Summary: Can a gingerbread man help Little Joe make a new friend?
Rating:  G  Words: 560
Written for the 2022 Bonanza Brand Advent Calendar

Bonanza
~*~*~ Advent Calendar ~*~*~
* Day 17 *

“Be A Friend”

Little Joe sat at the table as Mama and Hop Sing took more gingerbread man cookies out of the oven.  Adam and Hoss also sat at the table and watched.  The whole kitchen smelled like ginger.  Mama and Hop Sing placed in front of Adam and Hoss two plates of cooled gingerbread man cookies.

Little Joe saw his brothers putting tiny candies on the cookies to form eyes and mouths, and squeeze on icing to form clothes.  They did it every year, and he wanted to do it too.  He was 4 years old now, and not a baby anymore.  He was big enough to do it also.

“I wanna do it!” Little Joe said.

“Watch how your brothers do it,” Mama replied.  “You can help with this other batch when it’s cool.”

“Okay.”

Little Joe watched Adam and Hoss carefully put icing and candies on their gingerbread men.  Then Mama put a plate of cooled cookies in front of him.  She sat down beside him and helped him a little bit with putting on the icing and candies.  She let him do a few by himself.  The lines of icing were a little crooked, and the eyes and mouths were a little lopsided.

Little Joe pointed at his brothers’ cookies.  “They’re not as nice as theirs.”

“That’s quite all right, Little Joseph.”  Mama smiled.  “It takes practice.”

“You’ll get the hang of it, little brother,” Hoss agreed.

Adam added, “Mine looked pretty funny the first year I did them.”

“So did mine.”

Little Joe felt a little better about his cookies.

All of the gingerbread men were for the children from the orphanage in Virginia City.  Every year Papa held a Christmas party for them.  There were various cookies and candy canes and wrapped presents for the children.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The great room was full of children laughing and talking.  Papa, Mama and Adam lead everyone in singing Christmas carols.  Then Papa handed out presents to the children, and everyone ate the cookies and candy canes.

Little Joe noticed a boy his age sitting at the bottom of the stairs with a sad face.  Why wasn’t he happy?  It was Christmas!

Little Joe walked over to him.  “Hi.  How come you’re sad?”

The boy replied, “I miss my mama and papa. I want them back.”

“I’m sorry.”

Little Joe couldn’t imagine not having his own mama and papa here.  That sounded scary.  He wanted to do something to make the boy happy.

“I’m Little Joe.  What’s your name?”

“Seth.”

“Wait here.”

Little Joe ran over to a table and grabbed one of the gingerbread man cookies that he had decorated and ran back to Seth.

“Here.”  He held the cookie out.  “I put the candies on myself.”

“Really?  Thank you.”

Seth took the cookie and stared at it.  “My mama made these for Christmas.”  He sadly smiled.

Little Joe wished he could make Seth happier.  Maybe they could be friends.  They could go outside and build snowmen and have snowball fights.  When the weather was nicer there would be fishing and exploring on the Ponderosa.

“I’ll be your friend.”

Character: Joe

Item: Gingerbread Man

Second Character: None requested. During the development of the story idea one kind of appeared anyway. Seth. (“The Quality Of Mercy”)

Link to the 2022 Bonanza Brand Advent Calendar – Day 18 – A Surprise Delivery by Questfan