The Color Blue

Chapter Six - A good luck charm

Christmas Eve: a wonderful day filled with the excitement and thrills of the upcoming holiday. It's a day overflowing with laughter, presents, caroling, food, and family.

At least, that's what it is for the rest of my family. We have a tradition where every year on Christmas Eve, we go to my grandmother's house and open the presents given to us by that side of the family. Afterward, we drive over to my aunt and uncle's house for dinner and caroling.

My mother was still bitter about what my aunt said about me and had not planned on us not going over to my her house. She said that my aunt would just have to find someone else to judge.

It took him awhile, but my dad convinced my mom that "Christmas is a time for forgiveness. If we can't forgive, we'll be Scrooge's for the rest of our lives." She finally agreed to go and once we hauled all of the presents for my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents to the car, we started towards my grandmother's house.

As we arrived, I grabbed a bag filled with presents and made my way into the house. My grandmother welcomed me, opening the door for me and leading me into the living room. She took the presents from me and led me to the couch. I sat down with a sigh and took in the sweet aroma of freshly baked cinnamon cookies and pumpkin pie. I rubbed my hands together impatiently as I listened to the wild chatter that filled the room. By listening carefully to the individual voices I could tell that most of my family was already here. We were just waiting for Spencer and my parents to come into the living room. As they did, Anna climbed up onto my lap.

"Mommy let me open a present early!" she exclaimed.

"She did?" I said, sounding shocked, "what did she get you?"

"A doll! Her name is Princess and she's the prettiest doll I've ever seen," she explained as she snuggled into my chest and started to play with the ends of my hair.

She continued to talk about her doll until my uncle finally said, "Alright, everyone! Time to open presents! But we're going to do it differently this year. Instead of mass chaos and everyone opening all of their presents at one time, we're going to pass out the presents and open them one by one."

A few of my cousins groaned.

I heard the crinkling of wrapping paper and tissue paper as a couple of the adults passed out the presents. Eventually, I had a small pile of presents sitting on my lap. Anna had moved off of my lap and sat next to me on the couch to open her presents there.

"Who's first?" my grandmother asked.

It was finally decided that Grandma would open her present first, and then we would go clockwise around the room. After all of the kids stopped whining, one by one we all started to open presents.

Present after present was opened. Polite "oohs" and "aahs" were given as everyone watched the person who was the center of attention for a mere moment. When it was my turn I quietly focused on finding the folds in the wrapping paper that covered a small box. Underneath the paper was a velvety box. I turned it around in my hands a couple times before opening it. Anna, who was leaning on me to see what the box contained, gasped.

"Woah..." She breathed.

I ran my finger tips over the contents of the velvet box. There was a cold, linked chain and a small charm.

"A necklace, thank you," I said.

"That used to be mine," my grandmother spoke up, "the charm is in the shape of a robin. It was my good luck charm. Maybe it will work the same for you."

"Thank you, Grandma," I said sincerely, "I love it."

My cousin snickered, "How could she love it? She doesn't even know what it looks like."

"George!" His mom scolded him.

My mother, who was sitting on the other side of me, took the necklace from me and said, "Here, let's put it on."

I turned from her and gathered my hair away from my neck. As she placed it around my neck, the metal felt cold and out of place but after a few seconds it became comfortable.

As she secured the necklace she told me to turn around so that she could see.

"Beautiful," she said.

"It looks better on you than it did on me," my grandmother said.

I smiled genially, "Thanks again, Grandma. I really do love it."

The rest of my presents were inconsequential in comparison to my necklace. Not to say that I wasn't grateful, because I was, but sweaters, movies, and CDs just didn't compare with my robin necklace.

By the time we were done, it seemed like everyone was very satisfied with their gifts. My mom had received a new cook book, Anna got three new dolls and clothes to go with them, Aunt Christy acquired new photo frames to put pictures of her award winning children in, Spencer got new guitar accessories, my dad was given a whole set of war documentaries on DVD, the list goes on and on.

After all of the presents were packed up, Spencer helped me to the car and we headed over to my aunt and uncle's.

That night as we sat in the living room of my aunt's house, Aunt Christy herself came up to me and said, "You really do look beautiful in that necklace. I only wish that you could see for yourself. My daughter, Megan, would look very nice in that necklace too. That shade of gold, rose gold I believe it is called, would compliment her skin tone perfectly."

My mother, who was sitting next to me, took that comment offensively and spoke before thinking.

"London has a boyfriend," She blurted out.

"Mom, he's not my-" I tried to explain but she interrupted me.

"And he's a soldier." She went on.

"Mom-"

"She does?" My aunt sounded more shocked than she should have, "When did this happen?"

"Just this week," my mom answered for me.

"But we're not-" I started, but neither of them would give me the chance to speak.

"And he's still in town?" Aunt Christy asked.

"Yes, he'll be spending tomorrow with us."

"When does he go back? Or has he been relieved?"

"When does he go back, London?" My mom asked me.

I sighed, giving up on trying to stop this conversation, "January second."

"Oh! Then he should come to our New Year's Eve party with you! I would just love to meet him." Aunt Christy said overly enthusiastically.

"Yes, he should. I'll invite him tomorrow." My mother said.

I heard my aunt strut to the other side of the room triumphantly as if she had just won some big argument.

I hunched over and rested my head in the palm of my hand.

Realizing her mistake, my mom patted my back. "Sorry, London. That was very rude of me."

"Yeah, just a bit." I said, sitting up again and playing with my necklace nervously.

"If you don't want to, we won't invite Robin to the New Year's Eve party."

"No, it's fine." I knew that if Robin didn't come to the party, my mom would never hear the end of it from my aunt. "I just hope that he doesn't freak out when I tell him that we're supposedly dating already."

After we arrived home from the small party, I slid into my pajamas, lay on my bed, and I listened intently to the things that were going on around the house. In his room, Spencer was playing around with his guitar, trying out the new things that he got. I could hear my dad already starting to watch his new war documentary DVDs in the living room. My mom was asking him about what was going on.

As I lay there, I continued to run the small robin charm between my fingers. A good luck charm, my grandma had called it. I silently prayed that it would work.