Thinking of the time when Grammy and I crept down the stairs around midnight on Christmas Eve to make cookies because we could not sleep. We had already watched three Christmas movies; however, we were having too much fun, giggling in my squishy bed, to actually go to sleep. Once we made it downstairs, we started to get the cookies dough out of the fridge. The wrapping of the cookie dough was so loud, but so were we. We did not care though. We finally got the cookies into the oven and the delicious smell started to fill the house. Sadly, we forgot about the cookies, and a burnt smell of cookies then filled the house. My dad was rather upset when he woke up to this smell because he has a “sensitive nose” as he calls it. However, since it was a tradition to have my grandmother over Christmas Eve he laughed with us at the expense of our, sad burnt cookies. After we threw away the cookies, we quietly went upstairs to try to get some sleep before it was time to open presents in the morning.

We eventually went to sleep around two in the morning, and we had a hilarious morning together opening presents. Memories like this are what make me so happy to think of her. As I sit in my room, on her birthday, thinking of all the wonderful times I had with her, I smile. Even though I am missing her greatly today, I think of yet another memory of her. I remember the time when we were at my cousin’s wedding and her favorite dancing song came on, Sweet Caroline. She grabbed me by hands and pulled me onto the dance floor. I do not particularly love to dance; however, when we started to dance a huge fit of laughter came over the both of us. This was my absolute favorite memory of dancing in my whole life. The only time I truly enjoyed dancing was when we were both so giggly on the dance floor that we did not care what was happening or who was watching. This is another memory that came to my mind while I was thinking of her on her birthday. However, I think my most cherished memory that I thought of that day was of time together in Diamondhead. She had a house in Diamondhead, Mississippi where the whole family would go to for a weekend. However, Grammy, my cousin Jen, and I would go over to this house every summer for a couple of days, and we would have so much fun. We would have so much fun, for example, we would make forts in the walk-in closets, paint our nails, watch movies, and have swim races in the pool. The last time we ever went to her house in Mississippi, we all got sick; however, Grammy knew just the thing to do for our coughs. She pulled out her bottle of honey and she cut up a lemon. Then she mixed the honey and lemon juice together, and she gave each of us a spoonful of this “medicine” that she made. It really did help us because the next day we were cough free, for the most part.

Missing Grammy on her birthday was evidently going to happen to me because we were so close. However, I wanted to be happy on her birthday, so by thinking of all our favorite memories together, I had a pretty good day.