Christmas Eve

A short piece in remembrance of my sister this holiday

I heard a knock on my bedroom door. Even at 12-years-old, I anticipated it. My younger sister’s regular nightmares pushed her out of her own bed and into mine many nights. She feared the monsters she said were standing over her as she slept. She would grab her blanket and tip toe across her room to my bedroom right next door and ask to sleep with me.

Lis was five years younger than me, and I didn’t always let her in. My regret and guilt about that haunts me still. I imagine her lying in bed, terrified, trying to be a big girl. I can see her feet hit the floor at the point she gives in and decides to try to convince me to let her in under the covers.

That night was different. It was Christmas Eve, so I answered her knock with warmth and told her to come in. I was a light sleeper and incredibly sensitive to noise and movement, both in my waking and sleeping hours. I already hated the sound of other people chewing food, something I would learn later in life is a thing. I was also about to start my period, a Christmas morning surprise that my mom would welcome by telling me that I was a woman now while I stood in the bathroom, stunned, with my bloody underwear pulled down around my knees.

Lis rushed in before I could change my mind. She held her soft white blanky with the faded yellow flowers under her right arm and her Strawberry Shortcake doll in her left hand. She hopped in under the covers. Knowing my pet peeves, she kept incredibly still but couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t sleep either. I was still excited for Christmas morning even though I learned a year before that Santa was my 30-year-old mom who wrapped and put the gifts under the tree. My mom told me that even though she was basically Santa that she still believed and that sometimes magical things happen on Christmas Eve. I believed her then. Maybe I still believe her.

We heard scotch tape stretch across its holder and scissors run through Christmas paper over the soft sound of Christmas music. The thick, sticky, skunky smell of pot wafted under my bedroom door. I heard my parents mumbling and made out that my dad was going to bed.

I turned towards my sister and could see, in the glow of the Christmas lights I’d hung up in my room, how her blonde toddler curls had turned into amber locks that were straighter now. I pushed some strands away from her face so I could see her better. She was growing up. At seven-years-old, the nightmares signaled something but I didn’t know what yet. In another six months, our five-year-old cousin would succumb to cerebral palsy, and her death would trigger something that was lying in wait inside my sister.

I asked Lis if she was excited to see what Santa brought her. She nodded, but I saw trepidation in her eyes. She said she hoped Santa wouldn’t come into the bedroom while we slept. I wanted to put her fears to rest and tell her there was no Santa, but my mom would one-hundred percent, absolutely, for sure kill me for that.

“He’s in a hurry, Lis. He’ll be in and out before we even know it.” Her eyes bore holes in mine. I could smell the strawberry scent embedded in her doll’s stuffing and the shampoo she’d used to wash her hair before bed. She probably hadn’t gotten all of it rinsed out.

“How does he come down our chimney? It’s too small,” Lis said. She pulled the blankets further up around her neck. We lived in a double-wide manufactured home. The chimney was a cylinder about 10 inches across.

“When the chimney is too small or there isn’t a chimney, he just comes in the front door,” I said. I repeated what my mom had told me a few years earlier when I asked the same question. We never locked our doors back then. We lived in the country among friends and neighbors our family had known for decades. “He’s Santa Claus,” I said, giving rise to my voice but still in a whisper so mom wouldn’t yell at us to go to sleep. “I promise he’s not one of the monsters.”

Her shoulders relaxed away from her ears. She released the blankets from her tight grasp and scooted just a little bit closer to me. I scooted a little bit closer to her. We stopped talking and listened to our mom run her scissors through more Christmas paper and turn up the music just a bit. Bruce Springsteen’s Santa Clause is Coming to Town was mom’s favorite.