Learning to Love Christmas

Chapter 22

XXII: It’s Finally Christmas

December 25, 2013

 

Christmas morning went by in a blur. I woke up to Danny jumping on my bed. He was screaming at me to get up or else he’d throw all my presents in the trash. Then he hopped off, hugged me, and said he was just joking but I should hurry up and get down to the lounge pronto.

After yesterday’s party, I didn’t think I’d have the energy to keep up the “I’m-A-Okay” attitude for opening presents. But I had. I laughed when Ethan opened his present from Danny, a can of baked beans – my older brother’s favorite. I smiled when Mom told me she absolutely adored the new set of baking pans I got her. I profusely thanked my Dad for getting me a new bookshelf and a gift card to my favorite bookstore.

It was going great, if I say so myself. I didn’t think about Oliver until Danny opened the gift he got from Oliver and began dancing around and smiling like a maniac, clutching the pink Angry Bird in his hands. I smiled, despite myself, thinking how thought he was in actually remembering what my little brother wanted for Christmas. I also thought of how it’s dumb to be miserable on Christmas morning so I should smile more.

After a huge breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, pancakes, and orange juice, I went up to my room to get ready. I stood in front of my mirror after I took a shower and straightened my red and white reindeer sweater and cream beanie.  I willed myself to smile and though it didn’t quite reach my eyes, I deemed it good enough.

“This is stupid. So stupid. Just get over it!” I chanted in my head.

I dropped down on my knees to look for my brown boots that I last remembered being under my bed. When I didn’t see them there, I looked elsewhere. Only when I pushed away a pile clothes on my chair did I see them. Along with a pretty white box plastered with silver snowflakes.

“What the hell?” My breath caught in my throat when I opened the tag stuck on top. “To Ellie: Hopefully this was the ‘something meaningful’ you were looking for. Merry Christmas.” it said in a familiar uneven scrawl – Oliver’s.

Part of me told me not to open it. My morning was going well, why would I want to ruin it by opening the present? But a bigger part of me, and my curiosity, was pushing me to do the opposite.

I knew I was going to regret this later but I pulled the ribbon off and lifted the lid. It was some sort of photo album, as small as a pocketbook. The words “13 Reasons Why I Fell For You” were printed on the front in shiny gold cursive atop the plain black cover. My heart sped up as I untied the gold ribbon that bound the pages together.

The pages were black as well and on the first one was a Polaroid photo of me and Oliver making goofy faces in front of the bookshelves at Gingersnaps. On white cardstock with a black sharpie, it was captioned “We look adorable as a couple and everyone agrees.”

The next page had a photo of Oliver winking. I remembered taking that one afternoon at school with his camera. “I love how you roll your eyes at my cheesy pick-up lines” it said. I felt my lips curl at the ends as fragments of all the lines ran through my head. It grew into a full blown smile when I saw a picture of me with my thickly-framed glasses making cross eyes and sticking my tongue out at the camera and the caption “You’re such a dork”. Then there was a Polaroid of him and me wearing halos at a night shift in Gingersnaps. He had his hands together as if he was praying, looking innocent, while I was captured mid-laugh with my eyes shut tight and my head thrown back. I let out a quiet laugh when I read what he wrote, “I’m at my best when I’m with you.”