Christmas Cinnamon Rolls

A Story by Ms. Rob

Narrative/Sensory Imagery

Most of my Christmas memories are a sweet jumbled mix of carols, candy-canes, multi-colored lights, and stringed popcorn. The years get stuck together like the old-fashioned ribbon candy in Mom’s Snowman shaped jar. It’s hard to remember which Christmas it was that Uncle Larry built my Victorian doll house, which Christmas I got my own telephone number, or which year it was that we drove to Florida to surprise our Grandparents. It’s as if favorite Christmas memories can be kept in a trinket box to be taken out anytime the craving for sugar cookies strike. The memories fade a little and melt together, but they bake warm and sweet into the mind, into the heart.

The memory of my 11^th Christmas is not melted into the other Christmases. It is separate and clear like the green peppermint that gets left at the bottom of the candy dish. I remember waking to the sounds of Christmas wrapping paper crinkling in my little brother’s small pudgy hands. This is not a loud sound, but an 11-year-old ear has become a trained instrument of Santa-activity detection. I walked down the dark stairs letting the twinkle shadows from the tree lead me to the living room. Stevie was too young to be expected to wait for Mom and Dad. His sweet little excitement-giggles captured the sound of Christmas much better than the carols we robotically preformed at school. Nevertheless, I turned on the country radio station that had dependably played “Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer at least once every hour since Thanksgiving. I gently grabbed Stevie’s soft hand and made sure he did not see me stuff the forgotten cookie from Santa’s plate into my mouth as we made our way past the tinsel draped tree to our parent’s bedroom. The cookie was dry like sand, but I swallowed discretely as I prepared to wake the Queen of Christmas. But she was not in the bed. Dad was, but he did not look like he wanted to be woken. Stevie did not seem to notice as he pulled on the edge of the pillow, “Daaad-eey, Santa, Santa brwot prwesents.” I left Stevie in the bedroom and went looking for Mom. I found her alone in the kitchen with the smell of coffee and cinnamon rolls, but she did not look like the Queen of Christmas this year. She just looked tired.

The rest of the morning followed the traditional Christmas agenda. We opened presents, we ate the cinnamon rolls, and Dad spent most of his time looking for batteries. The December-orange light coming through the window told me that morning was fading. I knew that I should get dressed, but the soft cotton of my purple snowman pajamas felt soothing on my skin. Stevie was playing with his matchbox cars and his new loopity-de-loop racetrack. I watched his focused inspection of a line of tiny cars for “doors-that-open”. Mom and Dad were in the kitchen, alone for the first time all day. I was not sure if turning the volume of the music louder would offer them privacy or fuel their anger. I chose to be quiet. I did not want them to remember that we were there, because I wanted to pretend that we weren’t.

I opened my imaginary Christmas memory box as a shield from the shouting. Christmas three years earlier replayed in my mind. Stevie was just a baby, so he did not remember the drive from Texas to Florida. Gramma Dorothy’s ebullient sounds of surprise were only muffled by her hugs and kisses navigating us though the screen door. Her tree was the most beautiful Christmas tree I had ever seen. Even to this day, no tree can live up to the memory of Gramma’s tree. I can still taste the chocolate frosting on the butter knife that she let me sample while we frosted her annual “Happy Birthday Jesus” cake. Happy, that was a happy Christmas. That year was the happy memory that I will always be grateful to pull out of my Christmas memory box.

But even the warmth of that memory could not keep the chill from the kitchen away from Stevie and me. I wondered what he was thinking as I watched him crash his new little cars. His beautiful toddler face was serious as he inspected the ferocity of the wreckage. I wished that I could believe that he was too young to know what was happening, but I had wished for a lot of things that Christmas that were never delivered. We never had cinnamon rolls again on Christmas morning, and the four of us never again had Christmas as a family.