Aspen Holiday

Chapter 11 - Christmas Eve

"I'm back." Another, deeper voice entered the conversation as Ace started to strip down his layers, shaking the snow off of himself.

I momentarily forgot about Caleb and I's previous discussion, turning towards my big brother. "Hiya Ace!" I waved my hand exaggeratedly.

He looked at me a little funny, a slight smirk playing at his face. He handed Caleb a grocery bag before coming over to me and kissing my head.

"Morning, Joes."

I sent him a dimpled grin.

"What is for breakfast? And what're we doing today?" I questioned.

"Breakfast is pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, waffles, and smokies." Caleb listed off pointing to each place that the dish is done or being prepared at. "And today we'll just have a normal Christmas Eve. Like what we do at home. Good?"

"Yep! Sounds good."

I was secretly hoping we'd just have a normal Christmas Eve as I was a little scared that we wouldn't be doing our normal traditions that I love so much at home.

Our tradition is that each of us opens up one present on Christmas Eve, it's supposed to be random — but spoiler alert, it's always Christmas PJ's. We have a cookie decorating competition (where everyone wins) and then we sit down and watch a movie together before putting out cookies and milk for Santa and going to bed!

***

"Ready for the judging!" Caleb practically screamed, drumming his fingers on the table to increase the suspense.

It was that time of the night! Ace, Caleb, and I had just spent the last hour or so decorating our cookies. Trying to come up with new and original ideas (something Ace needs to work on a little bit...) so we can manage to win the cookie decorating competition.

Caleb always has the biggest mess with the cookies that have a crazy amount of frosting or sprinkles. But he does manage to pull out one or two maybe even three cookies that are actually really good! He is also the one that eats the most during the cookie decorating competition. So all in all, I guess he's the one who uses ... or wastes the most cookies. You can decide.

Ace is kinda the opposite as he normally only decorates five as an absolute maximum and normally only two or three but the ones he does are usually super intricate and detailed. And I know my big brother does not know that much about cookie decorating of all things so I think a couple hours before he google's little tricks.

I usually do a decent amount of cookies and some I try hard on, others I just do all one color or some sort of simple pattern. I may not have the best ones ... but I always make sure mine look really good to eat and they don't look like a complete and utter hot mess like my honorary brother.

"What's the first category?" I asked Ace, our resistance judge.

Ace has been the judge for as long as I can remember but he isn't the best judge seeing as everyone wins.

The rules go like this; Ace proposes three categories (one for each of us) and the categories are different every single year. Then each person submits a cookie (it can be anyones, doesn't have to be their own) and Ace decides which cookie wins for that round. The owner of that cookie is the one who wins the round and the prize. Prizes are usually like a candy bag or something like that.

"First category..." Ace began, locking eyes with both me and Caleb. "Best Aspen cookie."

I quickly surveyed the cookie I was going to choose. Unless I don't have a cookie that comes even close to fitting the requirements I usually pick mine — gives me a higher chance of winning!