Before Christmas Mom and I went over to Nini and Pop Pop’s house to bake more Christmas cookies. This year Nini showed me her Christmas snow globes. You shake them (carefully) and snow falls all around everything and then you turn a little knob on the bottom and music plays—there were even small ones that I could shake!
After turning on all the snow globes, I was put in charge of unwrapping Hershey Kisses. Nini and Mom were very impressed with my dedication to the task. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize I was unwrapping chocolate—that I could eat—until I was almost done. That’s when I got a little sidetracked. Then there was more eating and less unwrapping.
Mom made some dough and I got to help her roll the balls in sugar. Then I got less interested in cooking and more interested in exploring upstairs. So Nini and Mom took turns baking and watching me—a fun day.
“Inside the snow globe on my father’s desk, there was a penguin wearing a red-and-white-striped scarf. When I was little my father would pull me into his lap and reach for the snow globe. He would turn it over, letting all the snow collect on the top, then quickly invert it. The two of us watched the snow fall gently around the penguin. The penguin was alone in there, I thought, and I worried for him. When I told my father this, he said, ‘Don’t worry, Susie; he has a nice life. He’s trapped in a perfect world.'” —Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones