, offering to make up a tray for his grandmother from the more than 250 cookies she baked using her mother's treasured recipes.
“This woman reached out and started an avalanche of good will,” Hemmer said. “As a family we could not be more thankful.”
He spent four hours collecting dozens of cookies donated by eight people. Two, including Henkels, he knew from childhood. The others were strangers.
“I'm just a regular dude. I just wanted recommendations,” Hemmer said.
He received so much more. He attributes the outpouring to the Christmas spirit.
The whole experience brought Hemmer and his mother to tears.
Wednesday morning he drove to his grandparents' Arlington Heights home where he left the cookies on the dining room table with a note that read, “from Santa.”
Overwhelmed, his grandmother insisted on putting them in the freezer until his aunt, uncle and cousins arrive Dec. 26.
Henkels says members of the Everything Arlington Heights community frequently pitch in and help each other.
To bring a little joy to someone else is an honor and privilege, said Henkels, who describes herself as a woman of faith.
“I've lived in Arlington Heights all my life and even though we've gotten bigger, we have that wonderful, small-town feel,” she said. “To see the community come together like this in a sweet, genuine way with homemade Christmas cookies, how can it not touch your heart?”