Biggest Christmas Ever: Prologue (draft 2)

I'm not going to put the whole book on this blog. But I thought, maybe, Gentle Reader, you might be interested in what I am writing besides history papers.

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Prologue
The Last Normal Christmas


Max's Dad, his Uncles Jake and Raul, and his brother Ben were watching a football game in the living room while Max, his Mom, aunts Katie and Piper, his older sister Claudia and twin sister Leslie, and Max's cousins were in the den, what his sister, Claudia liked to call "the parlour" eating popcorn and waiting to open the presents under the tree. The only person in Max's family who wasn't there was his Great Great Aunt Irene. They had already had Christmas dinner, pizza, and were eager to get to the presents.

It wasn’t really Christmas but that’s the way it was in Max's family. They never really had Christmas on Christmas because someone always had to be somewhere else on December 25. As far back as Max could remember, they always had Christmas at least a week early. Which is why Great Great Aunt Irene wasn't here. She was very old and very old-fashioned and would not celebrate Christmas one day early. Also, she lived in the big city a couple of hours away.

Finally, Aunt Katie began chanting – "We want Christmas. We want Christmas" – all of the kids joined in and marched into the living room trying to get Dad, and Ben and the uncles to come open presents. But there were still 8 minutes left in the football game, and as everyone knows, that means there was really half an hour to go until the game was over. So they went back into the den and waited.

Finally the game was over, the television was turned down (but not off) and the football fans joined the others in the den. Dad handed the family Bible to Uncle Jake, saying, “You read it this year” so Uncle Jake read…

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem….

Finally, he got to the last line about the shepherds glorifying God and Mom said, “Okay! The spiritual stuff is over let's get to the important part” and we all yelled THE PRESENTS!!!! Everyone except Claudia. For a second, Max thought she looked sad.

But if you want to talk about sad, that happened after the presents had been opened. Max kind of felt like, "is that it? Is that all I get?" But he really did get a lot. His presents included the action figures he wanted, and a new rocket set, two new video games, a scooter, socks (from his Mom) and a lot of candy. But he still wanted more. And then he felt bad for wanting more instead of being happy with the things he got. He even cried a little bit, and Aunt Katie said “Why is Max crying?” Max quickly answered for his mother, “I’m just so happy! I love Christmas.” But Claudia gave Max a strange look. She knew. In fact, she felt the same way Max felt.

The next few days were blah. There were still Christmas specials on TV, and there were people saying “Merry Christmas”, and the Wilcox family kept their Christmas tree up. But for the whole family Christmas had been over for six days by the time Christmas Eve arrived. Between the night they opened presents and Christmas Max zoomed around the neighborhood on his new scooter, played video games, and mainly tried not to be bored.

And then on Christmas morning there were stockings to open. But it wasn’t a big deal to Max. He just woke up and found a stocking at the foot of his bed. His house didn't have a fireplace at which to hang stockings, so the foot of the bed had to do. In the stocking were some colored pencils, more candy (but Max was already tired of candy), and a new belt. He was happy to get the presents. He didn’t feel the disappointment he had felt 7 days earlier. But he didn’t feel excited either. This was really just another day, but with a new belt, some colored pencils and some more candy. To tell you the truth, he was happy Christmas was finally over. For Max, and the whole Wilcox family, the last week had seemed like a strange time, Christmas was over but not really. It was like a zombie Christmas they couldn't get rid of. None of them liked it very much, but its what they always did and habits are hard to break.