“I’ve got some bad news,” says my dad when I answer the phone.
Obviously, I get a little worried. When I left, my grandma wasn’t doing very good. My grandpa died at the beginning of the year, and she’s been going downhill ever since.
“Alright,” I say, hesitantly.
“Well, this is your first Christmas away from home, and there’s something you should probably know.”
Now I’m just confused.
“Your stocking, your gifts under the tree… your mom and I buy those,” he tells me, with this tone in his voice. It’s a tone I know well – it happens when he’s trying to be serious but he’s got a big smile on his face. “There is no Santa.”
He just makes me so happy. I’m going to miss his Christmas morning omelets.
Before I was even born, my gramma made me a Christmas stocking with my name on it. She made a matching one for both my sisters. They are beautiful, and they are a big part of Christmas for my family. We open our gifts on Christmas morning with my grandparents, but we open our stockings in my parents’ room first, just the five of us.
We were at Wal-Mart today, at 4 am, and James started pushing the cart towards the Christmas decorations.
‘Where are you going?’ I asked, since we’d pretty much just gone out to pick up envelopes for me to send my mom a disc of photos.
‘To get you a stocking,’ he replied with a wide smile.
I looked at the selection of generic stockings, red and white and green, with Christmas trees and glitter and fluff. I just couldn’t do it.
‘I can’t,’ I told him. ‘I already have a stocking.’
I’ve missed concerts and Halloween and Thanksgiving, but this is the first time I’ve felt like I’m really going to be missing something.
