Page 2 of All I Want for Christmas Eve

Chapter One

Rubbing my aching neck after a long day’s work, I stand by my window, sipping on a cup of hot cocoa. The sky is mostly too cloudy to see any stars, but there are a few patches of clear sky here and there. I smile as I search for shooting stars, a silly game that I used to play with my siblings when we were young. Someone had the bright idea that if we wished for what we wanted to get for Christmas on a shooting star, it would definitely come true.

It was probably Mary. She’s always been such a hopeless romantic.

My oven dings, and I turn around eagerly, nearly spilling my cocoa. I place the mug down on a table beside my favorite green armchair, where I can enjoy it later. Moving toward the kitchen, I grab my oven mitts to remove the delicious cake I have been baking. As soon as it is on the counter, I take a sniff of the aroma with my eyes closed. Then I place the cake down and begin to smash it.

Because the only thing better than cake is a cake pop. Obviously.

Getting out my utensils, I begin to hum as I mix the cake crumbs with other ingredients, creating perfect little spheres. I impale them with lollipop sticks before placing them in the fridge to chill, and removing the previous batch that has been in there chilling for quite a while.

Melting a bit of creamy brown chocolate, I dip the chilled cake balls into the mixture. I then proceed to add two well-placed pretzels to make little antlers, and a red jelly candy to make a nose. I then create little candy eyes.

“Perfect!” I exclaim to myself, as I triumphantly hold up the reindeer cake pop.

Back home in Snowflake Creek, it’s a tradition for us all to cook our own special treat to make the holidays more memorable. We make a little Christmas competition of it, and I amverycompetitive. I have been practicing a few new ideas, eager to make them for a house filled with family, instead of just for myself. And not just because it would be easier on my waistline to share.

I finish dipping and designing the reindeer cake pops, and okay, a few of them come out with their eyes slightly lopsided. But that’s why we practice these things, right? I’m not a chef. I’m a writer. I put this batch back into the fridge to harden, but take one for myself to enjoy in my cozy green chair.

I move back over to the window and collapse in the armchair dramatically, twirling my adorable reindeer cake pop. I don’t cook Christmassy sweets or any desserts very often, so this feels very special to me. First, I nibble off his antlers, because it seems like the appropriate place to start.

But when I bite into his delicious reindeer-brains, the pleasure of the perfect combination of flavors is immediately replaced with the loneliness of not having anyone around to enjoy this with. I take a large sip from my hot cocoa, now that the liquid has cooled to a tolerable level, and the chocolatey beverage mixes with the taste of the cake, causing the flavors to melt against my tongue.

I sigh. I dip the whole reindeer into my hot chocolate, red nose and all, and take a generous bite. I sit there for a while, in my green armchair, with a sad, lonely, half-eaten Rudolph, as nostalgic memories of my family flood my mind. The last few Christmases have been spent all alone up here, and I have grown very tired of it. At first, it was an act of independence and rebellion, striking out on my own, proving that I could stand on my own two feet.

However, as I’ve grown older, I realized that family is the most important thing in the world. I’ve been reminiscing and longing for all the lovely memories we shared together in Snowflake Creek, so many years ago. I know we’ll never be children again, but it seems so unnatural for us all to be so far away from each other, spread out across this great big world. Mary in California, Clara in New York, or wherever her performances take her, and Jack in Africa. Me, out here in Alaska. Why did we do this to ourselves? At the end of the day, isn’t family all we have?

At least my parents have each other. They would never leave their lovely hometown in Minnesota. As I stare out the window at the night sky, I think about my parents, and how happy they’ve been together for so long. Through thick and thin. I wonder if that sort of love even exists anymore. It seems pretty rare in my generation, where hookups are king.

I’ve never been the hookup-sort. This might be obvious from the white, fluffy, Victorian-styled nightgown I’m wearing. I consider it the business suit of a historical romance writer. It gets me in the mood, if you know what I mean. The historical mood.

Finishing off my hot cocoa, and my delicious reindeer brains, I rise to my feet to close the curtains and head to bed. I’m not sure why I still bother to close the curtains—it’s not like I live in the city anymore, or anywhere near a city, where a peeping tom could peer through my windows and see me dancing around in my underwear.

Not that I dance around in my underwear. Often.

I have many more important, adult-type things to do.

Like make reindeer cake pops, obviously. Besides, my underwear consists of boring, comfy granny panties, so it’s not like anyone would see much. I think I’m about as sexy as, well, a grandmother—from the 1800s.

But I’m a creature of habit, and I close the curtains anyway.

Then I pull them back open.

There’s a shooting star.

A really vibrant, spectacular shooting star that’s sweeping across the sky and lasting more than a fleeting millisecond.

So, I close my eyes tightly and make a wish.

But to my great confusion, when I open my eyes, the shooting star doesn’t just disappear into the horizon like a well-behaved shooting starshoulddo. No, it keeps growing in size, and hurtling downtoward me. My eyes widen. Okay. I’m pretty sure that I am about to be flattened by a meteor. Like, 57% sure that I’m going to be smushed into a snowy crater in Alaska, before I can even text my parents that I love them. 68% sure that I won’t live to see Christmas Day.

My heart jumps into my throat, as I try to remember the right type of prayer for this situation, but I can’t seem to think of the appropriate way to beg for my life. But as I’m obsessing over this, the meteorite crash-lands in a burning glory, a few hundred feet away from my house.

I blink. It takes me a second to realize that it’s just a plane, and not a celestial body. I put down my empty cocoa mug, and drop the cake pop stick inside it.

Moving to the door, I grab my boots and coats without even thinking. I tug them on over my grandma-nightgown. This is one of the few moments of my life when I wish I was dressed a little more practically, and a little less like a Victorian old lady. But nonetheless, I open the door and rush out into the snow.

I have to reach down and hike up my dress, cursing the layers of white frills and lace, as I run toward the crash. Lots of snow got inside the tops of my boots, anyway, and begins to melt against my legs, chilling them.

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