A Pleasant Task

By Hannah Stewart

The aroma of homemade Chex-mix and warm holiday cookies filled the air as we covered our home in Christmas decorations.  Christmas decorating, making Christmas treats, and watching Christmas movies has always been a joyous and pleasant activity because it brings me closer to my family and reminds me of Christ’s birth.

The day after Thanksgiving was always filled with the preparation of homemade Chex-mix and sugar cookies.  The preparation of the Chex-mix was fun for everyone.  We were all given one item that we would drop in a big black and white speckled baking pot.  Mom would pour the warm mixture of Worcestershire sauce, butter, garlic, and onion salt over the pretzels, cereal, and cashews and then gingerly mix all the items together.  After we finished baking the Chex-mix, we started on the cookies.  We would roll out the soft and buttery tasting cookie dough and become covered in flour.  Next, it was time to pick out the snowmen, Christmas trees, angels, Santa, and star cookie cutters to make the various shapes.  After baking was complete we decorated them with colored icing and colored sprinkles.  We ate them until we were nearly sick from the sugar overload.

While the cookies were cooling we opened the Christmas boxes.  We were excited as we took the Christmas decorations out one by one.  The manger scene was my favorite to place on the mantle above the fireplace.  Mom would give us a camel to unwrap and position on the mantle.  The shepherds, kings, and animals were wrapped in newspaper that always had a unique smell that I loved.  Putting the lights on the Christmas tree was eventful.  It was challenging to agree on which lights to wrap around the Christmas tree.  My older sister, Stephanie, preferred the white lights, and my older brother, Christopher and I preferred the colored lights.  After much debate and discussion and laughing, we settled on the colored lights.  The snow village was one of our favorites.  It was especially difficult to find a place for it.  I loved spreading out the cotton that looked like snow, setting up the houses in little rows, and placing the people outside the houses.

At the end of a busy day, we stood back and observed all that we had accomplished.  We were tired to the bone.  It was the perfect time to eat our Christmas snacks while watching Christmas movies.  Finding the Christmas movies was difficult sometimes since they were in the very back of the video cabinet.  We had to decide exactly which one we wanted to watch first.  Frosty The Snowman, The Little Drummer Boy, The Muppets Christmas Carol, Christmas With The Kranks, The Santa Clause, and Rudolf The Red-Nosed Reindeer were some of our choices.  We decided on Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer since he was bold and courageous.  As we watched Rudolf we curled up under a furry warm blanket.  Eating our freshly prepared snacks and drinking the hot chocolate with marshmallows, we felt quite in the Christmas mood.