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Jerry bustled around the Smith Family’s kitchen, busy as a Christmas Bee. The big day was only a few days away now and he hustled to one of his favorite holiday activities: making cookies. Even better than making cookies was making them with someone else. Morty stepped in from the dining room, glancing over his shoulder as he struggled with his arms behind his back. Jerry looked over as Morty huffed in frustration.
“The bow is always the hardest part,” Jerry chuckled, pulling down a stack of red, green and white mixing bowls from the top shelf of a cabinet. “Here, I’ll tie you up so we can get started.” Jerry crossed the few steps over and Morty dropped his arms to the side, spinning around so his dad could tie the straps of his apron around his waist. Now properly outfitted in matching Christmas aprons Jerry looked over to Beth who sat on the other side of the kitchen at the breakfast nook by the window.
“You sure you don’t want to give us a hand, Beth?” Jerry asked hopefully. “This is Morty’s first time after all.”
“Gee, Jer, I really wish I could,” Beth said, looking up from the stack of papers in front of her. She didn’t sound particularly enthused as she continued, “But I have to make sure all these bills get paid so we still have a house to make cookies in.”
Jerry just smiled in response. He wasn’t going to let Beth’s lack of enthusiasm for the holidays get him down. Especially since Morty had asked to join him. The door to the garage unexpectedly opened with Rick standing in the doorway, glaring into the kitchen.
“What the hell is all the racket out here? Can’t a guy synthesize Zirconian dianotum disks in his own garage in peace?” Rick barked, his hands on his hips glaring at Jerry for a second before his eyes shifted to Morty standing next to him.
“First off, it’s my garage.” Jerry replied, his hands on his own hips. Beth cleared her throat from across the kitchen, “...Our garage. And second, Morty and I are making cookies, if you don’t like it you're welcome to fly off to Jupitor or Alpha Beta B or something.”
“O-or you could stay to help?” Morty piped up, looking up at Rick with his best puppy dog eyes. Rick stared down at Morty for a second before his face softened just a bit. Rick rolled his eyes, closing the garage door behind him as he pushed past the two apron clad Smiths to get to the fridge.
“Not interested,” He said coldly before reaching in and grabbing a beer. “But the dianotum disks do need to prime in darkness for a while so I might as well hang out in here.” With two beers in hand Rick made his way over to where Beth was seated at the breakfast nook. He sat down on the other side of the table and offered the other beer to her but she shook her head, motioning to the half empty glass of wine beside her stack of bills.
“Well, I guess you can stay as long as you don’t distract my assistant.” Jerry huffed, unaware of his son grinning and waving to Rick behind his back. Jerry turned around to look down at his son who pretended to be paying attention. “All right! Let's start with an easy recipe for Gingerbread Men. It’s a holiday classic and I already have the recipe open. I’ll read off the ingredients then you grab them.” Jerry stepped up to the counter in front of his open cook book and started listing ingredients that Morty retrieved from the fridge or panty.
Rick watched from the table across the way as Morty scurried around the kitchen in his little Christmas frilled apron. So many Ricks across the multiverse would kill to see their Mortys dolled up and baking for them and he got it for free. He cracked open his beer and took a swig to hide his smirk. He noticed that Beth was also stealing glances at her husband and son as they bustled around with a small smile over her own face.
“Now that we have all the ingredients we’ll measure everything out so it’s ready to go before we start mixing. Since my parents are coming over we should make two batches, so we’ll just double the recipe.” Jerry spoke sagely as Morty nodded along at his side. “This first bowl will have dry ingredients; so flour, baking soda and salt.” Morty grabbed the bag off the counter and pulled the top open causing a puff of flour to billow out, coating his face and sending him into a coughing fit. Jerry laughed patting Morty on the back as Rick and Beth couldn’t help but smile at such a cliche gag.
“I-I’m okay,” Morty managed to clear his lungs enough to right himself and started measuring out the ingredients like his dad said. While Morty measured the powders Jerry grabbed two eggs and cracked the first into a ramekin one handed. “Wow dad, that’s pretty impressive. N-no egg shells or anything!” Morty marveled watching his dad do the same on the second.
“Oh yeah? I guess I’ve been cooking so long it’s second nature at this point.” Jerry chuckled with a slight blush over his face. “Hey, have you ever tasted vanilla extract before?” Jerry asked, pouring a teaspoon worth of brown liquid into a small measuring spoon before holding it up to Morty’s face.
“I-I don’t think so. Is it good?” Morty asked, leaning forward to smell it. True to its name it smelled just like vanilla ice cream, which was the best ice cream in Morty’s opinion. Morty stuck his tongue out dipping the tip into the spoon at the sweet smelling liquid only to pull back in disgust. Rick laughed from the other side of the room with his dad chuckling and even his mom let out a giggle at his dismay. Morty’s face flushed as his family laughed, “Y-y-y-you tricked me!!” He wailed, glaring up at his still laughing father.
“Just a little Christmas prank, kiddo.” His dad smiled down at him. Morty pouted, looking past his dad to where Rick was still losing it, slapping his hand on the table. Morty stuck his tongue out at Rick who winked back. “Come on, we’ve got everything measured out so let’s put it all together.”
Morty was still mad at the prank but he was eager to actually get his cookies made so he silently agreed to a truce. His dad set up the stand mixer and let Morty add the ingredients to the large mixing bowl. With the individual parts combined into a fragrant dough, Jerry turned the thick brown mass out of the bowl and onto a sheet of plastic wrap he had spread out over the counter.
“Okay, now that we have the dough it needs to chill in the fridge for about 3 hours.” Jerry explained with a gleam in his eye, “Which is plenty of time for a Christmas movie! So what are you thinking, maybe A Christmas Tale, or Rudolf or oh, oh! How about Elf?” Jerry asked excitedly. Before Morty had a second to think about it a burst of cold wind zapped through the kitchen, exploding around the counter in front of the two. Jerry stared down at the dough just inches from his hands, he reached forward to feel its now chilly exterior.
The two looked over to where Rick was sitting with a laser gun in hand which he twirled around his finger while grinning like the world’s smuggest cowboy.
“Perfectly chilled… guess we’ll have to save the movie for later. Thanks Rick…” Jerry smiled around clenched teeth as he spoke while Morty just grinned at his grandfather’s ingenuity. “I guess we’ll just have to roll them out now.”
“Alright,” Jerry tried to shake off his frustration as he continued, he wouldn’t let Rick out do him, this was supposed to be about him and his son. “First we flour the counter then roll them out then-”
“-Clean the counter.” Beth interjected from across the way, not bothering to look up from the paper work in front of her.
“First we scrub the counter, then we roll out the dough.” Jerry corrected, hurriedly wiping down and drying the counter before he let Morty spread the flour and dropped the dough down. “Now, I’ll roll it out and you can use the cookie cutter and start cutting out the gingerbread men.”
Morty nodded and readied his little person shaped metal ring. As his dad rolled the brown ball flat Morty pressed the cookie cutter into the soft dough making perfect little matching guys as close together as he could so he didn’t waste any. Once all the little figures were out Jerry started moving them onto the baking sheets to slide in the oven. While he was doing that Morty pulled aside one of the gingerbread men and using the dough scraps made some modifications.
Jerry looked over a bit confused, “Why does that one have a crown?” He asked only for Morty to shush him. “Okay, okay, keep your secrets, yeesh.” After Morty relented his creation Jerry bent over to slide the first tray into the oven before snapping his head to look in Rick’s direction.
“Do you have some sci-fi ray gun for this one too, Rick? Or can my oven actually do its job?” Jerry asked snidely just in time to see his wife avert her lecherous eyes. Rick shrugged, passive aggressively popping the top on his second beer for an answer.
“If Rick doesn’t have anything else to say about it…” Jerry paused just in case the smug old scientist did have anything to add but he was still nonchalantly sipping his beer, “Then these guys will bake for 10 minutes. In the meantime you tidy up the counter and I’ll start on the dishes. When they come out of the oven they’ll need a few minutes to cool but then we can start the real fun part; decorating!” Morty smiled at that. Decorating the gingerbread men was the whole reason he had agreed to help. Excitedly the boy set to his task of cleaning the counters while his dad hummed ‘Jingle Bells’ while scrubbing bowls and measuring cups.
Rick had lost interest in watching the two clumsy bakers. Despite the occasional stolen glances Beth really was focused on paying bills. Rick idly looked out the window at the winter wonderland outside. A fresh blanket of snow had fallen last night leaving the North West coast an ideal snowy paradise. There were still 5 days until Christmas and with the weather fluctuating like it had been the past few weeks he doubted the snow would stick around until then. Jerry had been ranting and raving about a ‘White Christmas’ last night at dinner and as much as he wanted to burst the man-child’s bubble Morty had already scolded him for bullying his dad about Christmas so he kept his mouth shut.
Lost in his thoughts as he was, Rick didn’t notice when Morty plodded over on his sock-covered feet and held something in Rick’s direction. He didn’t notice until he felt Beth kick him under the table, he looked over to glare at his daughter only for her to motion with her head toward the boy standing beside the table.
Following her gaze Rick turned to see a shy look on his grandson’s face as he held a cookie out to Rick. Not getting what the big deal was, Rick picked it up and was about to uncaringly bite its head off when he noticed a striking familiarity to the gingerbread man in his hands. He looked down at the cookie to see blue pointy hair, a thick unibrow, a long white coat and a scowling face drawn in black icing staring up at him. Morty had made a cookie of him… Rick’s own scowl melted away as a small smile tugged on his face.
He turned the cookie around and held it up in front of his face before shifting his voice up a few octaves, “Oh no! Morty! I-I’ve been turned into a cookie!! I’m Gingerbread Rick, Morty!! Y-you gotta help me, I’m so delicious, a-any could eat me at any time!!” He squeaked out, bouncing the cookie up and down as Morty giggled before holding up his own mini gingerbread man.
“A-aw geez, Rick! Your crazy experiment turned us into cookies! Oh no, w-what are we gonna do?” Morty played along, his own falsetto was much less convincing as he couldn’t stop his laughter.
Beth smiled from across the table. It was nice to see her father and son getting along. It had been a hard year for both of them, Morty had come to her crying more than once about Rick being cruel to him or teasing him and had even claimed that Rick had ‘broken up’ with him when her dad had left for a few weeks. Seeing them together now just having fun was a nice change of pace to the usual bickering. Jerry came over with a plate of gingerbread people including one with blonde hair and a red top and one with a green shirt bearing his own signature stripes. He set the plate down before placing a hand on Beth’s shoulder. Jerry leaned down to kiss his wife and Beth kissed back while Rick and Morty were distracted on their ‘Gingerbread Adventure.’
Summer sneered at the scene from across the room, she had ducked in to steal some cookies for herself but the scene across the way was so sickeningly sweet she almost rethought the gingerbread men in her hands. As a jaded teenager she was way too old to indulge in such dumb holiday merriment but she wasn’t about to pass up homemade cookies. Especially one fashionable enough to sport an orange ponytail, pink top and a little silver cellphone.
She snatched the cookie and made her way back to her room to enjoy a bit of peace before he was called down to watch some cheesy Christmas movie or whatever else her dad had planned for the evening. Even with her general disdain for holidays and her Dad’s super dorky enjoyment of them it was shaping up to be a Merry Christmas after all.