Lea twisted the Perplexus ball she held in her hands. The ball rolled slightly along the track, advancing towards the next turn. If she wasn’t careful, the –

CLANK.

– ball would fall off the track.

She set the ball of frustration onto the bed beside her and groaned. It was Christmas Eve, and Lea was bored out of her mind. It was too much to sit in the living room and watch TV while you could see a pile of gifts out of the corner of your eye. It didn’t help that none of her sisters (besides Jamie) were home. Tay was at indoor soccer practice, the other dolls were doing some late minute Christmas shopping, and Jamie was the only one home. Probably doing some online browsing, or something.. Lea thought. She said on the bed for several minutes, too lazy to get up.

When she heard footsteps approaching, Lea opened her eyes and saw Jamie walk through the doorway with a slight smirk on her face.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Absolutely nothing,” Lea responded. “I’m so bored. Why aren’t you out shopping with the others?”

Jamie laughed. “I got ALL my Christmas shopping done ages ago. And if you’re bored, you can get up off the bed for starters.”

“Yeah, good idea.” Lea said, and laughed. She stood up and stretched.

“Hey,” said Jamie, “I know what we could do. Grace just bought this gingerbread house kit thing.  I was thinking of building it. Do you wanna help?”

“Uh.. Do you think we should?” Lea asked cautiously.

“Of course, it’ll be fine.” Jamie said, starting up the stairs. “Do you wanna help, or not?”

“Right behind you,” Lea replied.

In the kitchen, Lea found a Santa hat and a Christmas apron laying out.

“We should put these on,” She said, trying the strings of the apron behind her back.

Jamie gingerly set the festive cap on her head and made a face. “I look completely ridiculous.”

“Oh, come on. You need to get into the ‘Christmas spirit!'” Lea explained.

Jamie sighed and let the hat stay on her head.

The two girls got out the gingerbread house kit and took out the decorations, structure pieces, and instruction manual that were included.

Lea pulled out a box of candy canes she had found in the pantry and decided to use those as well.

Jamie set out the candies and sprinkles and Lea took to whipping up the frosting using the included recipe.

“That’s pretty thin icing,” Jamie remarked.

Lea’s eyes were glued to the spinning beater. “I think it’s supposed to harden later on.”

“Oh, okay.” Jamie replied. She snuck a gumdrop from the bowl and popped it into her mouth when Lea wasn’t looking.

After Lea filled the piping bags with the royal icing, Jamie and Lea began the task of assembling the base. After it fell over several times, they got it up with the roof on.

“No one told me making these houses is this hard,” Lea said, licking one of her fingers that had frosting on it. It didn’t help that Jamie wasn’t helping build. Lea could see her sneaking candies once in a while out of the corner of her eye.

Once it was sturdy, Jamie began adding candy as Lea finished the edges and added windows and a door.

“Woah, don’t go so heavy on the candy,  Jamie!” Lea joked, “We don’t want the roof to cave in.”

“Don’t worry,” Jamie said coolly, adding another gumdrop to the chimney. “I only add what is necessary.”

Once Jamie had added all the candies that could fit on the house AND the base, and Lea had made snow around the edges, they set down the icing bags and admired their creation.

“It’s so pretty, we did a great job,” Jamie said. “It looks like something out of an American Girl magazine!”

“Funny you should say that..” Lea replied, “I feel as if I’ve seen it before somewhere. A gingerbread house exactly like this.”

“You probably saw it on the box.”Jamie offered.

Then she popped a sugar-coated wafer into her mouth.

“I saw that,” Lea accused, turning to the kitchen. “You want an eggnog?”

“Sure,” Jamie said, chewing.

Lea prepared the eggnog and added some whipped cream on top, along with a peppermint stick stirred. The two girls sat down at the table with their drinks and admired their new creation.

“I can’t wait to eat it.” Jamie said, eyeing Lea.

“Wait, eat it?” Lea asked, baffled, “We just made it!!”

Jamie shrugged. “I know.. but we’ve got to eat it before Grace comes home – she was saving it for our Christmas Party tonight.”

Lea stared at Jamie in shock as Jamie broke off a piece of the chimney and stuck it into her mouth.

Laughing, Lea shook her head. “Oh Jamie…” She trailed off.

And she popped a gumdop in her mouth.

The End

Epilouge: Grace came home and was not surprised to see the girls had used the gingerbread house kit, which is why she had bought another while she was out. XD

Merry Christmas Eve! Do you have any special traditions for this day?

– American Girl Doll Artist