It was still dark outside when my sister, Kali, shook me awake. I opened my eyes to see her face leaning over me and telling me to get up. Realizing that it was Christmas day I shot out of bed, but Kali stopped me with a hand and told me that we had to be quiet. It was five a.m. so we slowly, almost ghostly, walked past our mom, Lesley’s, room, first making sure that she was still asleep and second making sure we didn’t wake her up.
Once reassured that she wasn’t waking up, we made our way downstairs while at the same time trying not to trip over our youngest cat, Fritz. He seemed to want to join in on the surprise that we were planning because he never once left our side and was dizzyingly circling our legs.
When we entered the living room I immediately smelt the pine from the Christmas tree set up in the corner. The ornaments on the tree were both old and new, some of them were store-bought while others were hand-made, but on the tree they all looked like they belonged. The colorful presents that were under the tree seemed to be calling my name and I just wanted to run over to them and start tearing off the paper, but my sister saw the look in my eyes and quickly pulled me away.
We made our way into the kitchen and slowly started taking out the pots, pans and food we needed to get started. Since I was nine-years-old I wasn’t supposed to touch the kitchen appliances, so Kali sent me into the living room to watch television. I switched it on and began to watch an old Dick Van Dyke show, while in the background I could hear pans banging and Kali trying to keep her curses to a minimum.
At about six a.m. Kali called me back into the kitchen and told me since she was the one who cooked everything, I would be the one to set the table. She then handed me the colorful napkins and plates and told me exactly how to set the table. In the end it was overly dressed, but it looked like the perfect Christmas morning breakfast table, it was so perfect that I was afraid of putting food on the plates and orange juice in the glasses.
We soon heard movement from upstairs and quickly put the finishing touches on our surprise breakfast. Our mom made her way downstairs and when she saw us and what we had been doing, the look on her face was memorable; it was a mixture of pleasure, shock and love.
The smell of the eggs and hash browns were mouthwatering, I could practically taste them as they sat innocently on the table and as we all sat down I realized that this was the only way to start Christmas morning. I slowly ran my hands over the silverware and napkins as I waited for Kali and our mom to sit down; when they did we all dug in.
I didn’t partake in the conversation because my eyes were still on the presents resting under the full green tree. Finally when both Kali and our mom finished their breakfast I gave them a look and then rushed into the living room and slammed down onto my knees and picked up the first present; I didn’t even wait for them to settle down on the floor next to me.
I don’t even remember what I got that year, but I remember the colors; reds, greens, blues, and gold’s. The rest of the morning consisted of me tearing through presents, Kali slowly going through each present trying to guess what was in each box, and our mom just sitting quietly and watching us with a little smile on her face.
While we were busy opening presents in the living room, Fritz was busy eating leftovers off the table. Usually we don’t let the cats eat table scraps, but Fritz was really enjoying the eggs, so we let him this one time.
The day ended with the living room being a big mess, torn wrapping paper was everywhere and presents were strewn all over the floor, but overall it was a Christmas I will always remember because it was the closest I felt to my family in a long time.
