Lucy, a bright girl at the age of six, stood on her stool by the kitchen counter, bouncy with excitement. Happily, she watched as her mother poured a cup of flour into the glass mixing bowl. “Okay, Lucy. The cookie dough is ready now. We want to have 24 beautifully decorated cookies. 3 for Santa, and the rest will be for Christmas. If we are going to have that many, you should only get a piece of cookie dough this big when you decorate.” Lucy’s mother pulled a small piece of sugar cookie dough from the bowl. “If you roll it out flat, you can use a cookie cutter.” “Okay, Mommy! I can’t wait for Santa to get here! I am going to stay up and I’ll wait for Santa and I’ll get his autograph!” Lucy squealed with joy. Laughingly, her mother replied, “Oh, I think that might be too late for you to stay up. But I’ll be sure to ask Santa for you.” “Oh, okay. Don’t forget.” Lucy told her seriously. Lucy put her decorated cookies, sprinkles and all, onto the pan. “Lucy, I think we have enough dough for an extra cookie.” Lucy’s mother waved the dough tauntingly in front of her daughter’s face. “Oh! Can I decorate it? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?” Lucy begged. Her mother laughed and put the cookie dough on the counter. Lucy carefully rolled the dough, and cut it with a star shaped cookie cutter. She dashed on green and red snowflake sprinkles and placed the dough on the pan. “Remember, Mommy,” She reminded her mother as she was walking upstairs to get ready for bed, “I want Santa’s autograph. And if it’s not to much to ask, will you get Rudolph’s, too?”