My favorite part of Christmas is baking big, golden brown, chocolate chip cookies. The person I think of is my mom.  She is very caring. She takes lots of time baking these soft and chewy cookies for my family and me.

      Usually my mom bakes a few days before Christmas. When she does, she bounds into the kitchen wearing jeans, a red and white sweatshirt, and wool socks.  She has a big smile on her face and says, “Let’s bake cookies.” Right away she moves toward the pantry and opens it.  There my mom pulls out two yellow containers and on small metal box, full of chocolate chips. She puts those ingredients onto the island of the kitchen. Then she turns around, opens the refrigerator, and looks for the butter, eyes, and vanilla. Then those are put on the island, too. She finds a bowl and puts the butter in it. She picks up the beige mixer with a black cord, turns it on, and blends the butter. After the butter is blended, she adds sugar from one of the yellow containers. Then my mom cracks a few eggs into the bowl and also puts in the vanilla.  Then she blends again.  Soon she stops blending, calls me over, and gives me a big wooden spoon.  Then she says, “Can you hand me that container over there, please.” I hand her a big, yellow container and she measures out three cups of flour. That gets poured into the bowl, so I put the spoon in and start mixing. After I can’t see the flour anymore, my mom puts in a lot of chocolate chips in, and I stir again. While I am stirring, my mom gets out a big, metal pan, and starts scooping up a little bit of batter.  She makes them into little balls, while I secretly eat the batter behind her back. My mom and I put them onto the cookie sheet. When they are done baking, we let them cool, and then we eat.

      My loving and caring mom likes to make cookies before Christmas day. Sometimes she is in a hurry and forgets about the cookies. When this happens, not very often, they get burnt. They are still very good, so I eat them anyway.

Jason Stankevich

December 1990

Reaction:  I was very pleased to read about Christmas through the eyes of my son. He, obviously, had captured an aspect of the holiday season. That means a lot to him. I particularly enjoyed the adjectives he used to describe me and my sometimes “burnt” cookies. He makes me realize how important the time is that I share with my family and for that I thank him.

Deborah M. Stankevich