NATCHEZ — She’s only 7, but Ava Walker has settled on her version of the true meaning of Christmas.

“Everyone knows the true meaning of Christmas is about Jesus being born,” Walker said.

When The Dart landed on Fatherland Road Tuesday afternoon, it found Walker and friend and soon-to-be stepsister 8-year-old Bella Bennett getting into the Christmas spirit by decorating sweater-shaped cookies as tacky holiday sweaters with icing and sprinkles.

The girls leaned over their cookies meticulously drawing designs with red, green, white and black icing pens and placing sprinkles on their cookies, and sometimes into their own mouths.

Christmas cookie decorating is a tradition Ava’s mother Kelley Gay remembers doing with her own mother.

“I don’t ever remember any ugly Christmas sweater cookies, though,” Gay said, laughing.

Gay has also passed along a favorite childhood Christmas tradition of giving Ava small gifts for the 25 days of Christmas beginning Dec. 1.

Sometimes it’s a piece candy, maybe a small game or some other trinket.

“My mom did it for me, so it’s nice to do it for her,” Gay said.

While the cookie decorating and 25 days of Christmas gift giving is fun for the family, Gay said she has made an effort to shift the focus on Christmas away from gifts and onto Christ.

In doing so, Gay decided to give Ava just three gifts for Christmas.

“Three gifts like Jesus got,” Ava said, referring to the gold, frankincense and myrrh brought to Christ as gifts from the Magi.

The true meaning of Christmas can sometimes get lost in a big pile of gifts under the tree, Gay said.

“She knows she’s blessed all year-round and gets whatever she needs,” Gay said. “We’re just trying to simplify Christmas and strictly place the focus more on Jesus and not the presents.”

That’s perfectly fine with Walker, who, when asked, doesn’t even list gifts or cookies or even her mischievious Elf on the Shelf Oliver at the top of her favorite things about Christmas.

“(It’s) knowing that 2,000 years ago Jesus was born to save us,” Ava said.

Ava, a second-grader at Cathedral School, is the daughter of Gay and Brad Walker and stepdaughter of Shannon Gay.

Bella, a second-grader at Adams County Christian School, is the daughter Jennifer Bennett and Malcolm Bennett.