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Sunday, December 11, 2016

Richard Scarry’s The Animals’ Merry Christmas


Stories by Kathryn Jackson
Illustrated by Richard Scarry

Copyright 1950



I was lucky to find this book full of heartwarming Christmas stories, all charmingly illustrated by one of my favorites, Richard Scarry.  Since each story and poem is special and touches on the true meaning of Christmas, I had a difficult time choosing which to focus on in this post. I decided instead to write about a different story or poem each week until Christmas. 
 
One poem near the end of the book brought back a sudden rush of childhood memories.  Sugar cookies!  Specifically, my sisters and I baking and decorating sugar cookies.  Since I was the youngest and not the best at rolling out the dough, Marty or Amy had that job.  I don’t even have memories of cutting out the shapes, and I’m sure Marty handled the hot oven part.  But my task was the best of all – sprinkling the colored sugar!  I was teased (of course, because that’s what siblings do) about getting more sugar on the cookie sheet than on the cookies.  Of course, there was some extra raw dough to roll in sugar and pop in your mouth.  And then, after baking, a few broke and we would have to eat those up right away.

I suppose we ended up with a big plate of decorated sugar cookies, but that’s not what I remember.  I remember the best part – the laughter, the teasing, the mess, and the fun.  

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