#2,553 Sweets.

Every year, mama and I spend one night the week before Christmas baking cookies together. We made our plan (cat**it cookies and pecan pie thumbprints), made the grocery list (which was only a couple things because she keeps her pantry stocked like a pro), and because today was the most spectacularly frigid, rainy, blustery day of 2016 (my absolute favorite weather!) she had potato, ham and corn chowder going on the stove for supper after we closed the Mercantile. 


When we blew out the maple syrup candles, closed down the registers and turned out the glowing warm lights at 5:00, we stepped outside the shop and the icy cold wind and rain cut right through our clothes while we ran to the Wagoneer. I put on the Sufjan Stevens Christmas album and clicked on the heated seat and the shivering turned to the warm and fuzzies. When we pulled into the grocery store parking lot, Ben told me it was too cold for me to get out and to stay in the car where it was so cozy and he would go inside for the groceries. I watched him walk through the sliding doors then I saw his head gliding through the high up windows above the other shoppers. Then my phone was buzzing with a FaceTime call and his smiling face on the screen, so I could help him shop and get the right things. This is one of the million reasons I love Big.



We got to mama’s and had supper, but just about the time I started making the first cookies’ filling, she got sucked into Close Encounters of the Third Kind and I lost my baking partner.

We’ll try again next year. And hopefully the cat**it cookies will set up right if it’s not raining then.