Fanfiction

I *love* Christmas.  You know why?

Presents.  Loot.  Gifts.  Moolah.

The more the better.  I tend to keep my Christmas list and then compare it to what I actually get.  I used to do that to see if Santa was paying attention.  I didn’t want him going senile on us.  Now I do it to make sure my *parents* pay attention.  Cause sometimes they don’t.

I don’t have lots of Christmas memories, ‘cause, well, I’ve only had eleven of them.  And those first few were a complete write-off, ‘cause I don’t remember a thing.  But I love the holidays.  I love putting up decorations, and getting a tree, and singing carols, and getting off of school.

And we always get to go ice skating because my Mom just has a major fit if we don’t.  I don’t mind going.  I actually skate pretty well.  *Much* better than Angela.  And sometimes we’ll get in snowball fights outside our house.  Angela always wants to just make snow angels.  She never really gets into the snowball fights, until I pop her a good one, or shove some down her back.  Then she can really get mean.  One time it was me and my Dad and Angela and my neighbor Brian Krakow.  And Angela got all mad and made this big slush ball that was really heavy and whipped it.  It missed me completely, but got Brian right in the ear.  She got in big trouble that time.

A few years ago we had a real problem with our cat.  It was still pretty young and really frisky.  It’s much more quiet these days.  But it just got obsessed with the Christmas Tree.   It liked to bat the ornaments around and climb into the tree.  It drove my Mother berserk.  She always has the ornaments on the tree, like, *just* so.  So she was always replacing them and messing with the tree.  That was bad enough, but then the crazy cat got fixated on the tinsel.  And we had the type of tinsel where it comes in strands, not when it comes on a roll, like the lights.  Icicle looking.  Not those long strands that you wrap around.  The throw-on kind.  Course my Mom didn’t exactly let us throw it on, more like placing it gently, but I tossed it all around my room.

Anyway, the cat was obsessed with the tinsel and how it sparkled, and it would bat at it too, where it hung.  And then the tinsel started to disappear.  And Mom was all *concerned* about it because the tree just wasn’t symmetrical anymore.  My Dad thought the cat was just knocking it down and it was going into the vents or getting picked up by the vacuum.

Later we found out that the cat was eating it.  Strand after strand.  I was the first person to notice, since it’s, like, my *job* to change the litter box.  I found a couple strands of it in there.  And I told them I thought the cat saw the tree as like a free sparkly buffet, or something, but they totally didn’t believe me.  At least they didn’t until that Christmas Eve when my Mom had all the relatives over and the cat took center stage in the living room and hacked up a *really* colorful hairball.  My Mom turned so red.  Candy cane red.

The next year we started using the rolls of tinsel.

Last year might have been my best Christmas ever.  We ended up having a couple extra guests for Christmas last year.  Angela’s friends.  Rickie and Brian.  They’d both been sort of ditched by their parents.  Not in quite the same way, but still.  And so after we went to church on Christmas Eve, we came home and we all had cocoa.  And then Rickie was *really* tired because he had been staying God knows where, so he went home with Brian so he could sleep in a real bed, and we could fix up a place for him to stay.  And the second they left my Mom went into campaign mode and got us all to think about what gifts we had for each other that we could give to Rickie and Brian the next day, since she wanted them to feel included.  And so we basically just told each other what we all were getting, so we would know what we had to choose from, ‘cause we couldn’t go anywhere since the stores were totally closed.

And I got pretty much everything on my list, except a bike.  But most of the stuff was wrapped already, and we really didn’t know which was which, so the four of us sat there, trying to gently unwrap stuff to make sure what it was, and then rewrap it, and put a tag on it for Rickie or Brian.  And we just drank more cocoa and laughed when Angela suggested we give Brian the makeup kit that she got for me.  And my Mom agreed, cause she didn’t want me to be wearing make-up anyway.  Which is probably why Angela got it in the first place.

We ended up giving that to Rickie.  And the next day after we ate, he showed me how to put on make-up and gave me a make-over.  He was like the sister I had always wanted.  I don’t mean that mean.   I’m just saying that what we did, the four of us, sitting there together, picking out gifts for people who maybe weren’t getting any, that was a good.  That’s what Christmas is all about.

‘Cause the next day Brian and Rickie had a *great* time.  I could tell.  They were really happy.

And it’s all ‘cause of what I said.

Presents.  Loot.  Gifts.  Moolah.

That's what makes Christmas great.