Her Unexpected Life

Chapter 11

Cereza's POV
CHRISTMAS EVE

Penelope left after a while and shortly after Mom came home.

The house was decorated, so all that was left, was the food. Cooking during the holidays is iffy for me. Sometimes I like helping my mom cook, and sometimes I don't.

I'm excited this year, because we have more people coming over. I wanted to make sure we had plenty of food.

I woke up the next morning tired, but ready.

We're making a chicken this year!

I usually ask for ham, but I'm so over ham for the holidays. Turkey is so Thanksgiving, so chicken is the only bird left.

"Ready to help your Mom cook?" Mom asks.

"Yeah." I say.

"Good. Start peeling those potatoes, and then I want you put a pot of water on the stove. I'll start the mac 'n cheese." She said.

"Okay." I said going into the cabinets.

It was pretty boring doing all of this without music, so I connected my phone to the sound bar we have in our living room and put on my Christmas playlist.

"Oh Santa," by Mariah Carey, was the first song on the list.

"Oh Santa, if you get this letter, won't you help me out?" I sang as I peeled potatoes.

I was dancing in place. Mariah Carey really is the grandmother of Christmas.

"After you peel those potatoes, cut them into cubes." Mom said.

"You want me to cut them cubes? Like accurate?" I ask.

"I mean, they won't be accurate, but cut a chunk of potato, cut that in half, then cut the half in half." Mom says making the motion with her hand.

"Okay." I said.

"When you done, we'll save half for the potato salad, and the other half for the mash potatoes." She said.

I cubed the potatoes and placed them in cold water to prevent them from browning while the water heats up.

Mom already had a pot on the stove the boil the macaroni in. "They're singing deck the halls, but it's not like Christmas at all!" I sang.

I went in the refrigerator and grabbed a bag of green beans. I started cleaning then breaking them in half. I forgot we were having sweet potatoes, so I'll have to peel those too. We put marshmallows on ours.

Mmm, marshmallows.

My stomach growled. I turned down the music. "Moooom, I'm hungry." I whined.

"You know, I'm hungry too." She said. "What do you want to eat?" Mom asks.

"I don't know. I just was gonna go with whatever you wanted." I said.

"But, I don't know what I want." She said.

I started to think. "Mexican?" I ask.

"No...." Mom says trailing off.

"Chinese?"

"No.."

"Greek?

"No, we just had that."

"African?"

"No."

"Burgers?"

"No."

Spaghetti? No, wait. Pizza!" I exclaimed. It's been a minute since we've had pizza.