Memoir: Nonna

Nonna

I grabbed the milk from the fridge and poured two cups in the globby mixture. The sound of Michael Bublé’s Christmas album playing in the background.

“Do you want to mix it?” My grandma asked smiling at me. Every time I saw her face she lit up my world. It felt like all the bad things went away when I was with her. She made everything better.

I smiled and took the blender from her hand and pushed the grey switch up to 3 with my thumb. The metal hands on the machine started spinning as I stirred the sugar cookie batter. She took a handful of flour and sprinkled it over the wooden table across from the kitchen. Then, I dumped the gooey blob and flattened it with the rolling pin.

“I’m so glad you’re staying for Christmas,” grandma said as she pressed down on the dough with a metal outline of a little man.

I grabbed the christmas tree cookie cutter and smiled up at her, “Me too. This is my favorite place in the world.

“Amen!” My dad yelled from the living room which made us giggle. We put the cutouts of Christmas symbols on a tray and put them in the oven.

“What do you want to do now?”

“Let’s play a game,” I suggested.

“Great idea.” She smiled and grabbed the stack of cards at the end of the table. Then she spread out all the cards and moved them around sloppily in a circle and straightened them, one after the other. “And that’s how pros do it”

She took a sip of her coffee and gently set it down, then began to deal every other card to me. Without looking at the cards I said, “One. Two. Three. War.” We both flipped the card from the top of our stack. I layed down a 5 spades and she, a 9 diamonds. In the next twenty minutes we played war over and over and hummed along to christmas songs. She won. Of course. The all-star champion of car games. As soon as we knew it the oven timer had gone off.

We traced each cookie with white, green, and red icing then scattered sprinkles over them. “Dinner’s ready!” we joked. I was so glad to be there. I was so thankful to be able to spend time with the one I love so very dearly.