Christmas Morning

Isabella rubbed her eyes and padded her way down the dimly lit hallway. Her mother and father were still asleep but she’d been startled awake by the winter winds howling outside her bedroom window.

Unaware that she should still be in bed, Isabella paid no special attention to how much noise she was making and plodded past her parent’s bedroom door, the vinyl padding of her footed pajamas shuffling on the wooden floor.

She had a vague understanding that this was Christmas morning and recalled the festivities of the night before. Relatives and friends had visited. All of the adults had laughed, eaten cookies and cakes and sung songs where everybody seemed to know all the words.

Her cousin, who was nine had acted with such enthusiasm dancing around that he’d gotten in big trouble. “Do you want Santa to see you being bad right now?” Her uncle had asked. In the end, her cousin had calmed down but from the excitement Isabella knew that these events marked something bigger than she ever remembered happening before.

Was Santa downstairs right now? Was she ‘bad’ for being up? She crept down the steps.

Unable to tell time, Isabella paid no mind to the clock on the wall. The living room was dark but she knew how to turn the lights on and had only begun climbing the overstuffed chair by the wall switch when the room came alive with light.

“WHAT, are you doing up at this hour young lady?” Came her mother’s voice from the foot of the stairs.

“What time is it,” she heard her father ask. They were both wearing bathrobes and their hair was sticking out. She’d woken them up and was afraid she was in trouble.

“Four,” her mother said.

“Four? Uggg,” Isabella’s father said. “I’ll put the coffee on.”

Her mother scooped Isabella from her perch on the chair and for a moment she feared she’d be taken back to her bed and began to resist. Instead, her mother yawned and carried her over to the tree which had a mountain of wrapped gifts piled underneath its green fragrant branches.

“Last year you were only two years old so you probably don’t remember much about Christmas,” her mother whispered in her ear. “But now, you’re our BIG girl.”

Isabella’s didn't know where to look first. Boxes and ribbons everywhere. Are these all for me, she wondered. Her mother plunked her down amid the mountain of gifts and placed an unwrapped baby doll in her lap. Isabella’s eyes were wide as she admired her first gift of the morning.

“Coffee’s brewing,” Mike said as he slid his arms around his wife from behind and kissed her cheek. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, my love,” Tesha replied and leaned back against him with a smile of sincere bliss. “This makes it all worth it, don’t you think?”

“Ummm hummmm,” Mike agreed. “Princess Bella enjoying her first real fairy-tale.”

“Tiny Tim had it right,” Tesha said. “God bless us, everyone.”