Dear Esteemed Members of the Pillsbury Corporation,
I reach out to you from a place of profound holiday baking frustration. My Christmas spirit has dimmed significantly, and I find myself requesting your compassion.
For the fourth time this week, I have endeavored, as your delightful advertisements suggest, to “create a batch of memories” by baking festive cookies with my dear children. Each attempt has ended in disappointment.
Inspired by your seemingly perfect commercials, I have set the scene with cheerful Christmas music, dressed my kids in adorable matching reindeer sweaters, and arranged an array of coordinating mugs brimming with hot cocoa. I envisioned my children mirroring the joyful, well-behaved kids in your ads, blissfully sampling our beautifully iced sugar cookies, adorned with the tiniest of decorations for their faces. Yet, reality has proven to be quite different.
Might I kindly request that you consider producing new advertisements that reflect the true holiday experience? Show us the reality, so we can avoid being misled into thinking we can participate in the neighborhood cookie exchange (the one that demands 45 dozen cookies by Saturday). Feel free to incorporate elements from my life, such as an exhausted mother muttering colorful expletives as dough clings stubbornly to every surface, while a cup of “mommy juice” sits nearby.
There seems to be a stark contrast between your depiction of the holidays and my own experience. Where are the children who sneak fistfuls of raw dough into their mouths while trying to console their frazzled mother with comments like, “It’s fine, we prefer them this way”? What about the teacher’s request for cookies in “non-denominational yet festive” shapes? (I can barely manage a simple circle!) And, where is that mischievous little dough boy when I really need him?
Who are these cheerful women effortlessly presenting platters of perfectly baked cookies to their grateful offspring? Are they real? If so, can I hire them? Perhaps they could supervise the baby, who seems intent on climbing the Christmas tree while simultaneously feeding tinsel to the dog. Meanwhile, I’m left trying to transfer a deformed gingerbread man to a cookie sheet precariously balanced on a pile of dirty dishes.
I wonder if there’s room in your ads for the bits of dough stuck in my hair, the aroma of burnt sugar wafting through the air, or the sound of two children bickering over why the Halloween ghost cookie cutter can’t be used to create an angel.
It has become apparent that your advertising undermines the self-confidence of mothers everywhere. You package the ingredients conveniently, disguising the complexity of baking as simple as rolling dough and cutting shapes. What am I to do when my gingerbread girl resembles a malnourished stick figure and my stars have transformed into strange octopus-like shapes?
What about creating an angel that ends up two inches thick with its head still glued to the counter? How can I make that appealing to a group of four-year-olds?
Where is MY ideal winter day? Where are MY cherished memories being formed? What would that little dough boy say if he caught my husband returning home, detecting the burnt cookie scent in my hair, and offering a compliment about my “new perfume”?
The American consumer deserves authenticity! Please, spare us from further commercials featuring seemingly perfect women capable of baking mini-masterpieces. We crave the reality of the holiday season. We want to feel validated rather than like failures simply because baking is a challenge for us.
And while you’re at it, could you please inform the gingerbread house kit creators that their product is a joke? The icing was ineffective in holding our candy house together, yet somehow strong enough to help my son affix his matchbox cars to the fireplace.
This Christmas, I implore you to show us the truth. Present the mother who is tempted to shape all of the cookies into gestures of frustration (that’s me, in case you haven’t been paying attention). Bring forth the children who are sick from consuming raw dough and secretly hope their mother will sign up to bring paper goods to the class party from now on. Let us see the Christmas music that remains silent because “someone” neglected to close the bathroom door, leading to a toddler’s mishap with the CDs (a true story). Show the mother who would rather shake her fist at that cheerful dough boy than poke his belly.
Only then will we be able to “create a batch of memories” that any sane individual would cherish.
Wishing you joyous holidays. I expect I will be reaching out again come Easter.
Sincerely,
Samantha Wilson
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