The Cherry Trees

Chapter Twenty-Six: 2013

This Christmas, I knew was going to be all about baby Alice. She was only a few months old, and for some reason, Santa Clause just adored babies and forgot about all the rest of the kids in the house when there was a newborn. So I didn't even bother writing a list of what I wanted. My mom kept on asking me about it, but I just said it didn't matter. I would try again next year.

"Well, we can share some of my gifts," Lexi said.

I didn't really care to be honest. For my birthday I had gotten a Nintendo DS, so I was pretty content. All I wanted now was a lava lamp for the clubhouse. Over this past year, our tree house had become so decorated it was ridiculous. We finally got that poster of me and Lexi and hug it on the wall, as well as a clock, another rug, more shelves, a boom box, streamers that hung from the ceiling, and a beaded curtain that was hanging in the doorway. See, we had a trap door that we came into the clubhouse with, but then we decided we needed a slide that went from the clubhouse into a deep pool in the creek. So, we installed another door that lead to the slide outside of it. It was pretty awesome.

 Last year on Christmas Eve, it was too hard to stay up all night just over our walkie-talkies, so we decided that we would have a sleepover this year. We set up our sleeping bags in my room, since it was a little too cold to sleep outside in the clubhouse.

"You ready?" Lexi asked.

"Nope, we don't have enough candy," I said. I quietly crept downstairs and tip-toed to the Christmas tree where tons of candy canes hung. I slipped a few off the artificial branches, stuffed them up my shirt, and quietly walked back up the stairs, making sure not to make them creak. Then I added them to our enormous pile of "stuff" which included flashlights, candy, blankets, hot cocoa mix, soda, slippers, chapstick, and a bunch of other random things we thought we may need during the night.

"You set the cookies out?" Lexi teased. I remembered last year when I completely forgot.

"No," I joked with a serious expression on my face.

Lexi studied me for a moment before shouting, "You forgot the cookies again!?"

I laughed, shaking my head. I had put out Santa's favorite, oatmeal raisin, which I personally did not like.

Lexi glared at me, and then turned on her walkie-talkie. I heard the usual static buzz, and then I heard Luke's voice come in.

"This is Shark to Turtle. Do you read me?"

"Yup," Lexi replied.

We were using Lexi's walkie-talkie, and had sacrificed mine to the Will so we could all talk. Of course, Will and Luke were sleeping over, the two of them had become close friends over the past year that Will had been here.

"Okay, Operation Reindeer going into action at 8:53 PM," Will said.

Operation Reindeer, or OR for short, was a plan to capture Santa Clause in action on tape. No one had ever caught him on video before! And if anyone could do it, it would definitely be us. We were using Will's spy gear, Luke's dad's video camera, Lexi and my walkie- talkies, and my living room. We had it all covered.

Lexi clicked the main control center's power button, and the motion sensors all sprung to life. We had placed the first one by the fireplace, the second by the Christmas tree, and the last one by the cookie dish, which was why it was so important that I put out the cookies.

"Motion sensors on," Lexi said.

"Activating video camera," Luke said. His dad's video camera was awesome. It had a remote control that turned it on, and controlled where it zoomed in and other technological things I didn't understand. I'm not really sure what you would ever use that for, but whatever.

"Video camera on," he said.

"Now, we wait."

It took exactly 2 hours and 13 minutes before the first motion sensor went off, which was surprisingly the one by the Christmas tree and not the fireplace. Lexi and I held our breath for about another minute before she talked to Will.

"Motion sensor two alerted," she whispered.

"Video camera recording," Luke replied.

"Psst, want to go see him in person?" I asked.

"No way! You can go see him at the mall, but I am not risking my presents!" Lexi said.

She had a point.

We waited until the third motion sensor went off at the cookie dish. Weird enough, the one at the fireplace never went off. We figured it was just broken.

An hour after the third sensor alerted us, we crept downstairs and saw masses of presents under the tree. I really wanted to open one, but I refrained, just retrieving the camera and sensors and creeping back up the stairs.

After that, we just went to sleep, wanting to save the tape until all of us could watch it together.

-

When I woke up that brisk Christmas morning, Lexi and I ran down the stairs, but not to open our presents.

"Hey mom! We are just running to Luke's real quickly, we will be back in a few minutes!"

We practically sprinted to his house, where he was waiting for us with a few cups of hot chocolate.

"Did you bring the tape?" Will asked, wringing his hands.

I lifted my finger to my chin and cocked my head to the side. "No, it didn't occur to me.... of course I brought the tape!" I said whacking him upside the head.

I handed over the video camera, and he plugged the USB something or other into some outlet thing. Then a box popped up, he clicked a few buttons, and soon enough, the video was playing.

At first, I couldn't believe my eyes.

This was... unbelievable.

SANTA WAS MY DAD!?

I looked at everyone else, and they all had the same shock written on their faces.

Santa wasn't real.

"Well this definitely made the list of my best Christmases.," Lexi mumbled sarcastically.

I nodded in agreement.

"So what do we do from here?" Will asked.

"I say we just go home and pretend nothing happened. Still enjoy our holiday. Don't confront your parents about Santa not being real, and don't ask your siblings. If we pretend like we still believe in Santa, then maybe he will still 'come' every year," Luke suggested.

We all looked at him with a surprised expression on our faces. That was probably the most any of us had heard him speak at one time.

"Sounds good to me," Lexi said shrugging her shoulders.

Lexi, Will, and I all began to walk back to our own homes, when it started to snow! Big, round, but still delicate, flakes fell from the gray sky and landed all around us. They were sticking to the ground, too! We were going to have a white Christmas!

Then I realized that Lexi hated snow, so this was probably her worst Christmas ever.

But when she started dancing around, catching flakes on her tongue and in her hands, it made me think maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all.