Carrie Saum

I grew up in West Texas. When I was a small child, we left the lush, rainy beauty of the Pacific Northwest it made her way down to the dust bowl and flatlands of West Texas. It was traumatic, to say the least.

Trail mix is a quick way to keep me from having a full-on hunger meltdown. I find it easier to whip up a batch of my own so I can control the ingredients and the quality.

You don’t have to do it all in order to have a fun or memorable holiday season. Just do the things that bring you life and make your soul sparkle a little.

No-bake cookies were always one of my favorite potluck eats. These seemed like straight-up magic to me, and I was fascinated by cookies that tasted awesome without baking them. It was potluck sorcery at Hogwarts level.

If you grew up in a typical Christmas tradition, you probably had the same dinner at Thanksgiving and at Christmas.

This week is full of high emotions.

Awash in the postpartum anxiety, I felt glued to the couch, unable to mobilize myself to get anything done except the bare basics of being a present.

So, when your BFF moves into her first real home and her husband has a birthday at basically the same moment, you bake a cake. And not just any cake but a beautiful thing made of the best ingredients. You aim high, confident that you can come through for your BFF and celebrate her family's milestones with four spongy layers filled with thick raspberry preserves and succulent buttercream.

Stuffing things is the best. I mean it. Can you think of ONE THING that is stuffed that you hate?