I woke up in a quiet house. No sound of Christmas music, no sound of bustle in the kitchen, no sound of anybody opening presents. The one thing I could hear was the hum of the heater downstairs. Nevertheless, I still felt cold.
I glanced to my right, toward the empty bed. The blanket covered almost the entire thing, and its edges were tucked deep within the frame. I didn’t understand the point of keeping it made when Porky wasn’t around to screw it up anymore. It was like someone preparing a welcome-back party for a dead person, and Porky might as well be dead by now.
“Mom, are you home?!” I yelled in a sleepy voice.
There was only the heater's hum.
Yawning, I sat up and gazed at the floor. For one reason or another, the carpet seemed interesting that morning.
Waking up took forever.
When my eyes stopped feeling heavy, I trudged out of bed like a zombie. From there, I slugged my way down the stairs and into the living room.
It was empty, save for the furniture and an artificial Christmas tree set up near the door. The lights and star were turned off. Under the tree, there was only a bare carpet.
I remembered when Porky was around, he would always get the good presents. A couple of years ago, he had gotten $500 dollars from Dad and a pellet gun from Mom. I got clothes; some were lend-me-downs that fit me like an oversized blanket.
My fists had clenched, but upon noticing, I relaxed them. Silently, I shuffled over to the tree. I plugged it in, and the golden lights that hung from its branches flickered to life. The star did nothing except make a quiet buzzing noise.
I breathed a sigh, and sat on the couch nearby.
My family had used the tree since I was a child. As I gazed at it, I couldn't help but picture tons of p...
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...Took you long enough,” He said, almost in a whisper.
“It hasn't been five minutes,” I replied, closing the door behind me.
“A warm couch makes time melt away.” His lips formed a smirk. “Do you like it? I came up with that just now.”
“Ehh. Doesn't seem like a hard one to think up.”
“Sounds like envy to me, but whatever. By the way, what was in that envelope?” Ness was now sitting up, his smirk gone, and his head tilted.
For a moment, I thought of saying, “Just a letter”.
“Well, it was a letter Mom wrote. She said that she was going to stay out for the weekend. Get away from our dreadful home life, and stuff.”
“Dreadful? How hard is it to take care of one child?”
I breathed a sigh, and found a wall to stare at. For a moment, none of us spoke a word. I could almost hear the gears in Ness' head turning, trying to manufacture something for him to say.
“Sorry.”
On a summer afternoon in my hometown of Hemet, California is like every other day in the summer where everyone is in their houses cooling off or in their pools. When standing in the middle of the street in front of my house I notice four trees in the front yard. Two of the four trees stand on the right side of the yard. An Elm tree twenty feet from the road the height of a two-story house with an unfinished project of a tree house up in the branches from years ago. And an apricot tree that is the height of a one-story building that is about 35 feet from the road with branches easy to climb up. On the left side of the yard I see two more trees; an old nectarine tree half the size of a one-story house about ten feet from the road, and a lemon tree about 30 feet from the road that is about the size of a one-story house. On the curb
I look at my mom and shrugged my shoulders, “I don’t know, I think she was talking to her friend about a party or something.”
Decorations for the tree, if the family had one, were handcrafted too. They might be paper ornaments; hand carved wood ornaments and maybe candles
"Really, your mom told me to come get you because she got tied up with some work!" the man continued.
“Diana, why aren’t you sleeping yet? The trip isn’t for a few days. You still have time,” my mother’s tired voice echoed from the room beside me.
Adults all seem to love Christmas plays. Whether it’s the same old generic style or a comedy, they all enjoy the holiday season. However, most people don’t realize the torture of being the lead character. From hours of line study, to the embarrassment of wearing that horrible costume, to the agony of song motions. They all leave a lasting effect on your life. One of the most memorable plays I was in, for many reasons, was A Christmas Ho-Down.
In "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, Ebenezer Scrooge undergoes a transformation as a result of his encounters with three ghosts and becomes a kind, happy, and generous man. His greedy, cruel, and grumpy demeanor is replaced seemingly overnight, but he doesn’t just wake up and decide to be nice. It takes three Spirits to change his outlook on life - The Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Future. The Ghost of Christmas Past makes Scrooge begin to regret his selfishness, and the Ghost of Christmas Present begins to teach him about others. This second Ghost helps to make him realize that money doesn't buy happiness. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, however, teaches the most profound lesson of all: unless he changes, no one will care if Scrooge dies. Because of the Ghosts, by Christmas morning Ebenezer Scrooge is a completely different person from the man who went to bed on Christmas Eve.
Imagine walking down an ancient path amidst a forest of tangled and twisted trees, some of which have existed since before a time even great grandparents can remember. The air echoes with sounds of life, and the fragrance is that of cedar or juniper… or something not quite either. The living things that dwell here, bridge a gap in time that many are totally unaware of and for the reasons about to be explained, may never become so. The beauty that surrounds this place is unexplainable in the tongue of man, yet its presence can be felt by all who choose to behold it. At least for now…
Everyone had woken up. I hopped out of my bed and approached the pile of my neatly folded clothes on an ancient wooden chair and picked them up. I put on my filthy white washed top; pulled up my compacted jeans; reached out to my red pointed hat and greasy brown boots and strolled down the
The blanket was my kingdom. The only rule was that I never left its boundaries. I was to remain within the queen-size limitation, amusing myself as I chose, for the duration. The reward was that, beyond a doubt, upon that quilt, I would always be 100% safe.
I started out the night by sleeping. The couch makes a very comfy nap spot, when I’m allowed on it. Following that, I began to make my way
make my way to the frost coated back door, illuminated by the green and red
It was three weeks before Christmas when my little sister Emily barged into my room. I was busy preparing gifts for the holidays and also was listening to music. I took an earbud out to listen to what she had to say, but I still was not facing her. She then asked if Santa was real. In my busy state of mind, I nonchalantly said yes and urged her out of my room so I could finish what I was doing. At the time, I did not think much about my response.
...e roots of the old tree, the star’s light was intercepted by green shoots and small, crinkled leaves— last season’s seeds. Tiny children of the mother tree, they were doomed to live out their lives under her suffocating blanket of branches. Now as they gazed upward, innumerable points of light gazed back. A light wind rustled the miniature stalks of the saplings, blowing the new debris around in short-lived eddies that danced softly through the night.
By my house was a small river that my sister and I would play next to. Along this river was a huge oak tree with thick trunks covered in moss that curved outward to create an opening within itself. This tree was almost like one that would be seen in a fairytale; or so it seemed when I was six years old. This enchanted tree is where my sister and I would play and spend most of our summer afternoons in. One day my sister found a rusty, jagged, and circular metal object in the river. Although we had no idea what this piece was, we hung the item on a broken branch inside the tree as our imaginary clock for our house. It was not long after that we found more rustic items in the river to add to our mythical domain.