It was the week before Christmas, and all through the apartment, creatures were stirring, even a 6-year-old named Zora. The stockings fell off the wall, the hooks were in disarray, clothes were everywhere, and a tired single mom was about to jump out of a window and run away from the chaos!
Breathing in and out, Mama cleared off a table, sat the bagged gifts on the floor, got her wrapping station together, and packaged the gifts neatly. Zora calls Mama’s name fifty-eleven times, only for her to follow up an answer with the one-word question Mama didn’t want to hear: why? At this precise moment, Mama realized why alcohol consumption was up to an all-time high this time of year.
After Mama finished wrapping the gifts, she looked at the tree, which desperately needed completion. She digs into the various bins, pulls out pieces of yarn to use as ornament hooks and ornaments, and decorates the tree. The kid shouts her name again, tempting Mama to put a ball gag in the kid’s mouth. Mama asks the kid what she wants, and the kid answers incoherently. Mama tells her to finish her homework.
When Mama finally gets the tree to where she likes it, she moves on to making the wreath. As she wraps the green tinsel garland around the wreath form, she looks for another length of the same stuff, only to find she’s out.
“Shit,” she says to herself. “Now I have to spend more money to find more garland to finish this wreath. I’ll go after work tomorrow.”
Placing the unfinished wreath to the side, she finds the strips to hang personalized stockings she had made for herself and the kid. She got some more muscular strips for the hooks and hung the stockings, praying they didn’t fall off in the middle of the night. If so, she’ll pack them away and pray for a better outcome next holiday season.
Finally, she got to the mountain of clothes that needed to be put away and washed. The clothes sitting in the laundry bags for about a week were put away, and the dirty clothes were put into the bags for the laundromat on Saturday morning. Mama left the vacuuming and cleaning under the bed until after the laundromat trip. Secretly, she wants an Uproot Clean to get to the hair she can’t get with the vacuum cleaner.
As soon as Zora slept, dreaming of sugar plums and the numerous cats made up of four gingers, 11 panthers, five gray, and three white she wanted to have as pets dance in her head, Mama took a long shower. She thought about the Christmases past when she was happy, sad, and indifferent in different parts of her life. She was determined to make this holiday special for Zora.
Mama climbed into bed next to Zora. She settled in for a night-long nap before waking up to prepare for work the following day.
That’s it for now. See you in tomorrow’s post!
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