In spirit of the holidays, many people will start to whip out their rolling pins and dig out the sprinkles to try their hand at baking, often for the first time in months. But for Marina Gibson, senior, it will be nothing new—she bakes batch of her special ‘Marina cookies’ on a weekly basis.

Marina Gibson mainly makes her ‘Marina cookies,’ a term that gradually caught on as they increased in popular, to surprise friends and acquaintances on their birthdays. She also bakes cookies to uplift the spirits of those with injuries or suffering from the loss of a loved one. And, to top that off, she bakes for each of her classes at least once a year “so everyone can feel the love”.

“Whenever we had a project or a presentation, I’d just bake,” Gibson said as she explained she’s been baking regularly since middle school. “It didn’t always apply for everything, but I just enjoyed doing it. I guess I felt it took some pressure off me as a public speaker.”

Soon after, she started baking cookies for friends and other people she just felt were “good people.”  She was baking up to three times a week at her peak, “which is quite a lot for those of you who don’t bake cookies,” Gibson added.

“It was getting to the point where I was staying up ‘til two in the morning baking cookies for people I didn’t really know very well, so this year I’ve tried to calm down a little bit and prioritize school over cookies,” Gibson said with a laugh.

After all the time she’s put into baking, Gibson no longer needs to follow a recipe for her chocolate chip cookies, the type she makes the most often.

“No one complains so I just keep doing that,” Gibson said. “I’m all about not washing dishes.”

Gibson makes all her cookies from scratch because she believes “it is always nice to have a tangible reminder that somebody spent time thinking about you.”

She relates this to a story when she made cookies for a classmate after her dog had died.

“I made her cookies because I was thinking how awful I would feel if my dog died and she still remembers it to this day” Gibson said. “I didn’t know [my cookies] impacted people that much. She told me that it meant a lot to her that somebody took the time to do something nice for her when she was feeling upset.”

Gibson loves this element of surprise, and positive reactions like these help keep her going. She also is relieved baking is finally starting to become relaxing for her again.

“For me, it started out as a way to keep my stress down. It was almost like my happy place, if you will,” Gibson said. “And then, when it started getting so stressful, I realized that it felt more like an obligation. So, I guess you can apply that to other aspects of your life. The things you do you should do because you enjoy them and not because other people expect you too. I’m glad I was able to calm down and find that fun again so I didn’t have to stop.”