Page 72 of When in December

Aaron stood off to the side, watching the way I moved around the kitchen. Gavin narrated the whole time whenever he wasn’t asking questions.

I let him mix the icing into a bowl for us. Liana carefully laid out all the pieces of candy to use for decoration.

Gavin reached up, smearing sticky white icing over my nose.

I gasped, head arching away from the attack.

Icing trailed down from my nose before it dropped onto the table in a lump.

Both kids paused what they were doing in the kitchen, which was previously filled with noise yet it wasn’t too loud. Gavin smirked, waiting for the fallout. Liana’s mouth parted in clear shock at what her little brother had done, hands hovering over her organization of glitter and peppermint rounds.

Blinking, I could still see some of the icing on my face; some of it was caught on the edge of my upper lip. My tongue snuck out to swipe it away, and I leaned closer to him with a smile. “You think that is funny?”

“It is funny,” cried Gavin, bursting into laughter at the fact that I hadn’t gotten all the frosting off my face.

“Oh, yeah?” Before Gavin could understand what was coming, I took a glob of the icing off my face and reached out, smearing it over his cheek.

He paused his laughter.

“You’re right,” I said. “That is funny.”

Gavin howled with delight.

The new oven, which had finally been installed at the end of last week, beeped with the scent of ginger spice.

Good. The cookies should be done.

I skipped to turn the oven off with a press of a button. “I think our walls are ready.”

“The walls?” Gavin cackled.

“You got it.”

“And the roof?” Liana asked, leaning over the parchment-covered table, her elbows scooching up the edges. “I’m going to put the gumdrops on mine.”

Gavin gasped. “I want the candy canes!”

Reaching into the oven with red mitts, I paused, looking down at the tray.

“They look burned!” Gavin stared between the oven and my hands, holding the tray filled with dark pieces of a gingerbread house.

“They’re just a little …” For a minute, my heart ached at the sight of them, but I wasn’t sure I’d fully expected anything different. I let loose a sigh before nudging the oven door shut. The tray clattered lightly against the top of the stove. “Well done.”

They were definitely burned.

“Well done?” Aaron asked me from the doorway, arms crossed and eyebrows raised.

“Nothing a little extra icing won’t fix,” I insisted.

Letting the pieces cool, I smiled at the kids, who stood frozen until they caught my complete ease. I hadn’t missed a beat.

Transferring the pieces to the table, I warned, “Be careful; some of the pieces are still hot.”

“I thought you were a master homemaker there, Poppy.” Aaron spoke up again.

I looked at him over my shoulder, giving him a small glare, though I was sure my eyes were widening enough to show my slight horror that I couldn’t even follow the simplest of premixed gingerbread dough directions.

He bit the inside of his cheek for a second there, and I almost paused.

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