Bitter Sweet Christmas

14: Mistletoe

Being a Mexican born and raised in California all her life, I was not required to learn my own language. It would have been nice but, I just never was taught. That is why when my mom asked me to go get my grandparents from across the street at the neighbors house, I had a mini panic attack. There weren't many words written in my internal Spanish dictionary. I only knew the basics. Being forced to save them, I was going to have to talk to them.

Respect is big in my culture. It's most likely big in any culture. They always told you "respect your elders, children" and that's what a majority did. Part of respect in my family is speaking to them when they speak to you and doing that in Spanish. With my fabulous luck, my grandparents were those kind of people that were huge on respect.

The fact that they were at my neighbors house? That's a whole other story.

My grandparents rarely visited and when I say rarely, I mean rarely.
We visited them all the time yet they only come here at least once every two months. So, when they came, they always ended up at the wrong house. Which results in one of us usually saving them. Now, it was my turn.

Going out into the cold atmosphere, I shielded my eyes from the snow which actually hurt. They were always at the house across the street, Mr. and Mrs. Pels' house. They didn't mind of course. They actually became good friends with them so every time my grandparents came, instead of sending them across the street, she invited them in. That probably would explain why my grandparents are only at our actual house for a short amount of time

I knocked on my door with my heart partially beating quickly. The thought of what to say clouded my thoughts and made me nervous. Mrs Pels invited me inside and if it weren't for this painful snow or the cold air, I would have just stayed outside. But, the warmth convinced my mind otherwise.

Walking into her house, there were Christmas decorations everywhere. It was beautiful. She had a Christmas tree with a huge star at the top and presents all around it. There were lights around the back doors and a garland on the staircase. Her house smelled like gingerbread cookies and hot chocolate. I had just about forgotten why I came here when I saw my grandparents sitting in the living room with Mr. Pels.

"Oh hello, Charlotte. Sit down." be gestured.

"Oh. No thank you." I replied as politely as I could. "I'm actually here to pick up my grandparents." He chuckled and stood up from his chair. My grandparents did the same and came over to hug me. As best as I could, I tried to explain to them and convince them to come over. As I tried to, they looked at me with that Just-Five-More-Minutes look that little kids gave their parents when they wanted to stay a bit longer somewhere. After what felt like forever, I finally got them to come over and we were greeted by some of my cousins and their parents who had come when I was gone. Once we were all settled I looked over to see Logan with the boys and I stayed with the girls in the kitchen. My mom, aunts, cousins and I all sat at the table and drank hot chocolate, laughing and enjoying our time together. We weren't even close to being done with the decorations but we took a well deserved 4 hour break. (My family always finds time to fit movies in before getting the job done.)

We finally were back up and starting to decorate again. Logan and I still were on mistletoe and staircase duty so we decided to just get over with decorating the staircase. It took a while but, finally we were able to get it done.

"We did good, kid. We did good." Logan looked up at the case with his hands at his hips. We stood there taking in the view with pride clearly written across our faces. I smiled as the lights twinkled and the christmas music played in the background. "Let's get to the mistletoe." he suggested and I looked around for it.

We hung them up around the house making sure it was noticeable and that it wouldn't fall. One of them was by the front door so if you stood in front of the door inside, it'd be right there. "I think we're just about done." I stepped back to take a look at what was in front of me. There of course was the door with the mistletoe in front of it and around it there were lights and decorations. The little glass windows on the door and on each side of the doors were covered in snow. It looked so beautiful.

"What do you say?" my aunt came up from behind us. She put a hand on each of our shoulders and leaned close to our ears. "Why don't we all go outside and have ourselves a snowball fight?" The sound of footsteps came closer as the rest of my family approached us. With a mischievous smile, I nodded and went for the door. All of them followed as I ran to the snow to reserve my territory and begin making snowballs. It was boys against girls, they decided inside and we each had 10 minutes to make anything we could use for protection and as weapons. Weapons as in snowballs.

"Let's do this." I said before snow was all that flew through the air. We played outside for what felt like hours until it got too cold to stay out there.

"Let's go inside for movies and hot chocolate!" my mom announced as we all walked inside. All of us followed being pushed and shoved. It was like a war just trying to get through the door. Logan and I were the last ones in and I quickly shut the door behind me.

"Wait here." he whispered holding my shoulders. He waited until everyone was out of sight and in the living room.

"What are you-" I managed to get out before his lips were on mine. It was a short little kiss. He pulled away and walked over to the living room just leaving me there; speechless.

What. just. happened.