Winter break is a great time to spend time with the people you love.

It is also a great time to bake.

It was a cold, snowy day.

The window in the kitchen looked out into a freshly shaken snow globe,

everything covered snow.

My friends came over to bake.

What could be a better time to bake when it's snowing?

We decided to make gingerbread cookies--festive and fun.

I connect my phone to the speaker.

We smile and dance around the kitchen to “Let It Snow”.

We scour Pinterest for cookies that make our mouths water.  

We gather the ingredients, and it's time to begin.

The batter is thick and doughy--smelling like Christmas in a bowl.

We spread it out on the counter like a thin pancake.

Then, we press out our gingerbread men,

One by one, as they dance their way onto the cookie sheet.

We are eager to be able to eat them,

but we have to say goodbye to them for 45 minutes as they go into the oven to bake.

We head upstairs (5 minutes).

Get all cozy (10 minutes),

Turn on “Elf” (30 minutes).

And wait for them to be done.

“BEEEEP! BEEEEP! BEEEEP!”

We were struck with shock when the fire alarm began screaming in our ears.

All three of us jumped up.

Our hearts were pounding like a drum.

We ran down the stairs, one after the other.

I opened the door to the oven, which was covered in a thick cloud of smoke;

I could barely see through it.

However, I could see that our cookies were burnt.

So burnt that they looked like the pieces of charcoal you put into a grill.

“What did we do?!” I said, giggling.

“What do you mean? They look delicious!” Belle replied sarcastically.

“Ya yum!” Madigan giggled back.

I turned off the oven.

We immediately started waving around towels to clear out the smoke.

When the loud, repetitive alarm turned off, we all slumped against the counters,

falling to the floor as we laughed until our stomachs hurt.

Meanwhile, our cookies had to go straight into the trash,

The house smelled like burnt ginger,

Our ears hurt from the screaming fire alarm,

But at least it made for a memory that we can laugh

About for the rest of our lives.