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“I missed you, too, Mom!” I told her.
“Well, what are we all standing out here in the lawn for?” Mom laughed, her green eyes—so similar to mine—shining brightly. “Let’s all go inside! I’ve just finished baking cookies and they should be cool enough to eat right now!”
Just like the front door, the living room was decorated with the same theme of the patriotic denim banners, looking rather cheerful amidst the warm colors of the entire room itself. There was a huge red couch flanked by a plushy, light brown armchair with red pillows.
In the middle of it all, Uncle Jacob was standing with a sheepish grin on his face.
“Hi, Amanda! Hi, Margaret!” he greeted us.
“Hi, Uncle Jacob!” I greeted him back.
Mom took one look at him and raised an eyebrow. “Let me guess—you just got kicked out of the kitchen, right?”
He laughed. “Right you are. It was just a cookie, though.”
At that moment, I heard a soft meow and turned to find a white cat with deep brown spots and a head of deep brown fur padding softly towards us. She let out another meow and Buddy answered with a joyful bark, rushing towards her.
Dad shook his head. “Whoever said cats and dogs can’t get along together have certainly never heard of these two.”
“Well, you might want to keep them apart while we’re making dinner,” Mom laughed. “You remember what happened last Christmas?”
“That time they swiped off a plate of roast beef?” I laughed, shaking my head.
“That was perfectly good beef, too!”
We burst into laughter at the memory of our Christmas dinner, which Buddy and Cookie decided to have a go at much earlier than planned. Fortunately, there were a lot more dishes than the one they pilfered so we didn’t really go hungry that night.
Still, it was something to watch out for because the two of them were really prone to getting up to all sorts of mischievous deeds.
Right now, they had settled close to the couch, cuddling each other.
Mom squeezed my arm and smiled at me. “I’ve got to go back to the kitchen. Your aunt and Anna are still in there.”
“I’ll go with you,” I volunteered.
I walked into the kitchen and found my cousin, Anna, decorating the cookies with red, white, and blue icing. There were rectangle-shaped cookies, round ones, and even star-shaped ones on the tray. When she heard us come in, she looked up and grinned at me, her brown eyes turning into cheerful crescents. She squealed, dropped the icing bag, and we ran to each other, hugging.
“It’s been so long since I last saw you!” I told her. “You look absolutely gorgeous!”
Anna blushed a little and swatted my arm. “Awww, like you don’t look absolutely pretty yourself!”
We kept on laughing and romping around like little girls. Anna and I were about the same age, and we often played with each other when we were kids. We would visit each other during summer vacations and had a lot of fun. Even as teens we loved to hang out together and whenever we now see each other, we’re like the two teen girls we used to be. She was dressed in a red, wraparound dress with tiny white polka dots.
Beside her, my Aunt Martha was brushing butter over a bowl of corn wheels. Like Anna, she had deep brown hair but her eyes were the same green as mine and my mom’s.
“Oh, that smells absolutely wonderful!” I breathed.
“Well, your mom decided to go all-out. We’re just here to support her,” Aunt Martha laughed, walking over to give me a great big hug. “Look at you. Aren’t you the exact copy of your mother when she was younger!”
Mom laughed. “Not quite. This version is certainly prettier than the original.”
I rolled my eyes at them and turned to Anna for help. She just laughed and shrugged her slender shoulders.
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I just got out of it a couple of hours ago.”
“Well, pretty moms make pretty daughters. What else can we say?” Aunt Martha beamed.
And she was right—Anna with her soft curls that were cut just at shoulder-length and large, luminous brown eyes looked like a Hollywood star.
