Gingerbread Love

It was the first year that they weren't there, the first year that everyone would have to celebrate the holidays without the cheer and unbound love that their Grandmother Kitty brought with her each year. A year without the playful grandmotherly jabs, the warm hugs when something doesn't go right, and who could forget the scent of freshly warm gingerbread having just come out of the oven from baking? It was the first year that they would be without Grandmother Kitty and the love that she brought with her during the holidays, but one person was determined to keep that love alive.

Standing in the kitchen, powdered sugar coated hands rested on the dainty hips of a young woman. Her golden brown hair was tied up in a messy bun, strands dangling down into her face as she stared at the ingredients in front of her. The apron she wore was covered in egg and powdered sugar, her hair dusted a white from having run her fingers through it numerous times and a determination within her sapphire blue eyes showed the fire of determination within her.

Her name, Katherine, named after her late grandmother who had passed away just months prior to the Christmas Season beginning.

Katherine had been standing in front of the counter all morning, determined to remember just how her late Grandmother Kitty had made her special Gingerbread Cookies. The very cookies that had brought so much joy to so many within the family when they came over. Seeing the little designs upon them, smiling gingerbread faces, little gingerbread dresses or overalls to make it look like the cookies were clothed. Each one was never the same as the other, each unique in their own way, but each one always showed the care and love that her Grandmother Kitty put into making them.

From somewhere within the kitchen, a timer dinged, indicating another batch of gingerbread had finished baking and would need cooling.

Katherine turned around, her eyes falling on the oven. She quickly walked over, slid on her candy-cane oven mitts and opened the oven. Hit with a burst of heat, it took a moment before she could pull the cookies from their resting place on the upper rack of the oven. Upon doing so, she set the hot pan of cookies on top of the stove and looked at the freshly baked cookies. It was as if they were under scrutiny, being judged just by their appearance. Which that in itself was not going to prove anything or if they were the same as her grandmother's.

A sigh left the young woman's lips, reaching for one of the steaming hot cookies, she broke the head off of one and blew on the soft baked dough. Carefully, she took a bite of the cookie, hissing slightly as the dough burnt her tongue. Regardless, she managed to chew it and get a decent tasting of the cookie.

Tilting her head, Katherine let her mind mull over the flavor, texture, everything that the cookie was...minus the icing she would have to wait to put on till it cooled. However, it tasted nothing like what her Grandmother Kitty's cookies tasted like. Everything she made just tasted overly dull and didn't have that same spark that her Grandmother's cookies had had.

In frustration, Katherine turned and groaned, tossing the small bitten head of the gingerbread onto the baking pan with the remainder of the cookies.

"What am I doing wrong? Why can't I get the recipe right?"

Katherine huffed out, placing her hands on the counter top and looking towards the last batch of cookies she had baked. Why couldn't she remember the recipe that her grandmother had used? The one that had been such a big part of her childhood, one that she never wanted to forget, that she wanted to pass on to her own children as they got older. Just as her thought's were reaching a pinnacle height, the kitchen door opened and her older brother walked in.

"Hey, what's taking so long?"

"Nothing, just having issues remembering the recipe."

Katherine hated that she had to admit that, a recipe she had watched her grandmother use numerous times over and over. One she should have had memorized by this point. The chuckle that came from her brother as he walked further into the room and over towards where she stood caused her to stand up straight and turn to face him.

"Kat, you need to just relax and not try so hard. I'm sure you'll figure it out..."

Resting his hands upon her shoulders, her brother gave a gentle reassuring smile.

"...remember what Granny K said when baking?"

"Yeah~"

"What did she say?"

Katherine sighed heavily and shifted the weight from one foot to the other, her eyes rolling to the side as she remembered the very words that her grandmother Kitty had spoken to her and her brother many a times over.

"She said the most important thing about baking is love. You don't force your creations, they just come to you and...."

As her eyes widened, Katherine looked towards her brother who was smiling at her.

"See, I told you that you'd figure it out. Now hurry up, you're driving the guests crazy in there with the scent of gingerbread but nothing to show for."

With a laugh and a gentle kiss pressed to Katherine's forehead, she watched as her brother disappeared from the kitchen. She was once more left alone with her baking supplies and some not so perfect baked gingerbread. However, it was at that point she realized what was missing from her cookies and just smiled. The one ingredient she had been forgetting this entire time.

Turning to the ingredients that she needed for her gingerbread cookies, Katherine nodded and began work once more. However, this time, she knew what she had to do to make them taste as amazing as her Grandmother's did. The one ingredient that gave her Grandmother Kitty's that extra spark and warmth to them.

Love.

She had been forcing it, trying too hard to get it exactly like her Grandmother's that she didn't realize that her Grandmother's was nothing more than an ordinary cookie. It was an ordinary cookie that was infused with love. A love so strong for her family that it made her cookies so special, so irresistibly warm and comforting that it made you feel like you were being wrapped in a warm hug with every bite.

So, instead of forcing herself to find one recipe that fit her Grandmother Kitty's, Katherine had turned to taking her time and making sure that the cookies were made her way. Made to her liking and filled with all the love and happiness she had for the holidays, just as her Grandmother Kitty would have done when baking her cookies.