The Disastrous Christmas

3000, Random Avenue
Some Springs
California
28th December, 20XX

Dear Leslie,

I'm not going to start this letter with "Hope you're doing well" or "Greetings for Christmas!" because that only happens when you're doing boring letter-writing at school. I mean, no one's going to check and grade me based on this letter, right?

But anyway, I have some amazing stories about my Christmas and might I say some horrific ones? You will feel blessed that you didn't go through this ordeal.

Anyways, Merry Christmas!

And now my Christmas story:

When I first heard the news I jumped with joy, yelling like crazy and dancing as if it were my birthday or something. Mom glared at me but I totally ignored her. Kim joined me and Ruth just sat laughing like a hyena. My cousins were coming to our house for a fortnight at Christmas! What joy! I had such butterflies in my stomach! I couldn't wait for Christmas to arrive!

My cousins, Andrew and Andrea, live in Melbourne with their mother, my sweet sweet Auntie Carolina. We hadn't seen them for a long, long time but now they'd be celebrating Christmas with us!

I had already planned all the presents; a doll-house for Kimberly, my little sister, as she so badly wanted one, even though that brat is nine now and too old for stuff like that. A pair of boots for Ruth, my elder sister, who, I'm pretty sure, could buy that for herself, as she has a job now (a junior Ace reporter- can you believe it?!). For Andrew, I'd decided that I'd buy a Polaroid (yes, an actual Polaroid camera as a combined gift from all three of us) as he's so into photography (and also because Kim literally destroyed his previous Polaroid camera). For Andrea, I thought that a COLOSSAL stack of superhero comics would be incredible (just like The Hulk) because she really loved flicking through my collection, the last time she was here.

It was all decided. Mom had given me permission to go to buy all of these presents after school, with Cheryl (my best friend). Cheryl and I had already planned out an entire day of fun, where we would go to various gift stores (as well as a bookstore for Cheryl's X-Mas present) and finally try out the Strawberries & Crème at Starbucks.

I had already imagined the entire scenario in my head a bazillion times, each time trying out a different possibility- how Cheryl and I would walk up to the store, go different ways, buy whatever was on our lists (plus a few extra stuff), would sneakily do our billing (because we didn't want the other to find out what we had bought!) and then giggle at each other, totally losing the high air of grace and dignity of fourteen-year-olds.

I didn't leave a single possibility. Well, apart from one. I hadn't imagined that Cheryl would fall sick on the exact day we had to go. Nor had I imagined the heavy snowstorm that took place in the days to follow. But it did happen. It happened heavily. And I was not able to buy the presents, until the day before Christmas Eve.

Even though you're in Wellington and I'm in the USA, I'm pretty sure you're aware of the rush on the day before Christmas Eve because I think this is a universal thing that happens literally everywhere. But even my over-imaginative brain hadn't imagined that there'd be so many people who do last-minute Christmas shopping. And this year there was an even larger crowd as there had been snowstorms for the past few days.

So, I did not get a dollhouse or a pair of boots or a Polaroid camera or even a single comic about the armoured adventures of Iron Man. Everything on my list was sold out! As Señora Torres, my, Spanish teacher would say, "¡Increíble!"

And that is how I ended up buying cheap diaries and pens and socks as Christmas presents for my siblings (I was not able to buy anything for Cheryl- or you, in that case!).