AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Logan finds the three of us in the living room. I’m sipping on a steaming mug of coffee, and the girls are watching an episode ofBluey. He grabs himself a cup of coffee and yawns, running a hand through his damp hair.
“Ladies? May I have your attention?” I already know what he’s going to propose, but I stand up with Maggie and Rainey, following him into the kitchen. “I need some help with making Christmas Eve breakfast. I was wondering if there were any elves who might want to help?”
Maggie’s the first to call out, and Rainey shouts a mere millisecond behind her, visibly upset Maggie beat her to the punch.
I ruffle the top of Rainey’s hair, “We can all help. Right, Logan?”
“I hope so. I’m going to need lots of help.” He bends and pokes both girls in the side, popping a burst of giggles loose.
“The first thing we need to do,” he instructs, “is open up this can of biscuits.” I grimace and he laughs at me, fully aware of my hatred for the popping noise. ‘Don’t worry,’ he mouths at me. “Noah, can you check and see if I left my cell phone upstairs?” He winks at me. I silently praise him for a quick escape, giving him the chance to teach the girls how to bang the tube on the edge of the counter to open it.
In the minute I’m away, Logan helped the girls separate the biscuits and begin cutting them into small pieces with butter knives. I reenter the kitchen and he’s showing them how to dip the pieces into melted butter before rolling them in a bowl full of cinnamon and sugar.
“What, exactly, are we making?” I inquire.
“Growing up, my mom called it monkey bread, but it’s basically deconstructed cinnamon rolls.”
Throughout the day we do it all: watch the nostalgic stop-motion Christmas movies I remember seeing as a kid, make popcorn strands to wrap around the tree, and write last-minute Christmas lists to Santa. Hope spends her day batting at Christmas ornaments and looking for ways to scale the tree, almost knocking the entire thing over on the last attempt.
Looking around my house, there’s a mess on every surface. Before bringing Rainey home, I came home to a mess daily. It was a lonely chaos of my creation. Today, there’s not a spot in this house where I could be lonely if I wanted, thanks to the constant giggles following Maggie and Rainey around, especially when they’re together. My house may still be an eternal mess, but it’s not from my continuing struggle to clean up after myself. It comes from two girls being allowed to play, create, and use their imaginations.
A little after 7 p.m. the doorbell rings, catching Rainey and Maggie by surprise. Evening guests are a rarity, so they trip and push and pull each other, both determined to be the one who answers the door.
“Only adults answer the door,” Logan calls after them, the reminder stopping them on the spot.
“But I want to answer it,” Rainey says.
“No! I want to,” Maggie whines in return.
“Ladies—why don’t we answer it together?” I suggest, knowing good and well who is on the other side of the door.
With both girls’ hands on the doorknob, we pull the heavy door open on1-2-3.Squeals greet Claire and Rufus who stand on my front steps looking chilled to the bone as winter wind whips around their bodies.
“What do we have here?” I question in my best faux-surprise voice.
Stepping inside, Claire hands me a wicker basket, making room for Rufus to assist her in working her arms out of her coat sleeves.
“What is it? What is it?” Rainey hops up and down beside me, unable to contain her excitement to know what’s hidden inside.
When Logan proposed having his aunt and uncle over on Christmas Eve. to make Santa’s cookies with the girls, I knew he was onto something. Especially sincewewould be eating Santa’s cookies, and there was no guarantee anything Logan or I baked wouldn’t cause food poisoning. Claire came prepared with everything needed to make special Santa cookies: pre-made dough, icing, sprinkles, chocolate chips, and even some crushed candy cane pieces.
While Claire and I supervise the girls washing their hands, Logan puts Rufus to work pulling cookie pans out of lower cabinets. Rufus takes a spot next to Rainey at the kitchen island to help her roll out the dough. I join in when I realize Rufus is letting Rainey turn the dough into crepes that will burn to a crisp in the oven. The three of us fold the dough back together and roll it around to try again.
Noah’s aunt leans against my kitchen sink with a satisfied smile, taking in the view of the people she loves. Maggie and Logan have already started cutting shapes out of their sugar cookie dough, while I’m still trying to convince Rainey to ease up the pressure on the rolling pin.
“You three doing okay over there?” Logan teases, “As you can see, my daughter and I are expert cookie makers.”
“We are justfine,” I fib.
“Doesn’t look like it. Not sure what you’re making will be edible.”
“You’ll eat it, and you’ll like it, peasant!” I scowl at him.
Claire’s not sure what to make of our banter, and her eyes bounce between the two of us as she tidies up.
So many classic Christmas movies have cookie baking scenes, but I can’t remember ever experiencing that growing up—it’s a joy to dig my hands into the sticky dough with Maggie and Rainey. After sharing pieces of my childhood in foster care with Claire, this feels like a special gift she’s curated just for me.
By the time the cookies are baked, decorated, and cooled, I feel like I’ve run a sugary marathon, with the dough and multicolored sprinkles that cake parts of my sweatshirt being my finish line confetti.
