Cookie Baking At Our House

Here's what Christmas cookie baking is like at our house.

It starts out peacefully enough, with Mommy wanting to make a fun Christmas memory for her kids.

She tries to find some Christmas music on the radio, but can't find any.

Mommy gets a package of sugar cookie mix and mixes it up with the kids watching (and helping).

She starts rolling out the dough.  All the kids want to use the rolling pin.  So they take turns rolling for a bit.  Reece is pestering the heck out of Cammie and she is screaming like a little banshee at the top of her lungs.

Mommy says, "Don't touch the dough," and turns to the sink.  Aubrey immediately touches the dough, Reece sneaks a piece to eat, Cammie puts a dirty cookie cutter on the dough.  When Mommy has finished washing the cookie cutters, they each get turns to cut out a few cookies.  Reece is not particular, and uses whichever cutter is in front of him.  Cammie has a weird oval one that she likes, and Aubrey has chosen an ugly horse that Cyrise keeps setting aside because she doesn't want to use it. But Aubrey insists, so these ugly Christmas horses are mixed amongst the bells, trees, stars and gingerbread men.

As the rolling out and cutting continues, the noise escalates until I have to leave the room.  They are fighting and whining and crying.  Cyrise has never made sugar cookies before, and they get a little darker and harder than desired, but they smell good.

They all want to eat the cookies before they are frosted and decorated.  More crying and screaming ensues when they are told they have to wait so that they can have the fun of decorating the cookies.  They each have a couple, but that's not enough for them.

Gramma loses her temper because of all the noise and chaos, smacks Aubrey's butt down onto a bar stool, does the same with Cammie, who is silently stealing and eating as many cookies as she can get her grubby little hands on while no one is looking, and goes to ask Daddy to put the girls down for a nap.  He agrees, and more screaming and crying happens when he tells them they are going up.

Now it is peaceful, but Gramma feels like a grinch.  I think a little more planning needs to happen next time.  Maybe Mommy can make the whole batch of cookies herself the night before while the kids are asleep and they can do the frosting and decorating the next day, each decorating their own little batch of cookies so there is no argument.  No screaming, no fighting, no ugly horses.  :o)  Or maybe not. 

Sigh.  Trying to keep it real, folks.