“Okay, what should we do first? Presents or breakfast?” Mom asked, after getting a hug from each of us as our surrogate Santa.
“Presents! I wanna do presents!” Alycia shouted. “Presents presents presents!” She ran to the small Christmas tree and delivered the presents, singing the recipient’s name and who it was from, and dancing around like a ten-year-old. Wesley sat in the armchair amidst the prettily wrapped gifts at his feet with a dumbfounded look on his face. Mom teased him about his astonished look and told him that he was part of our family and, of course, he’d be included in the gift exchange. I smiled and felt my chest tighten. I knew it was cliché, but this was the best gift I could ever ask for.
“Okay! Me first,” Alycia announced, pulling a rectangular box onto her lap. She tore off the paper and held up a Persian-blue dress with a wide sash around the waist and a bodice that folded over the chest. It was beautiful and exactly her style, and she thanked Mom happily while holding it up to her shoulders.
Mom was next in the circle and took a small box wrapped in red paper with a green ribbon. She already knew what it was; she got it every year. It was a bottle of perfume that she always got from Dad on Christmas. After their divorce, Alycia and I continued the tradition with mixed feelings, but Mom smiled and thanked us from the bottom of her heart. The only difference was that, this year, the gift tag read: From Wesley and Toren.
Wesley chose a rectangular clothes box and unwrapped it carefully. Alycia chuckled as he folded the paper in halves and laid it down on the floor. Inside the box was a new pair of blue jeans that he desperately needed and a dark orange long-sleeved shirt. He blushed as he thanked Mom and Alycia giggled again.
At last, it was my turn and I opened a package elegantly dressed in cheesy cartoon elves decorating a huge Christmas tree. I smiled at Alycia as I crumpled up the paper; she always looked for one roll of exceedingly ugly gift wrap. I held up two DVDs and thanked her excessively; few people appreciated my love of kung fu movies. Wesley smiled and gave me a thumbs-up: The Legend of the Drunken Master and The Defender, two of our favorites.
We went around the circle, opening our gifts in turn, when Wesley pulled a long, thin box onto his lap.
“No! You can’t open that one yet!” Alycia shouted.
Wesley looked up and then at the balls of crumpled paper on the floor. “But this is the last one,” he said.
“Well, you still have a card,” Alycia said, smirking at me.
“Oh,” Wesley answered simply and picked up the forgotten card under some paper. He glanced at his name and the lopsided smiley face on the envelope and grinned at me. He pulled the card out and a sheet folded in quarters fell into his lap. He looked down and then read what I had written: “We can have it delivered anytime. Merry Christmas! I love you! Love, Tor.” He mouthed the word “delivered” with a confused look and opened the folded sheet of paper on his lap. His eyes grew big and his jaw dropped. “You gotta be kidding me,” he mumbled, staring at the paper. “Are you for real?” he asked, tearing his eyes away to look at me for just a moment. “I can’t believe it! This is awesome!”
“It has the charcoal/gas option and a side-burner,” I said, beaming excitedly. I knew Wesley wanted a grill, but his hints were subtle.
“Thank you!” Wesley cried, toppling me over on the floor and hugging me so tightly that I couldn’t breathe.
Mom and Alycia laughed and after Wesley calmed down a bit, I opened my last gift. After pulling off the solid green paper, I stared at the cell phone box on my lap in astonishment. I looked over the features: phone, camera, internet. It was one of those phones that had everything.
“This… is so cool!” I stuttered excitedly and Wesley smiled proudly.
“Now you don’t have to use pay phones and I can talk to you whenever I want.”
“I love it! It’s so cute too!”
“Lemme see,” Alycia said, pulling the box away from me. “Oh wow! This thing has everything!”
“Well, it’s not as cool as a grill, but….”
“No, it’s better! I love it. Thank you,” I said, touching Wesley’s hand with a smile.
We cleaned up the living room, stuffing crumpled wrapping paper into a trash bag and putting our gifts into neat little piles. Alycia set the trash bag by the front door, and I headed into the kitchen.
“All right, what do you want for breakfast?” I asked.
“Oh, don’t worry about it, Tor. I bought some coffee cake and bagels,” Mom said, sitting back down on the sofa and sipping her coffee.
“Even better,” I said and began to prepare breakfast.
We sat around and leisurely ate while talking about our presents and retelling old Christmas stories. We eventually got dressed in the early afternoon and broke out the Scrabble board, another family tradition since Dad left. It had been six years since he’d left and five years since we moved. I thought holidays would be difficult and sad because we didn’t have any family nearby. But Alycia and I loved spending the holidays with Mom, just the three of us. Now we had Wesley to share these special times with, and I couldn’t keep myself from smiling.
Wesley complained the whole time we played Scrabble because he was in last place. He said he wasn’t very good, but he did well—considering he was
