Page 20 of Blame It On the Secret Santa

Thirteen

Cassidy

“Icooked last week,” I complained, rolling my head on my neck as I stood in my parent’s kitchen.

“Did you? I can’t remember anything this time of year. All of the days start to blend together.” My mother shook her head and pushed her glasses back up her nose as she flipped through pages in the cookbook she was looking at.

“I did, and I think this week is supposed to be Sam’s week.”

“Well, he can’t make it tonight so I guess that leaves one of us.”

“Fine. I’ll cook tonight, but only because you and Dad will be cooking Christmas dinner next weekend, and I want no part of it,” I teased. “Besides, I think he does this on purpose. Lies about having to work late just to get out of cooking. It’s funny how he rarely misses Sunday dinner on the weeks one of us cooks.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to help them cook; it was that I wanted to make tonight easier for my mom by taking the pressure off of her to cook. I was tempted just to give in and order pizza, but I could tell how stressed she was already and didn’t want to add to that. Growing up, her parents had traditions that they never deviated from, especially this time of year. That meant that these traditions had also been passed down to my brother and me, so I knew how important they were to her.

We were ten days away from Christmas, and she was supposed to start all of the holiday baking. I knew the recipes by memory, so it surprised me that she had to look them up.

“What are you looking for?” I asked while gathering the stuff from their fridge to make chicken alfredo.

“The recipe for the raisin cookies,” she replied, still flipping through the pages.

It was a cookbook that had been put together several decades ago and passed down from generation to generation with the family recipes. It had seen better days and some of the paper had gotten so thin and worn that it had to be laminated and secured in a clear sleeve to keep it from getting further damaged. I had offered at one point to type everything up, but she scoffed and said I couldn’t ruin the magic of the book by doing that.

“Aren’t those from Dad’s side of the family?” I asked, looking over my shoulder as I cut the chicken breast into thin slices.

“Oh my gosh. You’re right.” She closed the book and tilted her head up in frustration. “He’s been asking for them and I didn’t even think to look in the other book. I swear, my head would spin off if it weren’t attached.”

“Is everything okay? You seem more stressed this year than normal.”

“Yeah,” she replied with a wave of her hand. “I’m fine. I’m just getting older, and when that happens, things feel like they get harder and harder. I used to be able to bake dozens of cookies over a few days and not miss a beat. Now just the thought of baking them makes me tired.”

“I can come over this weekend and help if you want?” I offered.

“Isn’t this weekend Frosty Fest?”

“It is, but only on Saturday. I’m off on Sunday, so I can hang out, and we can spend the day baking. I can see if Sam is free, too. We can make a family baking day out of it.”

“I would really like that.”

My mom smiled softly and gently squeezed my shoulder as she passed by to put the cookbook away.

Thankfully, dinner was relatively quick and easy to make. We sat down at the table to eat, even though it felt weird not having my brother there. It wasn’t unusual for one of us to have to miss Sunday dinner at my parents’ this time of year, but I felt like I hadn’t seen him in weeks.

“So, have you finished your shopping?” My dad asked as he twirled noodles around his fork.

“More or less. I have a few more gifts to get for you guys and Sam. I also have to do the stupid Secret Santa gift exchange at work and haven’t bought for that person yet.” I clenched my teeth. Just the thought of trying to figure out something to get Sean really irritated me. I wanted to be mad at him and hate him the way I used to, but he’d really worn me down the three days I had to stay with him. Now I felt even more conflicted about what to get him because I didn’t want to give the wrong impression that I liked him, yet I didn’t want to be a cold-hearted bitch and get him a shitty gift because that wasn’t fair after everything he’d done for me recently.

“Oh yeah? Who did you draw?” Mom asked.

They knew I had stayed with Sean for a few days when the storm hit, and they hadn’t stopped talking about second chances and how great of friends we used to be. It had been stressing me out because the last thing I needed was for them to be hopeful that Sean and I would ever get back together.

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