Vocabularily Adventurous

The first snow is always the best. Even when things aren't going your way, you take a walk in the first snow and you're okay. It's therapeutic.

There's something exciting in knowing that you've made the first footprints in the snow on your driveway. And there's something thrilling in walking down the white sidewalk, knowing that that mulberry tree on the end of the street was the same one that your cousin fell out of one summer long ago. Now the tree is covered completely in snow, a ghost of a plant waiting for spring’s rebirth.

I don't know why I've always found it relaxing to stand under a streetlight in the freezing cold with the wind whipping at you and the snow caking your hair—for whatever reason, it just feels right.

It's sad how no one seems to have time to enjoy the simple things in life. I was in my room all day surfing the internet, that day when the forecast called for flurries from the northeast, and I didn’t notice it was snowing until my mom came into my room to tell me. When I was younger, I remember sitting at the window waiting so impatiently for the flakes to start drifting from the clouds. It’s as if I suddenly forgot how to enjoy the small things that used to make me happy.

As it approaches, Christmas day is losing its shimmer, too. I had always been the one to get everyone up at eight o'clock so we could open presents; I was always the little kid, wide-eyed and excited about that jolly old elf and his magic reindeer. Now I find myself wondering just how late I can sleep in before tradition guilts me into crawling out of bed. Getting older, I realize that Christmas doesn’t hold the same thrill: I think about how much money my parents and relatives and friends are going to waste on me this year, and I think about how much money I'm going to waste on them. Christmas isn’t a fairy tale, isn’t a picture book. It’s a commercial holiday, all plastic and aluminum and hooked up to the internet.

I battled such thoughts as I trudged down the muffled street one Monday evening after Thanksgiving, picking my way through the snow that had been falling nonstop since Wednesday afternoon. I hadn’t thought about it, but it really was beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

My mittens were hardly conducive to typing in that ten-digit number on my tiny cell phone, but somehow I fumbled through. When I pressed the green “send” button, the phone’s screen glowed white and reminded me that Jake was about to receive a call, as if that hadn’t been my intention. The only other kid remotely my age that lived in the neighborhood and also one of my closer friends, we had played together when we both moved here about ten years ago. At that time, the other kids were too old or too young, so Jake was my only choice, even though he was six months older than me and a year ahead in school. Now we were grown up: he was at college, studying hard to do well on his finals, and I was here, on break, alone.

A click interrupted that tinny ring in my ear, and his familiar voice was my world.

“What’s up, babe?”

I stopped under the streetlamp and shoved my free hand as deep in my coat pocket as I could. Though I knew he couldn’t see, I shrugged. “Just thinkin’, is all,” I replied, using a sort of Huckleberry Finn accent that I employed when I didn’t feel like saying what was really on my mind.

“Thinkin’ ‘bout what?” he queried, using my accent and doing it much better than even I could. His tendency to excel at everything annoys me to this day and he knows it, but that’s also what I love about him.

“Thinkin’ ‘bout stuff,” I retorted, not sure if I wanted to explain my train of thought just yet, even though it was the reason for the call.

Unfortunately, Jake wouldn’t take a hint. The warm smile in his voice melted me, and, using the name he had called me for so long to remind us that we were more like siblings than friends, he said, “C’mon, sis. Spill.”

Boy, was this kid persuasive. I had no choice, so I did spill.

I told him how I thought I was losing myself. How I thought Christmas would be awful this year because I just didn’t have any enthusiasm. He nodded and ‘hm’d as he listened, just like he always had.

The more I spoke, the more I moved. I shoved some snow into a neat little pile with my feet, then kicked it, then started another pile, then scuffed all the way down the sidewalk and back.

“I don’t know if I’m hormonal or just insane,” I told him as I kicked at another make-shift mouse igloo. Jake’s silence told me he continued to listen attentively. “I haven’t been enjoying or looking forward to anything lately. Everything’s just so hum-drum, and I feel like that should... you know, bother me.”

Jake grunted like he understood completely, which he probably did—understanding me is another one of his many talents. But then he surprised me by going completely off-topic, or so it seemed at the moment. “What do you want most for Christmas?” he asked with this distant inquisitiveness in his voice.

I opened my mouth, about to reply, “A digital camera and an iTunes gift card,” then stopped myself. Now that I thought about it, this was one of the reasons I wasn’t looking forward to Christmas. The holiday had been polluted by the prospect of getting stuff and more stuff from everyone that could afford to give you stuff and all you wanted was stuff. The point of Christmas was to count how many presents you had and to relish the thought of ripping the paper off each one, hoping that there would be some expensive technological gadget underneath. And when it was all done you sat there frowning, looking over your mound of gifts to make sure you had ripped off all the wrapping paper you could. That was what was wrong about Christmas, so I thought carefully about how I would answer him.

“Friends,” I slowly replied after a long pause. “What I want for Christmas is all my friends in one room, sitting around a fire and talking and laughing and sharing cookies and cider…” My voice trailed off when I noticed how foolish I sounded. Friends, when I could have a camera or a cell phone? But then I realized that friends don’t cost money. How wonderful that would be, not having to worry about how much money you spent, how many presents you gave and received, or if your friends liked your present, or which of your cousins got the most and best presents. It would be heaven. And if that wish could come true, I wouldn’t need anything else. Not even the digital camera I have been drooling over for months, nor the baby grand piano that would require my parents to take out a second mortgage when I didn’t really need one anyway.

“Well, sis,” Jake finally said, “I think you’ve got a deal.”

I stood still, surprised, instantly forgetting about the miniature snow fort I was building with my toes. If I know Jake well, which I do, he’s up to something. And I know exactly what that something is.

People today want things and will spend vast quantities of cash to get them: wine, jewelry, a humongous tree. And of course, you can never use the same ornaments two years in a row—you have to buy new ones, or else what will the Joneses think? In the midst of these materialists stand Jake and me, kids that can’t afford to go to Macy’s and buy happiness like they do. Instead we borrow happiness, take it from life, from something as simple as a snowfall, from something as simple of a group of friends sipping cider and celebrating Christmas.

I smiled and thanked Jake for always being a phone call away, and as I hung up I decided what I would get Jake this Christmas. Something that can’t be found on the World Wide Web, or in a department store; something that doesn’t require a monthly payment plan or the fine print next to an asterisk. This year, Jake will get a particularly warm hug, with no hidden charges.