Season's
Treatings

Is There Any Holiday Tradition More Fun Than Baking?

The Season's Treatings series launched in 2009 with a question that answers itself: is there any holiday tradition more fun than baking? Artist Sharon Visker took that tradition to heart, building a series around the foods and treats that define the December kitchen — the cookie sheet just out of the oven, the cupcakes stacked for a party, the gingerbread house built and decorated and slightly eaten before Christmas morning. Each year, a different treat. Each year, the best part of the season in miniature, on the tree.

The range across seventeen entries is a portrait of how American holiday food culture has evolved over the series' run. The early entries lean into baking classics — cookie sheet (2009), cupcakes (2010), gingerbread house (2011). The middle years expanded into more specific treats — cake pops (#6, 2014), stringing popcorn (#11, 2019). By 2022 the fruitcake arrived, the most divisive holiday food given its due as an ornament. In 2023 a candy train. In 2024 s'mores, moving the series from formal holiday baking into campfire treats. And in 2025 a charcuterie board — the most culturally current entry in the series, marking the moment when the artful meat-and-cheese spread became the definitive holiday party centerpiece.

Seventeen years, seventeen treats, the series ongoing. The 18th holiday food has not yet been chosen — but December has no shortage of candidates.

Sharon Visker — The Kitchen Is Where the Holidays Happen

The Taste of December, Documented

The Season's Treatings series takes its name seriously — these are not generic holiday ornaments that happen to feature food, but specific documents of the specific foods that define the holiday season for the people who make them. The cookie sheet is the December kitchen at its most productive. The gingerbread house is the December kitchen at its most architectural. The popcorn garland is the moment when the food becomes decoration. The fruitcake is the food that people joke about not eating, but which still shows up on every holiday spread regardless. The charcuterie board is the 2025 holiday gathering, the food that evolved from trend to institution in a single decade.

What makes the series distinctive is its willingness to include the full range of holiday food experience — not just the pretty and the beloved, but the traditional and the contested and the culturally current. The Fruitcake entry (2022) is the series' most audacious choice: the most mocked holiday food given full ornament status, treated as worthy of a place on the tree alongside the gingerbread house and the cupcakes. That inclusivity — the sense that all of December's food culture is worth celebrating, even the parts that divide opinion — is the series' most interesting quality.

Seventeen years of holiday food, documented annually. The 18th treat is still being planned. The series is ongoing, which means December 2026 will add another dish to the menu.

Tips for the Collection

• 01
  Display all 17 together as a holiday feast spread. Seventeen years of December food grouped on a single tree section reads as a complete holiday menu — cookies, cupcakes, gingerbread house, cake pops, popcorn, fruitcake, s'mores, charcuterie. The visual effect of the full collection together is significantly more satisfying than individual entries scattered across the tree.
• 02
  The Gingerbread House #3 (2011) is the series' most architecturally satisfying entry. A gingerbread house is the most ambitious December food project — it takes planning, structure, and decorating skill. The ornament version is the one that captures both the aspiration and the cozy result. For anyone who has built a gingerbread house in December, this entry is the most personally resonant in the series.
• 03
  The Fruitcake #14 (2022) is the series' most conversation-starting entry. Display it prominently and let people notice it. The fruitcake is the food that people claim to dislike loudly while December continues to produce them in large quantities. An ornament dedicated to the fruitcake — with no apology — is the series at its most culturally observant.
• 04
  The Charcuterie Board #17 (2025) marks the series' most contemporary moment. The charcuterie board's arrival in the Season's Treatings series is a cultural timestamp — the moment when the artfully assembled board of meats, cheeses, fruits, and crackers became indisputably holiday-canon. The 2025 entry is the series documenting its own present in real time.
• 05
  The complete 17-treat menu from 2009 through 2025 is at Already Christmas. Every dish, every year, from the inaugural cookie sheet through the charcuterie board — the full Season's Treatings banquet is in the collection. The 18th course has not been announced. Already Christmas has the kitchen stocked.