Once the tree was set up, the boys all sat on the couch, which was across from it, and Emma and I sat on the floor , opening up the boxes of ornaments. Blake had just wrapped the tree in lights, so now we were at the fun part.
"Hey, isn't this a little sexist?" Emma asked.
She added "I mean, the girls have to do all the decorating while the guys get to comment on where they should go and just watch. Is that fair?"
Dylan said "Come on. We all know you girls know where you want them all to go and you'll just move ours anyways."
I looked at Emma and whispered "It's kinda true."
She giggled and agreed.
Blake put on some christmas songs in our old CD player and we began. Emma and I held up ornaments we had gotten from years ago.
We had one for each of our births, some of our birthdays, and events like our first house being built, our many trips, and our old pets. We passed them around for everyone to remember and then placed them (perfectly) on the tree.
I was sifting through our boxes for a pretty one and suddenly saw a green sparkly palm tree our mom must've bought years ago.
"What's this?" I asked, holding it up for everyone to see.
Talen said "I don't know, check the bottom." Once we had accumulated many ornaments, our mom had gotten a sharpie and sat down and written what the ornament was for on the bottom. I flipped it over.
"It says 'Hawaii Vacation'. We never went to Hawaii." I said, confused.
Blake said "Yes we did! You don't remember?"
"No." I said, racking my brain. I had no memory of white sand beaches and glowing blue water.
"I remember!" Dylan said. "That was like one of my best memories ever!"
"Oh! I probably wasn't born yet." I said, finally understanding.
"Well that's probably why its my best memory, then." Dylan said, smiling at his own joke. I stuck my tongue out at him.
"Wait a minute! You guys all went to Hawaii without me?" I complained.
Blake said "Sorry, but you weren't born yet. You can't blame us for that!"
"Fine." I allowed, plopping down on the couch.
The others stepped up and filled some of the tree in while I directed. Soon, all the ornaments were clumped on our gorgeous tree until the majority of the branches were bending down, some even touched the ground. It was perfect. We all admired it and then split up to wrap the presents. I got a small snack and then began to walk upstairs and was stopped by Nick.
"Hey Kota, got a second?"
"Sure." I said, pausing.
"Do you think you could wrap my present for me?" he asked. "I already put it in a small box so you won't know what it is!" he added, holding it out in a hand.
"Alright." I said, feeling pride. I was possibly the best christmas present wrapper in the world, and my family knew it.
"Thank you!" he said, leaning forward and kissing my forehead.
I opened my eyes wide.
"What?" he said defensively. "You're doing me a favor! And it's Christmas time!"
I took the box from him with a smile, tucked it under my arm, and kept walking upstairs. When I got to the top, Eric stopped me.
"Hey, Kota, you're good at wrapping stuff right?" he said. I think I knew where this was going.
"I'm not wrapping your present for you. I'm too busy." I said. To be honest, I wasn't busy but I wanted to see how far he would go.
"Please?" he said.
"Hmmm.... what'll you give me?" I asked.
"Give you?" he asked.
"In exchange for wrapping it." I said.
"Ummm.... I don't know, what do you want?" he asked.
"OH! I've got it!" I said, after a moment of thought. "How about you be super nice to me for the whole rest of the day?"
He grimaced. "How nice would I have to be?"
"Ya know, just compliment me a lot and do anything I ask you."
"And you'll wrap it." he said.
"Flawlessly." I added confidently.
"Fine." he agreed, after some hesitation. I gave a mental Yay, and then accepted a big box from him. He said "Goodbye. You kind person." he choked out while I laughed.
Then I went up to my room.
I played some songs off of my phone and then got out my wrapping paper and some bows from my closet. The paper had little Santas all over it and was perfect. Eric had given me a pretty big box to wrap but Nicks was only book size. I spent some time laying it out, cutting it in a perfect line, and then wrapping it on until the presents were practically perfect.
I added some gorgeous bows and smiled at my work. Then I got out Dylan's present and wrapped it. I knew he would love it. For my last gift, I got something out that I had gotten for Luke weeks ago and I wrapped it. Finally, I got my, my brothers, and Eric's boxes and went downstairs to put them under the tree. I placed them besides one lumpy package wrapped in newspaper that must have been Talens and one wrapped box that wasn't terrible. It must've been Blake's or Emma's.
I heard talking from the dining room so I walked in and saw everyone eating some tacos from Jack in the Box.
"Hey! You're eating without me?" I said.
"Oh, come on. We just started and we were going to get you." Eric said.
"Eric, that didn't sound very polite to me." I said with a smile.
He remembered then. "We are so sorry that we forgot you. It will never happen again." he said stiffly.
I laughed and sat down, while he held out my chair. Then I grabbed a taco. "Please tell me we're having something better for Christmas dinner tomorrow." I said.
Blake said "Don't worry. Emma and I will be preparing a meal and Aubrey said she would help, and she is a great chef!"
"Well alright then." I said. We ate for a little while and talked about Christmas.
Then Nick said "So let's choose a movie for tonight!" One more of our Christmas Eve traditions was to watch a Christmas movie the night before.
"I choose Scrooged." Nick said.
"I like Santa Clause." Talen said, winking when he said "clause".
"Grinch." Eric grunted. Shocker.
"Home alone." I said. "No, wait, Elf. No, Christmas Vacation!" I said.
"Nightmare before Christmas." Blake said. Dylan agreed.
Emma sided with me.
"Ok." Blake said. "Let's all vote. Not your own." He reminded us.
Dylan voted Christmas Vacation. Talen agreed.
Nick voted for Nightmare before Christmas.
Eric voted for that too until I glared at him. He remembered our agreement and switched to Christmas vacation.
The vote was practically unanimous so they went to turn on Christmas Vacation. We all took seats on the couch with Talen and Nick lounging on the floor, Eric, Dylan, Blake and I on the couch, and Emma on the couch arm next to Eric on the end. Suddenly, I felt so tired. I tried to stay awake because it was my movie we were watching but I got so relaxed and comfortable. It felt like Deja Vu when I felt myself dip into my sleepy trance.
I squeezed in between Blake and Dylan to get comfortable. My head dipped onto Dylan's shoulder.
"Kota, isn't this your movie?" Blake whispered.
"Yeah. I think so." I said, somewhat confused.
"Baby, you excited for christmas?" Dylan said teasingly, a minute later, with a nudge to my shoulder.
"Yeah!" I said, grinning.
"And Santa coming and all?" Dylan added.
"Yeah." I said.
"You believe in that?" Eric asked, leaning over, with a smirk.
"Where's the proof that he's not real?" I asked defensively, while the others chuckled. I then wrapped my arms around Dylan's side and said "Goodnight, all." They chorused goodnight back and turned the TV down a little.
I fell asleep with visions of sugar plums and happy gingerbread men.