“Natalie” by Molly Magee

Christmas is a time where the weather may be frightful, but hearts are filled with warmth at the sight of snow falling, your crazy Aunt Sherrie that you only see once a year or all the bright colored lights illuminating the sky. Getting older always meant getting better presents. However, when I look back upon all of my 21 Christmases I only want to go back in time to my younger years. I would want to wear my pink and purple Minnie Mouse footy pajamas and wake up only to have to wait one more hour before I could wake my parents.

I might not have a specific memory in which I could declare as the best, but I would deem every Christmas that my parents were together as perfect. Perfect is something very hard to obtain, and to my parents, everything probably wasn’t perfect. But to a five-year-old, life couldn’t get any better. Letters to Santa, carrots for the reindeer, the faith of a child, and a family to call my own was all I could want.
Maybe it was the little things that seem to mean the most. The times where my whole family would gather to have our picture made for our Christmas card. This was always such the ordeal. Everything had to be just perfect for my mom. This always meant curlers in your hair, a prissy Christmas dress and a matching bow to go with it. Maybe I could have done without the curlers, but this was a family tradition and I loved it. I always loved coming up with creative places to have the picture, but more importantly I loved being apart of the family that was in the portrait.
Every year we would also fly from South Florida to Mississippi to see extended family. This was always one of the highlights of the holiday season for the Vick family. Wendy and me would put on our most festive outfits and be ready to go. We were only allowed to walk in the airport while clenching on to a parent’s hand, I normally grabbed my dad’s while Wendy always went for mom’s. We would be dragged from one terminal to the next usually hoping we wouldn’t miss our flight. The layovers were always the best. This is normally when my sister and me would put our plaid lacey pajamas on and parade throughout the airport without a care in the world.
Christmas is still my favorite time of the year, but every year it comes with hurt. Along with the jolly man comes sadness too. Even though my sister and me do not have a traditional family to celebrate what just happens to be one of the most magical times of the year, we will always have Christmas memories of years past that could satisfy all the years to come. Someone could steal my possessions, but no one could ever take away the memories of a family, my family.