Making Christmas cookies is obviously one of those things you get to do only once a year. I guess if you make more than one batch you can say you get to do it more than that, but that’s kind of splitting hairs.
A few points I should make here before going on.
- I really enjoy making Christmas Cookies.
- There are several kinds of Christmas cookies that I really like Including these sugar cookies that I only get around this time of year.
- Heck I just like cookies in general and any excuse to have a few extras around the house is always a good idea to me.
This year we have had a lot going on family wise, but my wife and I have been trying very hard to keep some normalcy if for no other reason than because we would like to feel normal again, though it is as much for the kids as it is for us. So the Christmas Cookie Decorating party was declared.
This is mostly a chance for the kids just to have friends over, and have a little fun, and really do you need yet another excuse to make a bunch of cookies?
As my wife is still not quite back to 100% physically and has trouble being on her feet for long periods of time, I was in charge of making the cookies for said party even though I will not get to be here for the party itself.
I started out making a huge batch of Sugar Cookie dough. (well it felt huge to me.) Then Wednesday night I was going to roll cut and bake about half of them and finish up the rest in the morning. Believe it or not this was pretty close to what happened but, this is when the, “Interrupted” happened.
I had just gotten the first batch of cookies in the oven when the cry of, “He’s bleeding” went up. Now, understand I live in a house with 6 boys and 3 girls (not counting my wife and I.) There are many injuries. Even the girls are pretty tough about it most of the time. Occasionally you do get tears at everything from stubbed toes to good sized cuts but for the most part the kids don’t panic about things. Which is really good considering the alternative. But blood is one of those things that usually gets attention pretty quick.
The older kids who were home trooped the five year old (Child # 7) into the kitchen while saying he was bleeding. Honestly, they weren’t making a huge deal of it so I was not really worried and so continued what I was doing. When I looked up the poor kids face was a mess, and there was a rather large cut just below his hair line and a fair mount of blood streaming down his face. If you are not a parent, you might not be aware of this, but head wounds bleed like crazy. There is not a lot you can do about it, other than get the person calmed down. (Calming them down is the key here.) It is a lot of blood, but most of the time even with that much blood it is not all that serious.
In this case, the wound was pretty deep but not too serious, and I was able to get the bleeding stopped and put a bandage on it. As soon as my wife got home from picking the kids up from scouts it was determined that we needed to go to the ER and get him checked out.
I will make this story short, well as short as I can. Five hours later, (at 3 am) my very brave 5 year old and I headed back home with the gift of six new stitches from the hospital. He was very brave, did a great job, and I got some great quotes from him, like,
“I don’t really want to look like Frankenstein,”
and
“Dad, I think part of my brain is showing.”
Needless to say the cookies did not get made that night. As I said the plan mostly stayed in tact. Despite the short night for me, I got up the next morning with the kids and finished up the cookies. I had the day off so this is not as miraculous as it sounds. (Not miraculous at all really. Something about a parent making cookies that the kids know they are going to get help to motivate them to behave) We ended up with just shy of 11 dozen cookies that the kids will get to decorate today with their friends. I just hope there are a few left over for Dad when I get home.
The Great Hites 