Nathan & Rachel
The BIG Christmas Blunder
Sandra L. Portman
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Copyright © 2013 Sandra L. Portman
Illustrations by Sandra L. Portman
Character Images Iryna Novytsky (123rf.com)
Book Cover idrewdesign
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Table of Contents
Nathan & Rachel - The BIG Christmas Blunder
More books by Sandra L. Portman
Nathan & Rachel
The BIG Christmas Blunder
Christmas is Nathan's favorite holiday, except for his birthday, of course. Your birthday, however, only lasts one day, while Christmas is celebrated for one whole month.
During the month, many holiday traditions are performed. Nathan refers to them as the Christmas traditions and repetitions. Every year Nathan, who is nine, and his family repeat all the traditions they celebrated the year before. Waiting for Santa to come on Christmas Eve is painful because every single day in the month is so long. To Nathan and his sister Rachel, who is now four years old, December feels like an entire year.
At the beginning of December the family decorates the tree and the inside of their home, while Nathan's father hangs the Christmas lights on the outside of the house. Nathan's father likes to decorate the exterior of the house by putting lights on the bushes and around the windows. This really makes their house stand out on their street. In fact, their house is so bright, you could say it hurts your eyes if you look at it too long.
Nathan's father reminds the family every year how lucky they are to have an artificial tree in a box. When he was a boy, their family had to drive to the nearest Christmas tree lot to find a tree. These were spaces set up every year at Christmas to sell Christmas trees shipped from other parts of the country where evergreen trees like spruce, pine, and firs grew.
"We would walk around the Christmas tree lot for a long time, searching for the perfect tree to hang our decorations on," Nathan's father would say. "Once we found the perfect tree, the owners of the lot would trim the base of the tree and affix a stand so the tree would stand upright in the house. Then the tree was put on top of our car and strapped down with a thick rope to make sure it didn't fall off while we drove home."
Nathan often wished they could go to a Christmas tree lot and pick out a real tree, but they had their tree in the box. All they had to do was take it out, put it together, and start hanging the decorations. Even the lights were already on the Christmas tree.
During December, Nathan and Rachel's mother did most of the Christmas shopping in the local stores. Once Nathan asked his mother why she didn't just order her presents on the computer. She told him she preferred to shop in their town to support the community. That made sense to Nathan, but he still thought it would be easier to shop on the computer and avoid the crowds.
Rachel especially liked looking at all the Christmas cards that came in the mail. During the month, they received a bundle of cards because they had a large family and lots of friends. Many of those friends were business associates of their father, but they still counted as friends, and this meant a lot more Christmas cards. Rachel and her mother hung the cards on red and green ribbon on the closet door in the entry. This meant they could look at the pretty cards all month long.
One of the most important activities during the month was the Christmas baking that Rachel's mother did. She always started early so she would have enough time to complete all the recipes she wanted to bake. Some of these recipes were for cookies, muffins, loaves, and cakes.
Rachel could hardly wait for the day they were scheduled to bake sugar cookies. Rachel helped her mother to decorate the cookies with frosting, sprinkles, candy-coated dots, and jellies. These sugar cookies took much longer than the candy cane cookies, which were her second favorite cookies to bake. The candy cane cookies only had to be separated into red and plain cookie dough. Then the dough was rolled out and shaped into candy canes and sprinkled with sugar.
When Rachel and her mother complete a holiday recipe, they put the baked confections into a special holiday tin to stay fresh throughout the month. By the time they had finished all the holiday baking, they had enough cookies and muffins to share with family and friends. Rachel helped her mother wrap these as gifts to be given out during the month.
Nathan was standing in the living room, enjoying his holiday thoughts when his mother interrupted him. They were getting ready to drop off canned goods for the regional food bank. All they had to do was drive to a grocery store and drop the cans in the red barrels provided to collect all donations.
"Nathan, I need you to help me put these cans in the bags I picked up for the food bank. We can go to the grocery store to drop them off as soon as all the cans are in the bags."
"Sure Mom, I'm coming," Nathan replied.
Nathan walked into the kitchen pantry to help his mom. They worked together to place the cans his mom selected into the bags.
"You sure have a lot of cans to donate," Nathan said.
"Yes, I do! I was thinking of these donations while grocery shopping for the last two months, and it appears, I gathered more than I can use for my holiday cooking. It will be nice to be able to donate more cans than I have in the past," she explained.
As they were finishing the second bag, Rachel joined them in the pantry.
"Mommy, I want to help," Rachel moaned.
"That's all right, Rachel. We're almost done. You can help Nathan take one of the bags to the car." Rachel's mother told her.
Nathan, Rachel, and their mother drove to the grocery store. It was a sunny day, with immense, bouncy clouds in the sky. Once they arrived at the store, they all helped to place the bags in the red barrels.
"OK kids, now let's get home and start dinner. Your dad is flying back from Houston, and so far his plane is on schedule. I want to make sure we have dinner ready for him, so he can relax. Flying on an airplane makes your daddy very tired."
Nathan and Rachel thought about their dad and agreed with their mother; he was always tired from a long business trip.
They arrived back at the house, and Nathan's mother started cooking.
"Kids - go wash your hands and come back to set the table for dinner," she instructed.
Nathan and Rachel walked down the hallway to their bathroom to wash up. They shared a bathroom between their bedrooms. Their mother told them it was called a Jack and Jill bathroom. Jack and Jill were an early nursery rhyme about a boy and a girl.
Nathan was done washing his hands first and patiently waited for Rachel to finish. As Rachel stood on the step stool to finish rinsing her hands, Nathan noticed the water dripping down the cabinets.
"Rachel - you're dripping water. Hold your hands over the sink so you don't get more water on the floor," Nathan instructed.
"I can't help it, Nathan. The water just keeps falling, and I can't stop it," Rachel protested.
Nathan waited until Rachel was done with the water and then showed her how to wipe it up.
Nathan's mother did not like water left on the countertops and especially not on the floor.
When the water had been cleaned up, Nathan and Rachel returned to the kitchen to start setting the table. Earlier in the month, their mother had reminded them how important it was to help out, and to show kindness and consideration. Rachel still didn't understand consideration. It seemed just like kindness to her, but her parents assured her it was different.
With dinner preparations under way, Nathan and Rachel watched cartoons while waiting for their father to get home from the airport.
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