Vlogmas: a YouTube Christmas Special [YouTube]

Day 20

On the twentieth day of Vlogmas, YouTube gave to me:

Ol' Sugar (Dan Howell [danisnotonfire])

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"Sugar cookies, of course," you say, dog-earing a page in the holiday edition of your favourite cooking magazine. "Ezra likes Italian wedding cookies and Heidi likes snickerdoodle."

"What about shortbread?" Dan suggests, sliding across the lino in his socked feet to lean over your shoulder. It's pretty easy since you're sitting on the floor and he's about eleven feet tall.

You nod. "Shortbread would be nice, but they probably won't look very pretty since I don't have a proper piping bag tip."

"It's the thought that counts," he says with a shrug. "It's not like the sugar cookies are going to look flawless, either. And I don't even know what Italian wedding cookies are."

You wave your hand dismissively. "Don't worry, they're a lot easier to make than they sound. Just be glad we're not trying to make divinity. What about you and Phil? What cookies do you guys like?

Dan leans back against the counter on his hands. "We're simple men with simple needs. Chocolate chip suits us just fine."

Great." You pull yourself up off the floor and spread the magazine out on the worktop. "Let's get baking."

The endeavour starts out fairly well. The first batch of chocolate chip cookies comes out perfectly, followed by a slightly underdone batch and then another dozen on the crispy side, but all in all you and Dan decide to call it a success. You even stay optimistic and do some quick improvisational problem-solving when Dan has a brief fit of dyslexia and puts the wrong measurement of flour into the dough for the Italian wedding cookies. However, your enthusiasm is quickly quelled when you go to take the sugar cookie dough that Dan had made a few hours earlier out of the refrigerator.

"Oh my sweet baby Jesus on a bicycle," you utter, lifting the mixing bowl from the fridge shelf where he'd left it. "Dan."

"What?" He cranes his neck to look at you, finger holding his place in the cooking magazine.

"Look at this." You can't take your eyes off the disaster that is your sugar cookie dough.

Dan approaches and peers into the bowl from behind you. "Jesus Christ," he mutters under his breath in horror. "Is it supposed to look like that?"

You glare at him, snorting derisively. "Is white sugar cookie dough is supposed to be brown? What do you think, Dan?" you ask with no small amount of sarcasm.

He laughs a little, holding up his floury hands. "Hey, you've seen my baking videos, I barely know which way is up." His smile fades when he sees the expression on your face. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he looks back at the failed dough. "Can we salvage it or is it dead?"

You sigh and poke at the lump of dough. It's hard and dry. "There's nothing for it. We'll have to take it out back and shoot it out of mercy."

"Is this comparison to Old Yeller deliberate or accidental?"

The lump makes a hard clunk as it hits the bottom of the tin rubbish bin. "He was the best dough I ever had."

A moment of silence passes between you two, and then the kitchen fills with irreverent giggling. Still snickering, you toss your keys to Dan. "Okay, fun's over. Go get some sugar cookie dough from the shop, screwball."

"Yes, chef!" He does his little shuffle-run out of the kitchen.

"Ass!" you call after Dan. A faint 'yes, chef!' floats down the hallway just before the front door slams behind him.

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A/N:

Wattpad is officially the worst. Sorry for that code mishap!

Happy Christmas
virtues