My name is Jason, I’m 35, and I live in New Orleans with my wife. Her family is very Catholic — the kind of family where church holidays, traditions, and seasonal food rules are taken extremely seriously.
Especially Lent.
If you’re not familiar, Lent is the period leading up to Easter when many Catholics give something up or avoid certain foods, especially meat on Fridays.
My in-laws follow these traditions very faithfully.
Every year the family group chat fills up with recipes for meatless dinners, reminders about church events, and photos of elaborate seafood meals.
This year, however, I decided I wasn’t going to participate.
Not for any dramatic reason. I just realized over time that I don’t really practice the tradition myself, and it felt strange pretending I was following rules that didn’t mean much to me personally.
So when my mother-in-law asked what I was giving up for Lent this year, I told her honestly.
“I’m actually not doing Lent this year.”
The room went very quiet.
My father-in-law slowly nodded like he had just received unexpected news about the weather.
My mother-in-law smiled politely and said, “Well… we’ll pray for you.”
I thought that was the end of the conversation.
But apparently my in-laws had other plans.
About a week later a package arrived at our front door.
The return address was my wife’s parents.
Inside the box were several containers of homemade baked goods.
At first I thought it was just a friendly family care package.
Then I noticed the shapes.
Every single cookie in the container was shaped like a fish.
Fish-shaped sugar cookies.
Fish-shaped shortbread cookies.
Even a bag of tiny goldfish-shaped crackers.
Attached to the box was a handwritten note from my mother-in-law.
It said:
“For when you change your mind.”
Underneath that, she had written the dates of every Friday during Lent.
My wife burst out laughing when she saw it.
I have to admit, the cookies were actually very good.
But the message was unmistakable.
This was less of a dessert delivery and more of a gentle religious reminder disguised as baked goods.
Since then my in-laws haven’t mentioned the subject again directly.
But last Sunday my father-in-law casually asked if I had tried the cookies yet.
When I said yes, he nodded and said, “Good. Fish is good for you this time of year.”
So now I’m sitting here with a container of fish-shaped cookies slowly disappearing from the kitchen counter.
And I’m starting to suspect my in-laws believe that if they feed me enough seafood-themed desserts…
Eventually I’ll accidentally observe Lent.