Hoisting my Santa Claus bag of goodies over my shoulder, I walked toward the usual lunch spot in the Quad. I spotted Liz first — you couldn’t miss her multiple shopping bags and Santa hat. Only Liz could manage to make holiday costume wear fashionable.
She greeted me with a hug and a “Merry almost-Christmas!” She also handed me a sparkly holiday gift bag filled to the brim with wrapped objects.
“LIZ! This is way too much stuff! As usual!”
“Oh, whatever. Like I have a budget,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. I couldn’t argue with that. I handed her my gift, which was wrapped in newspaper comics and fat pastel yarn. Only the very best for my friends.
“Ooooh!” She accepted it gleefully. Liz loves receiving gifts — one of the reasons I love her so much. I mean, she literally could buy herself whatever she wanted. She even liked that hideous bobcat statue I made in my ceramics class and gave her that one year. That’s a true friend.
Eventually Carrie and David met up with us, also armed with gifts. It was time for our annual last-day-of-school-before-the-holiday-break gift exchange. We looked forward to this every year — almost as much as the MTV Video Music Awards, when we sat around Liz’s huge flat screen and made fun of everyone’s outfits.
Carrie gleefully collected her gifts and growled, “MINE!” David tried to snatch a couple away from her, resulting in Carrie rolling around in the dirt trying to keep them out of his reach. I swear, Carrie’s the brother David never had.
“Oh my Lord, can you guys behave?” Liz cried, trying not to laugh. Soon we sat around in a circle with our presents piled up in front of us.
“Me first!” I exclaimed. I picked up Carrie’s, a box wrapped in brown butcher paper and green-and-red bamboo-fiber ribbon, and shook it next to my ear.
“Oh, please, like that ever works,” Carrie scoffed.
I carefully opened it, peeling the paper back meticulously so that it didn’t rip. Carrie groaned in frustration. “HOLLY! You’re killing me. Get on with it!”
“Okay, okay, sheesh!”
I squealed when I saw it was a DVD set of the entire British Office series. “Awesome! Yes, yes, yes!”
“It has a bunch of extra commentary from Ricky Gervais,” Carrie said excitedly while I read the description on the back cover. “We need to revisit the entire series!” All of us had spent the previous summer completely obsessed with the show. Well, except Liz, who said she couldn’t stand all the British mumbling. “WHAT are they saying?” she’d yell before storming out of the room.
We all opened the rest of our gifts — I got a ton of great books from both David and Liz, including a first edition copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Liz got me an array of nail polishes in hopes of me actually wearing some. Hehe, good luck.
I excitedly watched everyone open my gifts. I had made them mixed CDs with hand-drawn cover “art,” and little photo albums that held a bunch of our pictures from the past few years.
“Awesome!” Carrie exclaimed as she flipped through the album.
David laughed and pointed to his CD. “I see the first track is an RMD classic.” (I had included my favorite Raw Meat Demons song — “Headbutt into My Soul.”)
“Oh my God, I almost forgot about these Halloween costumes!” Liz pointed at a photo of her, Carrie, and me dressed up as zombie Jonas Brothers. We snickered over the bloody brains splattered on Carrie’s face. “So when are you leaving for the city of dreams?” she asked while tidily putting away her wrapping paper in small folded piles.
“Tomorrow morning,” I groaned. “We’re driving, of course.”
David shook his head. “That sucks, man. But you get to just chill with your cousins and eat a lot, right?”
“I guess. I love my cousins. But even they can’t make up for Vegas.”
Carrie twirled a long strand of hair around her finger and frowned. “Well, at least you’ll probably see a Christmas tree or two there. My parents have banned Christmas trees.”
“WHY?” I asked incredulously.
“Um, because it’s killing trees. Duh.”
David snorted. “Do they not use paper, then?”
“Recycled only,” Carrie said with a sigh.
Liz shook her head. “Your parents would die if they saw our house. I think we have five Christmas trees. They were shipped in the other day.”
My jaw dropped. “Shipped in? By who? Your Christmas servants? Also, you guys aren’t even going to be around on Christmas! Aren’t you going skiing in Big Bear?”
“Yes, we are. But my parents like to embrace these American traditions wholeheartedly. Plus, they want to make sure our neighbors don’t think we’re terrorists.”
David laughed. “That explains why your parents have like, five American flags in your front yard.”
I looked at him. “So, what awesome plans do you have this Christmas? Family skateboarding?”
He shrugged. “You know. The usual. Driving out to Phoenix to hang with my grandparents. Excitement abounds. Maybe this year my grandpa will actually stay awake through Christmas dinner.”
The lunch bell rang and we scattered off to class. I said good-bye reluctantly — it was the first time I was ever sad to be leaving school for vacation.