Cinnamon Rolls and gifts and Christmas, Oh My!

 

Eliza woke early for Christmas morning.  She would love to have thought that it was all due to the excitement of gifts under the tree or excitement to see her family but, well it wasn’t.  Her parents had jetted off to Ireland this time.  They hadn’t really grown up, in fact with her in College they seemed to have reverted back to their twenty-something’s where they never had really been all that careful hence their oop’s, her.  This wonderful Christmas morning she stretched and sniffed the air.  Ahh, that had been what woke her.

She stumbled out of the guest room and down the hall of her home away from home.  Julianne’s house was where Eliza spent countless holidays and plenty more weekends.  She shuffled her way to the kitchen and saw Julianne’s mom, Mary who was named aptly since this was also the name of the woman who was mother of the reason for the season, two selfless people. She was standing at the oven, both hands in potholders humming Jingle Bells.  The scene was something in-between Mrs. Walton and Charlotte from sex and the city.  The kitchen was country sheik, warm yet contemporary and up to date.  Add Mary, the mom extraordinaire, in her apron and stylish look you had the most welcoming yet picture worthy situation in the world.  As Eliza walked into the kitchen her worries and cares seemed to melt away and revert back to those of a thirteen year old girl. The time between life and childhood.  

“That smells wonderful what are you making.”

“Oh hello dear.  Go get Julianne up.  I made you girls cinnamon rolls.”  Mary smiled and beamed, had she been eight she might have been bouncing off the walls with excitement.  If the full on Santa sleigh display in the front yard, complete with Rudolph and all his reindeer cohorts didn’t tell you how much she loved Christmas one would just need to take a step into the house.  Once in the door your senses were accosted by the smell of pine tree and cinnamon.  They had not one or two but three Christmas trees.  The smelly pinecones, the ones in a bag that stink of all the stores during the holidays, were also hung, stuffed into bowls or placed strategically around the house.  The bright side was that the bathrooms always smelled strongly of cinnamon giving the impression that nothing bad could or would ever occur in such a place.  Mary had festive tissue box covers and fabric that stretched over the toilet seats even.  If you could walk more then five feet in any direction and not see something garnished in Christmas you were in the wrong house. 

“Okay.  I’ll be right back. You’re the best adoptive mother I could ask for.  Make sure I get the biggest one,” Eliza said as she walked back the way she’d come to get Julianne out of her bed.

“Julies, wakey, wakey.”

Julianne stirred and pulled the comforter over her face.  “Go on without me.  I love my bed and I don’t need anything else.”

“There’s cinnamon rolls just waiting to be eaten in the kitchen,”  Eliza said, trying to be as persuasive as possible.

“Now that you mention it I guess I could use some food.”  She threw the blankets off nearly hitting Eliza.  “Okay, I’m up let’s go.”


After breakfast had disappeared, full bellies the only proof that it had indeed existed, the girls went into the living room where the largest of the three trees stood bright and cheery.  A small group of packages sat under the tree wrapped pristinely, begging to be opened.  Eliza’s few gifts that she had brought stood out with their Christmas wrapping paper displaying Disney Princesses.  Before Juliannes parents joined them to continue on the life long tradition of opening gifts Julianne slipped a small package into Eliza’s hands.

“What’s this?” asked Eliza studding the thing.  She flipped the box noting that it didn’t match the wrapping Julianne’s family used. 

“It’s from Ray.  He asked me to give it to you since he couldn’t stick around for Christmas,”  said Julianne. She was nearly at the edge of the couch falling off.  “Open it already.”

“Shouldn’t I wait for your parents?” 

“No, this isn’t part of our Christmas.  So open it before I die of curiosity.”

“You know Jules sometimes I think you are more like a ten year old trapped in the body of an adult.  But fine.”  Eliza’s hands were practically shaking.  She couldn’t figure out what or why Ray would have given her.  She felt even worse knowing she hadn’t gotten him anything.  She added it to her mental sticky note list to buy him a gift card or something.  She almost crindged at the idea of a gift card,  she was praying that Ray might have bought her something else although she didn’t want to get her hopes up. 

It was so weird that the small gift was making her heartbeat speed up a little in excitement, she felt a smile on her face that had been involuntary.  She wasn’t sure when these feelings had really started but it was nice.  It was nice to feel something for someone as wonderful as Ray, although there was the pesky issue of what if it ruined the friendship.  Oh well, she mentally sighed and realized she’d over analyze the situation later.

“Elle, come on.  Open the stupid thing.”

Eliza tore the wrapping, that was surprisingly neat for Ray.  The box was square but flat like a standard jewelry box that you get at department stores.  Her stomach blipped again, jewelry, that would be nice or maybe it wouldn’t.  She needed to sort through her feelings before she could accept jewelry.  Slowly, savoring the experience of her first gift from Ray, she pulled off the lid.  A note, a yellow post it note actually, sat on top of whatever the gift was. 

Dear Eliza,

Merry Christmas.  Now you have one too. 

Yours Raymond

P.S. The biscuit is for Frito
P.P.S. Next year I will do better

Removing the little yellow cryptic note Eliza saw, that yes indeed there was a milk bone and next there was a orange eraser stick, the kind that you could push up more eraser as needed sort of like a mechanical pencil.  Eliza let out a loud and happy laugh.  Ray got her an eraser, she always used his, in fact he allowed her to borrow it for their last test.  What he used she hadn’t been certain.  It was such a small gift but it meant something too, he cared about her, or well he cared about her homework anyway.  

Now to over analyze what ‘Yours’ meant.