Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow! carries through the air from my living room stereo to the kitchen. My mom rolls out sugar cookie dough on the island while neighbor Noelle and I sit at my dining table ready to decorate. The smell of the cookies—mixed with the candle that’s lit—fill up the room.

The heat from the oven warms us and my mom takes the cookies out. Noelle and I impatiently wait for them to cool. The falling snow creates a powder sugar wonderland and it feels like winter.

I test a cookie (to see if it’s cool enough) so we can finally start decorating. My mom sets down the icing and holiday sprinkles.

Noelle, who is five years older than me, chooses her decorations wisely. But I take the first sprinkles I see and shake them on my cookie.

Noelle arranges her sprinkles in a pattern, taking her time. Still on her first cookie, I’m on my third. I look over at her cookies and realize I want to make mine like hers. I try but do not succeed, mine are scattered all over the cookie and the table. It takes too much time and I don’t have the patience.

Once we finish, my mom sets down a steaming cup of hot chocolate with a mound of whipped cream—just like every year. We talk and laugh about our day and snuggle up in blankets and watch Rudolph. My eyes flutter close and drift off, dreaming of sugar cookies, ending my day just like I usually do when we make Christmas cookies.