We had a great dessert - real sugar cookies.
When we tried to pack the children off to bed later that evening I caught Darius back in the kitchen. He had a molar in his hand.
“Did Mitra make these cookies, Dad? Look what happened to my tooth.”
“Darius”, I replied, “that tooth was already loose.”
At that point Mitra joined us. She wanted to know why Darius was trying to eat a Christmas tree decoration.
“It looked like a sugar cookie, Mitra.”
“Well it’s not, Darius. It’s a tree decoration. I baked it with the gingerbread.”
“Oh yeah? Then where’s the hole for the hook?”
“Darius you’re a... Daddy, do we have a drill?”
“We’ve got a drill, Mitra,” I replied, “but I think we left the diamond bits back in Hanover.”
The children finally trundled off to bed. Darius whispered a final warning about kittens.
Christmas morning was definitively Dutch - gray and drizzly. The children dashed downstairs. Mitra was overjoyed by the new clothes she received - red sequin hat, gold sequin purse and silver sparkly shoes. She gave the Julia Child cookbook to Nazy. Darius quickly conquered the Kasparov Chess computer (level 1) and moved on.
For Melika Santa left a note - something about a Persian kitten. The kitten, which was ‘real’ and ‘live’ was bounding around the room knocking needles off the tree. Melika was overjoyed.
Darius snuck into the kitchen, grabbed one of Mitra’s gingerbread slabs and crumbled it up in the new cat food bowl. He was finally in the spirit.
