"Have Yourself

Some of Mom's Christmas Decorations Last Year...is Santa upskirting an angel or did the sleigh get into an accident ejecting him into the house plants?

A wonky little Christmas, may your days be bright...."

The holiday adventures continue ~ oh my....

After work today I went to mom's house to visit with her, but more importantly to give my sister a break from hanging with mom continuously...we needed some sister time anyway.

So we go to the same coffee shop: close, comfy and the coffee's great.  She had a good time with mom today, but it wasn't without challenges.  That's her story, I'll let her tell it.

Meantime, we unwind in each others company over coffee and chocolate/peppermint bark - yummy.

During the conversation Dreamer tells me that mom wants to make Christmas cookies tonight and asks me to join them.  Sure!  How many of these opportunities do we have left, really?  Time to indulge and recreate fond Christmas memories.  Sure......  Our turn to bring the happy.

 About two weeks ago mom bought a "cookie shooter" from the local Salvation Army Store.  She shops there to honor my dad who said that when he was young, they provided Christmas for his family once or twice.  That's the sweet part.

*Giggling almost uncontrollably here* 

  The funny?  The "cookie shooter".  She's been jokingly threatening me with the cookie shooter since she bought it.  Cookie guns, high noon....gauntlet thrown.  CHALLENGE! 

We go back to mom's and declare our desire to make cookies with her AND decorate the house a bit.  Let's just go full tilt for a moment shall we?! How many holidays will we have with her still...her?

I ask mom where the infamous cookie shooter is.  "In a box" she replies.  Oh dear gawd - "where's the box mom?"  "Around somewhere" the comic shouts.  Thanksgiving redux...Gotta love her.....Found it somewhere weird - the family room by dad's chair.  Made sense to her at the time I'm sure.

We decide to make the spritz cookie recipe that came with the directions thinking it SHOULD turn out well.
Dreamer, mom and I start gathering ingredients.  None of the baking ingredients are together in one spot.  So the scavenger hunt begins, all three of us in different cupboards.  Dreamer calls out "Flour" we all move things out of the way in search of the elusive flour.  "I've got it" mom calls out.  "Wait...no it's confectioner sugar".  She's put dry goods in see through plastic containers, not all of them marked with a label.

And so it goes, call and comical response, one ingredient after another until we have all of them . By now, Dreamer and I are giggling and can't stop, just punchy and falling into our natural sister roles in mom's kitchen. Dreamer and mom start measuring and combining ingredients while I assemble the shooter. 

Now I have to find batteries....but it's just me looking for them, a tad easier...and I know where to look haha!

Mom and Dreamer are now teasing each other about how much of what to add.  Mom pulls Dreamer's hair at the nape of her neck like she's always done when she teases her.  We all bust out giggling.  This is the kind of holiday we know and love.

I notice something is missing from the cookie shooter - the rod that cranks the "pusher" to get the dough out and into the cool shapes.  This renders the shooter inoperable.  Poopy.  Now what? 

Throw chocolate chips in the dough and call it good, chocolate fixes everything.  Mom reaches for a container that looks like it holds granola, it has nuts.  Dreamer exclaims "I don't want nuts in my cookies!"  Mom had pulled out the chips already and had them on the counter, but forgot she did that.  When I pointed to the chocolate chips  you would have thought I found the monolith in "2001 A Space Odyssey"  - "Ohhhh!" we all gasped, and just dumped a big ol mess of them into the batter...which I noticed was thinner and runnier than I expected.  What the hell, we followed the recipe, Dreamer read it out loud, checked the measuring.

We spoon it onto cookie sheets, hoping they will turn out.  Mom sets the timer, Dreamer and I start decorating.  I'm running some poinsettia garland along the stair railing in the front hall, Dreamer's putting Dad's village on the mantle, setting up the lights for it too.  All of a sudden Dreamer says "Alright, I just have to say this - the cookies don't smell good!"  They didn't. 

As caregivers one of the things we do is check the refrigerator for spoiled food.  Dry goods have expiration or use by dates too?  How about Crisco? The cookies did not smell right, but mom thought they were just fine.  Tomorrow she'll wrap most of them up for me to take home, and I'll throw them all out.

And we've had fun making our first weird batch of cookies.  It's the time spent together and the fun we had that counts, cherishing each other and the love we share.

Oh, and I threw out the cookie shooter.


Back at ya Dreamer,

Voyageur