Making Memories



Making memories was my goal. I didn’t really want the Christmas cookies for myself, but I thought it might be a fun project for me to do with my grandchildren. Homemade sugar cookies cut into shapes matching the characters seen at Jesus’ birth. 

The dough was measured and mixed…it was rolled and cut…flour was everywhere probably because the kids would dip their hands into the flour and then clap them right in my face. Yes, it was going to be a memory…at least for me.

Each child had gotten to select which characters or animals they wanted to make and were given lessons on how to position the cutters on the rolled dough in order to get the most cookies out of it. They wanted to eat the cookie dough and since I didn’t die as a child from eating it I let them do it; after all we were making memories.

Once the cookies were baked and cooled it was time to decorate them. The picture on the cover of the cutters had beautifully embellished cookies, just the way I wanted ours to look, however….that’s not exactly what we produced.

The kids wanted pink and purple, yellow and green, brown and black cookies. So since we were making memories, I fulfilled their desires. My grandson quickly got bored with the decorating process, but five year old Molly assisted to the end. She made rainbow cookies, sprinkled cookies and other variations. While the icing was drying, she began announcing which ones she was going to eat. That’s when my grandson decided he had better get back involved.

When Molly said she was going to eat 2 camels (the largest of the cookies) a fight ensued. Will had cut 2 camels, while Molly only cut one, but she had decorated all of them. The fight grew as each of the children demanded their cookies. They both wanted their own way, not being rational in their thinking at all. Since it was almost bedtime, I tried to divert their attention and told them that the only thing they could have before bedtime was a small star. After all I didn’t want their only memory of the experience to be about fighting over the cookies
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They weren’t exactly happy, but they obeyed.

It’s not just kids who fight over small unimportant things. Adults join in that escapade all of the time. We want our way, sometimes because of something we are passionate about, however often it’s just because we want what we want when we want it.

James 4:1 explains this principle clearly when it says, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?”

No, I don’t want my grandchildren to remember the fighting, but the fun. I also want them to learn how to work things out, so that’s what we did. We decided that Santa needed the biggest cookie.

Don’t let your own desires cause quarrels with those you love, but learn to compromise. Most things just aren’t worth the fight.

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