I remember last Christmas so vividly. It has been 364 days since last Christmas. I remember the fire. The bright, hot, burning fire. I remember his voice. Yelling at me through the flames. I remember seeing my own home fall apart in front of me. I remember the police sirens and the wails of the ambulance flying through my neighborhood. I remember the white room and the beeping machine. Over and over. Tomorrow it is Christmas again and I haven’t been able to sleep much the past week. My nightmares have been too real. Too hot.
I should maybe tell you about last Christmas. I don’t want to go downstairs and start a new Christmas until I can get all the details of the last one out of my head. After all, they say talking about it is a better therapy.
“Madisen! Darling, come on down!” My mother called from down the stairs. My little sister, Emma, came hopping into my room. She stood up on my bed and started jumping up and down.
“It’s Christmas! It’s Christmas!” I laughed and shook my head. I finger combed my hair because I knew my dad would be taking a lot of pictures. Dad was a photographer.
“Let’s have a look, right Emma? See what Santa brought us this year.” I threw my comforter off of my and stuffed my feet into my slippers. I stole a glance at the mirror before heading downstairs. My brown hair was in a messy bun on the top of my head, and my purple silk pajama shorts matched my silk pajama tank top and showed just a little of my midriff. The right foot of my slippers had the right half of a yin yang sign, while the left had the left side. If you put your feet together correctly, they looked as if they fit together. I had a tattoo of that on my feet as well, and if I put the bottoms of my feet together you can see it. I have a photo of it here somewhere; I’ll have to show you it sometime. My blue eyes still hadn’t fully opened so I did a quick stretch and a couple jumping jacks in place before I went down for presents.
“Nice of you to finally join us darling. Tea?” My mother offered me. I shook my head and pulled over a cushioned chair. We had all gathered around the Christmas tree. My dad was sitting in a chair just like mine, with his big professional camera perched on his knee. My mum had a cup of tea in her hands and her silk robe tied tightly around her waist. Emma was rummaging through the piles and organizing them by whose gift was whose. Emma’s pile was of course the biggest, full of little girl toys. I pulled my legs up onto the chair and rested my chin on my knees. What I would give to be that young again.
“Oh! Thank you mum!” Emma said as she held up a doll. She hugged it to her chest. “That’s all of mine. Thank you mum, dad, Madi, and of course thank you Santa!” She looked up, as if she was looking for the North Pole. “Wherever you are.” When she added the last part, I couldn’t help but stifle my laugh. My mum shot me an amused glance.
“Well, Madisen, I know we don’t give you the best gifts, since you are older, but here you are.” My mom handed me an envelope. It wasn’t heavy. It felt like nothing was in my hands.
“Wait! Madi, look what Santa got you first.” She stood up and walked over to where I was sitting; I put my legs onto the floor and took the box from her. It was small and light. But heavy enough that I knew something good was in there. I slowly peeled every piece of tape off, Emma was looking really eager and so were my parents. I wanted to take my time not to ruin the pretty wrapping paper. It was sky blue with little white snowflakes on it, and the snowflakes had white glitter on them.
“On with it!” Emma yelled. I laughed and slid the paper off. I shut my eyes and felt the box. I couldn’t’ take it any longer.
“Oh my god. Mum, Dad, thank you so much.” I held up my new iPhone 5s.
“Top of the line, hardly anybody can get ahold of these just yet, darling.” My dad said. I stood up and hugged them both. I shot them the biggest smile I could muster.
“Well, kids, you are now excused. Emma, you can go to Rose’s house if you would like, I already talked to her mum this morning. They’d be glad to see you. Madisen, erm, just don’t go far.” My mum winked and my dad tossed me car keys. I furrowed my brows together.
“Whose car keys are these?” I examined them. None of our car keys looked like this. All of our cars were Honda or GMC. These car keys were BMW. Then it clicked. I widened my eyes and squealed. “You did not buy me a car! Oh my god, thank you so much! I love you both so much.” I gave them another hug and blew them a kiss. I ran down to my room. My dad already had my phone programmed. No wonder he asked for my old iPhone 5 a few nights ago, he wanted to transfer all the data. I couldn’t keep my smile to myself. I pressed the unlock button. There was no home photo yet and there were no photos or texts. Starting over fresh. Perfect, that’s just what I needed. It may not be the New Year yet, but it’s never a bad thing to start over. I smiled and opened up my contacts list, which thankfully still had all my contacts, so I didn’t have to make that annoying, “New phone! Lost all my contacts. Comment your number below!” Post on Facebook, instagram, and twitter. I pulled up my best friend’s name, Holly, and sent her a text.
Me: Let’s go out.
Holly: If you’re ready come and get it na, na, na, na ;)
I laughed at her witty response and changed. I brushed my hair out and it hit my waist. It was perfectly wavy with a few natural blonde streaks from being in the sun. I play soccer religiously.
