Stolen Christmas by Sarah M Eden

Excerpt from Stolen Christmas

Everyone has a favorite Christmas. Mine, without a doubt, was the year I stole each and every one of my family’s Christmas presents.

We were fairly newly married, though at the time I felt like a very seasoned and wise wife. We had a one-year-old son whom I had never forgotten at the grocery store, therefore, I considered myself a very successful mother, as well.

Our adorable little family had earlier that year packed up our meager belongings, donated our non-operating car, and moved from the mountains of Utah to the arid deserts of Arizona. My husband was in his first year of graduate school with what felt like decades stretching out ahead of him. He was gainfully employed, if one could consider paychecks in the double digits “gainful.” We lived in a tiny apartment just below a heavy metal enthusiast whose enormous set of speakers were, apparently, only capable of playing extremely loud music, and only between the hours of midnight and five o’clock in the morning.

These things could be overlooked, though. Christmas was coming. I had always loved Christmas, but being a wife and mother had taken my devotion to a whole new level. I desperately wanted it to be perfect.

At the beginning of December that year, I packed up the little sweetie-pie and the two dozen diapers that a one-year-old requires for an hour long expedition into the vast world of retail shopping and made a trip to my own personal Mecca: the craft store. I bought a spool of discounted ribbon that I argued was close enough to green to be considered festive and the largest undecorated wreath I could afford, one that could, after the holidays, double as a very earthy-type bracelet. Several diaper changes and a short car ride later, I unpacked my purchases and set to work.

Glue guns and I have never truly understood one another. I cannot for the life of me manage to keep my fingers safe when using one. Tears were shed, but I soldiered on. Christmas required a wreath. I hung the final product on the front door with a short piece of silver duct tape and prayed that when the bass began thumping upstairs, the vibrations would not shake my little creation loose.

With that promising beginning, I set about decorating. We had no Christmas lights to hang and probably could not have afforded the electricity, anyway. I pulled the decorations out of storage, meaning, of course, I crawled under our bed and grabbed a tiny box. Inside sat the greatest Christmas-decorating invention since tinsel: an inflatable Christmas tree. After only thirty minutes of hyperventilation, I had an entirely portable, child-proof Christmas tree complete with ornaments painted onto its plastic exterior. Things couldn’t have been better.

At least, that’s what I told myself. In my heart I knew the entire thing was pathetic. There was no smell of gingerbread in the air or gentle, falling snow. We did not even have an electronic, animated Santa figurine in the front yard. I wanted the perfect Christmas. Years down the road when I pulled out pictures of that holiday season, there would be no sighs of blissful remembering.

Christmas was a complete flop!

     

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