As the years went by and we grew up, there were many people who came and decorated for a year or two, and then our boyfriends started to come along, but it was always at least the two of us there. And as even more years passed, her mom would share that bottle of wine she was drinking. I do not remember a Christmas when I was younger not decorating Christmas cookies at her house.
But then we grew up. My BF enlisted in the Navy to serve her country, while I went to college. Our last year of making cookies together was the year before my BF left for boot camp. (We begged her mom to make us cookies, but her mom said if we wanted the we had to make them ourselves... and we did. It was the night of December 23, and we stayed up until they were all baked and decorated. That was around noon on December 24.)
Fast Forward to 7 years ago. She was home for Christmas with her kids. We laughed about how we were going to finally bake cookies together again, but an emergency pulled her back to Norfolk, and we didn't do it then either.
Fast Forward to 2 years ago. The day that she was supposed to drive the hour to my house, we had one hell of a snow storm, and it was the only day she had off. They didn't get done together that year either.
Last year, I was still recovering from having Pineapple, so I bought some refrigerator dough to roll out to at least have my kids decorate them. I just couldn't get it done though. (In fact all 3 of the older ones were flipping out because we didn't have home made cookies for Santa last year.)
But this year...
This year we are in the same city. This year, we have an entire day to do it while the older ones are in school. This year we have expanded our list from the basic 3 different kinds to having 11 different kids. And then, on the kids' first day of break, her kids and my babes, will all sit around my kitchen table to decorate cookies... and another generation will know what it's like to be...
...covered in thin icing and have their bellies be full of the cookies that were broken.
...covered in thin icing and have their bellies be full of the cookies that were broken.
sounds like a great time. You girls have fun!!
ReplyDeleteI love hearing "Christmas Cookie" stories (and there are a lot of them out there, let me tell you). It's really one of those essential things about the holiday (not to take way from, you know, Jesus or anything).
ReplyDeleteIt's also nice that it's so particular to Christmas.
There are probably stories about staying up all night frying latkes - complete with the drinking element (probably heavier drinking than you imply), and the kids would be covered in flour and oil instead of icing.
But it just doesn't have the same feel to it, you know?
Nice writing, nice sentiment. Thank you for putting so much of yourself "out there" for us to share.