The noise of the teenagers joyfully jumping around downstairs, and the sound of wrapping papers being teared up. Those are one of the few things that makes me realise that today is Christmas, which I’ve totally forgotten. Although I still tend to forget when Christmas day is, I still have my almost-too annoying cousins and my very-not forgetful parents to remind me. Perhaps the noise downstairs might be my cousins, so I wore an oversized Christmas jumper with a pair of white wide-leg trousers and went downstairs.
And I was right, the noise downstairs was mostly from my cousins which overlapped the chatting sound of both of our parents. By the time I reached downstairs, breakfast was served. We had French toast casseroles, gingerbread muffins, cinnamon rolls, waffles, hot cocoa; it was scrumptious. It was still the same old simple tradition as we used to do every Christmas. I guess nothing had really changed. But sometimes we still strive to improve our homemade gingerbread cookies that have been passed down from many centuries. I had no clue what the ingredients were because I always just sat beside my mom while she made them, and I would make a mess if I was the one who was making those cookies, even with the help of my cousins. But I did have a job for this gingerbread quest which was taste testing. They said that I always have a good taste and I can always taste what ingredients that were being put in, but I can also be really picky when eating though. I went to buy the ingredients for the filling that they told me while they were preparing the crust for the pie. So I went to the nearest grocery store and bought apples, pears, butter, and stuff and paid for the groceries at the cashier. To my surprise, it was not as expensive as I thought as they had cut down the prices for Christmas sales.
When I got back home, it was a mess. There was dough and flour everywhere, but at least the crust was already made. We then started to make the filling for the pie as we sliced some apples and pears into cubes and mixed in with some sugar and boiled it in a saucer. Some people put cornstarch in, but we don’t because the sauce itself gets all chunky. After making the sauce, we poured it into the crust and used the leftover dough to make crosses over the pie and baked it. We totally nailed it. While waiting for the pie, I decided to prepare some hot cocoa to warm us up because of the freezing cold weather. I went and took out a huge kettle and boiled some fresh milk from our cows and brought a few cups to pour some hot cocoa in. When the milk was boiled, I turned off the stove and went to one of the shelves and got a tin of hot cocoa powder. I took a huge spoon and took a spoonful of the powder and poured it into the boiling hot milk. One scoop wasn’t enough because the kettle was bigger than I expected so I took another spoonful of the powder and stirred it to mix it thoroughly while it was still warm. The only thing left to do was to get some mugs out to fill in.
I brought the kettle of hot cocoa and some mugs outside on a tray while I called my cousins to come back as they were gathering resources in our grandfather’s farm. My younger cousin rushed in with a basket of eggs while my older cousin was carrying a basket of berries. I told them to sit down and drink some warm hot cocoa before continuing the ongoing work. My younger cousin joyfully talked about her experience collecting chicken eggs while I poured some hot cocoa into the mugs. I handed them the mugs as we drank our beverages. Our grandmother always says, “The freezing weather of the winter will never beat our homemade hot cocoa”, and it was true. And in my opinion, I prefer hot cocoa over the famous Christmas drink, eggnog. And the reason is because it is normally served cold and for me, cold drinks don't really fit in when the weather is freezing cold, or I might say, -1C. But it is also because we don’t really like creamy drinks.
As time flew by quickly in a blink of an eye, the morning carol sang in harmony as we listened to them. And by now, they might have already sung a dozen songs. My older cousin then told me that she forgot to tell me that there was one gift under the Christmas tree for me, which I had totally forgotten. She said it was written, “From Santa Claus”. This was really weird? I have never received a gift which said, “From Santa Claus”. It’s not like I don’t believe in the presence of Santa Claus, but I’ve never thought about whether Santa Claus has ever existed or not. And the weirdest thing yet is that everyone’s gift was written, “From Santa Claus”, and no one in our family wrote a letter to Santa Claus, including me. It felt like someone was pranking our entire family using the name. Maybe opening the present might give us a clue.
The cold wind kept blowing us in the direction of our house, and it just felt like opening the present was a must. So the last thing we did for this Christmas morning was rushing home to open the gift.
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