THE CASE OF THE DISAPPEARING CHRISTMAS
COOKIES
“I
didn’t eat them, Mom. Why do you always blame me?” asked Jax, a 12-year-old who
loved eating sweets, especially his mom’s chocolate chip cookies.
“Koy,
did you eat them?” Mom asked. “Koy? Will you stop moving for a second and
answer me?”
“I
didn’t eat them either, Mom,” Koy answered while stacking the couch cushions to
jump on them for the hundredth time that night.
“Well,
I’d ask Ilsa if it were a bag of chips. She would never eat a plate full of
cookies.”
Mom
was perplexed. She had helped her kids set out the plate of cookies for Santa
and they mysteriously disappeared while she was in the basement for a brief
moment with her sports-fanatic husband watching yet another college football
game. He didn’t eat the cookies.
“That
dog must have done it,” Mom said, searching for the family’s adorable, yet
constantly hungry black lab named Jem. “Jem, did you eat Santa’s cookies?” Jem wagged
her tail, but was too lazy to lift her head.
Mom
walked back downstairs to ask the kids one more time where they thought the
cookies might have gone.
“Maybe
I farted on them and they turned into the air,” Koy said with a devilish grin.
“Maybe
Jax and Koy ate them all and just aren’t telling you the truth. You should
ground them,” Ilsa said, smiling. She made it her goal in life to get her
brothers in trouble.
“Mom,
I didn’t eat the cookies and I have no idea what might have happened to them,”
Jax said, irritated by Mom’s incessant questioning.
Completely
annoyed with her family, Mom went to her room and turned on the Food Network channel.
She muttered to herself, “Well, I didn’t eat the stinkin’ cookies.”
Later that night when the kids were all snug
in their beds with visions of iPods, iPads, and other electronic devices dancing
in their heads, Mom and Dad heard noises coming from downstairs.
Dad
said, “It’s probably Ilsa trying to peek at her presents.”
“I
don’t think so. Let’s go check it out,” Mom urged.
Mom
and Dad wrapped up in their bathrobes and walked downstairs, passing Jem who
figured they had everything under control. The noise had stopped before they hit
the second set of stairs. The lights on the Christmas tree were shining bright.
“I
know I unplugged those lights,” Mom said.
Dad
stepped farther into the room and lifted the empty cookie plate from the coffee
table.
“The
kids refilled that plate. How could they disappear again?” Mom wondered.
Dad
shrugged his shoulders and set the plate down. Mom gazed at the Christmas tree and
noticed a small, handwritten note under it. The note read:
You bake such delicious cookies that I had to stop
by twice. Thank you. Please hug and kiss your children every day and tell them that
you love them more times than they think is necessary.
Peace on Earth and Merry Christmas, Santa
Mom and Dad
looked at each other in disbelief. Neither was sure how the note got under the
tree, but both knew that the message sent was one they could live by. They hugged,
said “I love you” and hustled back to bed, promising to hug and kiss their
children first thing in the morning.
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