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You know how it is around the holidays, the little stocking stuffers that friends and colleagues sweetly leave: the festive mug filled with a pouch of gourmet hot cocoa mix on your desk, the Christmas cactus on your front porch, the trough of Prosecco—sorry, too much information. I’m quite happy with a single bottle.

I’ve noticed that friends who take part in the same sport or hobby tend to give gifts that relate to that interest. For the golf set, those stocking stuffers generally include a packet of tees, golf cap…for bakers, rolling pins, and aprons tucked into a gift bag.

Then there are horsewomen.

My stable chums go all out. And best of all, the gifts are often for the horses, which is fine because if they weren’t given to us, we’d end up buying them anyway. Honestly, if it were possible to mark and track each dollar we spent, the circuit would be a perfect circle from our wallet to the stable, with stops at the feed store, vet, farrier, and tack shop. Give us a bottle of, say, perfume, and not only would we be perplexed but slightly annoyed. We’d far rather have a nice new grooming tote, riding gloves, or, better yet, glove warmers.

So when my barn buddy Sami dropped off a darling little gift bag on my tack trunk from another friend, Zoe, I carried it into the house and placed it on the counter.

“What’s that?” asked Paul of the little reindeer and snowflake flocked bag with what appeared to be a long, red piece of licorice sticking out the top.

“It’s from Zoe,”’ I replied with a smile. “Isn’t it cute?”

It was evening and our living room was illuminated only by the lights on the tree and a fire in the grate. We look forward to that coziness each year, even if we have to hold the TV remote up to the glaring light of our phones to see which button we’re pushing. Nevertheless, I carried Zoe’s gift bag to the tree to examine closely.

“Oh! It’s not a piece of licorice at all. It’s a ‘jar scraper’— what a clever idea!” I pulled out the long, thin utensil and marveled. “This is perfect for getting that last bit of peanut butter or mustard out of a jar.” Looking deeper into the bag, I could vaguely see cellophane-wrapped candies and beneath those, I caught the scent of what smelled like freshly baked cookies.

“Oh, I hope these are rum balls!” I cried, feeling around in the bag before pulling up two. “Zoe is a whale of a baker and I was just thinking how nice it would be to have a little something sweet after dinner.”

I dropped one in Paul’s hand and peered closely at the one in mine.

There are traumatic events in life that seemingly occur in slow motion: car crashes, tripping over a dog, and, in this case, mistakenly eating something not meant for a human at all…

“Stoooooooop!” I gasped, and even my warning seemed to take forever to end. Too late. Paul was chewing. And chewing. And chewing. An image of Mister Ed flashed before my brain.

“It’s sweet,” he said. “But kind of grainy. Pretty rich.”

“That would be the oats,” I said carefully. “And the molasses.”

“Weird,” he remarked, sucking a back tooth. “I taste carrot, too. And maybe applesauce. It’s not bad, but it’s stuck to the roof of my mouth.”

Sometimes, it’s better to say nothing. There was nothing harmful whatsoever in those cookies. It just meant I had one less to put in the horses’ stockings.