Snow Cookies

“As the grey skies shed their first snowy tear, these snow cookies come only this time of year.”

Charlie looked at his Auntie skeptically as she finished her recitation, hands twisting in the air for dramatic effect. The first snowfall at her cabin had always been quite the event.

Since he was little, Auntie always had some mystical trick down her boot, morphing ice crystals onto objects out of thin air, or pulling mysterious greens and red lights out of his ears or belly button.

He hung on every moment of magic back then, fascinated by things his tiny mind just couldn't comprehend. But, let's be for real here, he was 12 now! Did she really think he hadn't figured out there wasn't any magic in magic? Skill, sure. Illusion, definitely. But there was always an explanation.

“AND SO,” Auntie proclaimed, snapping him back to the present, “today I teach you of the magic required to bake a snow cookie!”

Charlie perked up at this. “Wait, you're going to teach me the magic?”

“Of course!” Auntie huffed indignantly, handing him a recipe card. “You're getting old enough to start creating a little magic on your own. You'll collect the icy ingredients on this card, and turn each one into the baking item you'll need.”

Charlie read through the card, his excitement quickly turning to skepticism once again.

Snow Cookies

3 cups freshly fallen snow

1 teaspoon airborne snowflakes

1 tablespoon tree back, ground

½ cup icicles, coarsely ground

2 tightly packed snowballs

1 cup river water, frosty

Charlie looked at his Auntie with sullen irritation. “This is all going to turn into water. Is the magic bit that the water cookies are low calorie?”

Auntie smiled slyly. “Each item turns into an ingredient, and you need to use your intuition to figure out which turns to which. Be warned, non-believers don't get snow cookies.”

And with that, she snatched up her basket, and was out the back door. Charlie rolled his eyes and grabbed a basket.

Outside, they scooped up a small mountain of freshly fluffy snow, and trotted back inside. He grabbed a spoon and filled his mixing bowl to the brim with what, predictably, became ice water.

Charlie shook his head and shot a look at his Auntie, and what he saw had him fully aghast. Her bowl was full of fresh, not fluffy, flour!

That couldn't be possible. And yet, they’d gotten back to the kitchen at the same time . . .

Auntie glanced back at him and smiled sweetly. “How's it going, kiddo?” She spotted the bowl of icy water and chuckled. “Awww, it didn't turn into flour! That's okay, take some of mine, I got extra just in case.”

Yeah sure, Charlie thought to himself. He was definitely smelling a rat.

And so, back they went into the cold to catch teaspoons full of falling flurries. He made sure to keep an extra close watch on her as they entered the kitchen.

He plopped the snowflakes into his bowl and, predictably, it landed in a wet icy PLOP! onto the flour.

He looked over at his Auntie again. To his utter frustration, he saw that in her teaspoon sat a neat little heap of baking soda. She innocently inquired “What's wrong, did yours not transform? Awwww it's okay, I'll make you some after we grab the tree bark!”

And do the afternoon went, Charlie becoming more and more perplexed despite his very best efforts to uncover his Auntie’s deception.

Her tree back ground to cinnamon, and her icicles turned to sugar, and her snowballs turned to eggs.

Meanwhile, his ingredients were melting ice, melting ice, and oh yes, melting ice!

He was just about ready to walk off into the woods and become one with the snowmen when Auntie finally made a mistake.

As they reentered the kitchen with their jars of ice water, and his unsurprisingly splatted into the bowl as yet more water, he caught something at the corner of his eye.

Auntie had ever so carefully closed a drawer by her hip. He looked over quickly, but she was nonchalantly mixing milk into her dough.

Charlie grabbed his bowl and brought it to her with sad puppy eyes. She reassured him that they could just use milk from the fridge at this point, and when she gambled away, he peeked in the drawer.

Inside were cups and spoons dusted with leftover powder, and glossy from liquids long gone. THIS is how she was pulling it off. Well she wasn't the only one who could be sneaky.

~✨️~

Auntie smiled to herself as she watched the snow cookies rise golden and crisp in the oven. She really hadn't thought her little plan would work, but the afternoon had gone splendidly!

She chuckled to herself as she crossed into the living room. She was so happy she managed to keep magic alive for her favorite kiddo one more year.

His newly-sprouted suspicious nature meant having to come to terms that he was growing up, so soon it would be time to actually teach him the method behind the magic.

It was a bittersweet feeling, a new chapter beginning at the loss of the old one.

After setting the couch up with a mountain of blankets and setting up a Christmas movie, she went back to the kitchen for the final step. But her joy quickly turned to bewilderment as she opened the oven.

The tray was lines with water. Just . . . Hot water. Where were the cookies?!

A munching sound from behind had her spinning around to face Charlie, eating smugly from a plate of the cookies, the cups and spoons she’d tucked into the drawer laid out beside it.

She pointed accusingly at him. “You little sh-”

Charlie threw his hands up. “WOAH WOAH, swear jar, one dollar!”

“I DIDN'T ACTUALLY SAY IT!” Auntie shrieked back.

They both stared at each other, but barely suppressed laughter quickly turned into peals of hiccuping giggles.

"Okay kid, have your laugh, bur I have a whole year to plan something you'll never see coming.”

Charlie did a little wavy dance of triumph out of the kitchen. “Bring it on, old lady!”

Auntie scoffed. The audacity of youth. But pride bloomed in her chest, for she knew what Charlie didn't. Cheesy tricks were a great time, but real magic was passed on through memories.