Determination (Sequel to Innocence)

Chapter 8

*****Christmas Eve*****

            Christmas Eve is one of the best day ever in December.  The day is surrounded by the smell of delicious food, opening one present, watching movies, and doing a lot of traditions. The best time is when it gets dark. It is now 6:00 and the food tasted sooo good. Now a tradition our family does is that the women dress up in the same pajamas, the men dress up in the same pajamas, and the kids 12 and under wear the same pajamas whether their boy or girl. It’s a dorky tradition, but its fun. Right now the women are dressing up first. This time we are wearing pajamas for the college team Arizona Wildcats. Once we’re done dressing up, we talk about how our entrance is going to be.

            I stand in the back of the line going down the stairs, and we all start to chant like football players as I hold a football. As soon as we’re all in the living room in front of the men we get into a huddle and then break. We line up in an offensive line and my mom holds the football on the floor.

            “Set 22, wildcats 1, set hut!” I say in a manly voice.

The ball snaps into my hand, and the women start to run around, and I throw the ball towards my Aunt Valarie. She catches it, and does a touchdown dance like an idiot.

The men stare at us laughing and clapping.

“And that gentlemen is how you play football without breaking anything in the living room.” I say smiling.

“Yeah yeah Aubrey, leave it up to the Pro’s.” My dad says cockily and leaves with the men to change.

I sit down on the couch with the women, and wait to see if the men’s entrance is better than ours.  I see them walking down the stairs flexing their arms downwards and upwards in a pattern. I raise my eyebrow thinking how men are stupid. They all line up in front of us, and start to do a cheer. I think to myself “oh my god” and I put my hand over my mouth laughing with the women and kids.

“Hey you forgetting your cheerleader uniforms guys.” My mom says laughing.

Finally they get done pretending to be cheerleaders. That was so horrible…

The kids do their entrance, which they really don’t know what they’re doing if they’re 7 or under, but they try so hard.

We let the kids open only one present first. I have never seen so many presents. Every year it seems like more and more presents are put under the tree. They all seem to enjoy them. Later on that night the adult’s usually will put extra presents out in the living room with the kid’s names above their presents, because it’s from Santa. We usually do it for 9 and under, depending on if they still believe in Santa. Melanie’s 10 now and she doesn’t so no extra presents for her this year. I don’t want to put the presents out though. So I pretty much opened my present, watched a movie with the family in the family room, and ate a little more food.

I walk up to the room that used to be mine. Well I guess you can still call it my room, it has my desks, dresser, and little things I didn’t want to take to campus.

I shut the door behind me, and walk over to my bed falling down on my stomach.

I let out a grunt, and peacefully lay there for a few minutes.

I hear the ringtone I specifically set for Laylee when she calls. I reach for my phone and answer it.

            “Hello?” I say as I adjust myself on the bed and lay on my back.

            “Hey baby, how’s your Christmas Eve going?” She says sounding so happy.

            “It has been a good Christmas Eve.”