Vignette 1: Morgan’s Magical Morning
The Christmas tree stood tall and proud in the middle of the room, sparkling and glittering with ornaments, hand-made and store-bought. Underneath the spiky pine needle foliage, gifts of various sizes and shapes sat, waiting to be opened by eager hands. Their wrapping paper outsides glistened iridescent colors in the morning light, just barely peeking through the frosted window of the living room.
This was Morgan’s favorite moment of Christmas morning, and it wasn’t opening the gifts, although that was exciting too. It was the peaceful and content moments before, where Christmas music is playing in the background, a “Cranberry Cheer” candle is alight and bringing that comforting scent to her nose, and to add to it all, she’s sipping hot chocolate out of a Grinch mug, the same one she always uses every Christmas morning, filling her with a feeling of nostalgia from past Christmases. The mug warms her hands and the creamy flavours of the hot cocoa, marshmallows, and whipped cream toppings melt in her mouth.
She sighs contentedly while her younger sister, Riley squealed in elation and started to rip open gifts, gasping at a new burgundy guitar, smiling from ear to ear with new candy and funky elf socks. It was almost as fun to watch her family’s reactions than to actually open her own gifts. That was what Christmas was really about, giving to others and feeling warm and happy inside at making others feel good. It was also about traditions as a family, like playing Christmas music, opening gifts together on Christmas morning, drinking hot cocoa out of themed mugs, and decorating the tree with your own decorations.
Morgan smiled when she looked at the hand-made decorations on the tree, some from 15 years ago when she was only a baby. Some she made in pre-school or gave to her parents as Christmas gifts after working on them in a construction class in school. Each one had a unique story behind it and was made with love.