This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/BarneyReject123 on 2024-11-26 18:27:20+00:00.
Christmas was always my favorite holiday. Not just for the presents, but for the whole season surrounding it. A lot of my favorite memory’s come from that time of year: going on walks with my Mom to see all the decorated houses in our neighborhood, getting hot coco from the cafe at the end of our block, staying up late on Christmas Eve listening to the house settle and swearing it was reindeer footsteps.
But Christmas carries a shadow for me, it always will. A shadow cast by three Christmases, my seventh my eight and my ninth. I don’t know why I’m writing this, maybe I think it’ll give me closure, maybe I think people need to know, maybe I just have to finally talk about it. Either way, it’s hear for you to read. Take from it what you will.
The first thing I remember about my seventh Christmas was how it snowed in the morning. It was the kind of perfect light snowfall they had to use special effects to create in movies. I had woken up very early that morning after staying awake in bed that night, anticipating the day to come. It didn’t matter, I was too excited to be tired.
The moment my brain processed what day it was; I shot out of bed, got into the dress clothes my Mom had picked out for me (she made us take a Christmas Day photo every year), and started to considered wether I should wake Mom, Dad, and by extension my little brother, or just sneak down and look at the presents. Then I noticed the snow outside my window.
I just stoped and stared. While watching the white dots as they glided down from an equally white sky, I thought about how of all the things I knew of that came from the sky: rain, sleet, meteors (I was into Dinosaurs), snow was by far the most peaceful. The other things collided with the ground where it simply settled on it.
I felt like I stayed there contemplating the snow for hours, but it couldn’t have been that long since when I did wake my parents, they weren’t very happy. You couldn’t blame them, but they also couldn’t blame a seven year old for being exited about Christmas, so my dad gave me his laptop and I went to my room and watched YouTube.
I remember exactly what video I watched, it was a let’s play of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. In the previous weeks I had become obsessed with the game through videos and really wanted a Nintendo 2DS and a cartridge so I could play it for myself. I had asked my Dad about it two weeks before, but he said that he couldn’t get a present that expense so close to Christmas and that my birthday was only three months away. I asked him if maybe Santa could make it, but he just laughed and said something about how Santa’s elves were busy this close to Christmas.
Finally once Luke my, at the time, five year old brother woke up, my parents relented and let us head down the stairs.
We saw a lot of presents underneath our tree. Some from our parents, some from relatives, and some from “Santa”. The gifts attributed to Saint Nicholas where all wrapped in white and green wrapping paper and had paper tags dotted with images of peppermints.
I don’t remember every thing I got that year, but I remember it being a pretty good haul, filled with big Lego sets and action figures. I also remember a tiny bit of disappointment as I opened my last present. Partially because neither it nor any of the others were a 2DS, and partially because Christmas morning was over. In the blink of an eye an event that I had spent the whole month preparing for, an event which was so close a few minutes ago, was now a year away.
“Are we ready to take a photo?” My mom said as she set up a tripod. “Then we can eat some of that stocking candy Santa left.”
“There’s another present.” Luke pointed towards something behind the tree.
“I’m pretty sure that’s it kiddo.” As my dad spoke, Luke crawled under our tree and started reaching for something. Sure enough he returned with a medium sized box.
“I guess you’re right.” Mom spoke to Luke, but she looked at Dad. “Who’s it from?”
Luke read the note on the box “From: Santa, To:” He stopped, scowled and handed the gift to me. “Its for you.”
When I grabbed the gift I should have noticed that unlike the other presents; the wrapping paper was brown, or that the tag was a crudely torn off piece of paper taped to the top of the box, or the messy handwriting the words on the tag were written in. If I noticed any of these things I ignored them:
It was the right size.
Because of how simple the wrapper paper was, I got it off in one clean tear and revealed exactly what I’d been hoping for.
A 2DS that came packaged with Ocarina of Time.
I was never good at smiling for family photos, even on Christmas. I think I’ve just always hated standing still. My Mom would get us to smile eventually, but looking in old photo albums I can usually see hints of irritation hidden on my grinning face.
Not for that year’s photo though. The me in that photo, the me grinning ear to ear, the me not caring that we had to redo the photo something like ten times, might be the happiest version of me that a camera has ever captured.
But looking at that same photo, above me and Luke, at my parents faces; I can see something else. I can see concern and confusion which would in a few years transform into terror.