Sometimes hard work doesn’t pay off. I could spend my days working on a piece of written work, only to have it not even matter in the end. Or at least that’s how I felt prior to last year.

During the holiday season, with it’s loud wind whipping against the windows like a sledgehammer, my parents and I decided to make homemade cookies. We had never done that before, despite our best efforts to always come up with something creative for Christmas.

My mom helped mold the first two batches, my dad with the next two. We laid out a tarp on our dining table in hopes the clean up would be easier. We didn’t know any better.

The gooey cookie dough and the flour that somewhat resembled the crisp white snow outside our windows was on nearly every patch of the surrounding area. When we attempted forming perfectly round balls, they fell apart almost immediately.

The smell of them browning in the oven was enough to get us to constantly check to see if they were done. It felt as if I aged 20 times over by the time they were done. We spent our time waiting by cleaning up the christmas cookie chaos. At that point, I had wished I just did nothing instead.

All of the cookies surprisingly turned out—but the best were the chocolate cherry cookie, as red as a rose and crispy yet somehow soft at the same time. The fruit inside provided a dash of sourness to combat the sweetness of the actual cookie. Having made something so delicious, I had known the hard work definitely paid off.