Page 2 of Unholy Night

“I think you're right little bunny.” I grab the oven mitts and run over to save what I can of Santa’s unfortunate treat.

When I pull them out I’m relieved to discover at least a few are salvageable. I was lucky I could scrounge together enough sugar and flour to whip these up when my sweet eight-year-old daughter convinced me we had to leave a snack and a note for Santa.

Honestly, I thought we would be past the Santa lie by now. Had counted on it actually. There will be precious little in her stocking this year, and nothing in mine, though she still insisted I put it up. “Mom you can’t just give up believing. This year has sucked! We need all the magic we can get!”

“Don’t say sucked,” I chastise her.

This year Mandy seems determined to make this a Hallmark-worthy Christmas. She is on a mission, from cutting snowflakes from random bits of paper to trying to talk me into using our last bag of popcorn to string around the tree. But I know Santa isn’t coming.

2020 has been the year of the pandemic. The year of job loss and financial ruin. The year of homeschool—Jesus take the wheel—-masks and social distancing. The year of out of stock toilet paper and too much isolation for even the most introverted of us. Certainly too much for children who crave socialization and friends. It’s the first holiday season I couldn’t join my parents for Thanksgiving and now I won’t see them for Christmas. They live too far away to visit during a pandemic and I can’t put them at risk anyway.

And so it’s just me and Mandy, and burnt cookies and only a splash of milk. Only a splash because we are almost out and Mandy will need some for breakfast in the morning.

It’s a chipped cup for the fictional man in red and recycled gifts wrapped in newspaper that I spent weeks drawing on to make it festive because I couldn’t afford wrapping paper.

Not this year.

When you’re suddenly jobless with barely enough money in the bank to pay the bills and eat, wrapping paper just isn’t a necessity. Especially when no one is hiring office workers right now and I’m contemplating taking an overnight job at a gas station just to put food on the table.

Except I have no one to watch Mandy. And she can’t go to school. And… ugh. Everything about this year feels impossible.

Thankfully, Mandy doesn’t seem to mind the burnt cookies as she happily smears them with green and red frosting and sprinkles.

I force myself to stop calculating how much each ingredient costs and make myself just be present with my daughter. She is the light of my life, and I am doing my best to hold onto the magic for her even if I can no longer see—or feel it—myself.

No one tells you when you’re young that you will outgrow magic. It just happens, so slowly you barely notice it until one day it’s gone. And you’ve already convinced yourself it never existed at all.

That’s the most tragic part of growing up, I’ve always thought.

And now, as a broke, scared, single mother, it’s my job to create the magic. To preserve it and guard the light of it as I pass the torch to the next generation.

And I have to admit I feel like I’m failing right now.

“We have to feed the reindeers too,” she says, once we’ve set the frosted cookies and chipped tea cup of milk on the table by our sad Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

“Feed the reindeers?” What fresh hell is this?

“Yes, it’s the law. They eat oatmeal and glitter and they won’t bring Santa if we don’t feed them.”

I stifle a groan and turn back to the kitchen, mentally calculating how much oatmeal to give up. I can skip a few breakfasts if it means the reindeer will survive Christmas Eve. Right?

We pull out the glitter and mix it into a handful of oatmeal, then take it out to the apartment balcony. We don’t have a lawn or any grass nearby so this will have to do.

Mandy very solemnly tosses the mixture onto the ground and mumbles something under her breath.

“What was that honey?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Nothing. Just making my Christmas wish.”

My stomach clenches. There’s no way I can give her what she’s wishing for, and I fear tomorrow morning what little magic I’ve managed to salvage will be destroyed by cold hard reality.

But I smile when she looks at me and guide her upstairs to brush her teeth and get into bed.

I tuck her in and kiss her forehead and as I’m about to leave she stops me. “You have to read the story,” she says. “It’s tradition.”

Right. Of course.

I suppress an exhausted sigh and remind myself that this is usually my favorite time of the year. My favorite part of the holidays. These quiet moments reliving comforting traditions, getting lost in the magic of a story, absorbed by the wonder of it all. The glint of lights against snow, colorful baubles and ornaments decorating the world, reminding everyone that underneath it all, we do want peace and love and joy.

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