onestop_hpfan18

TGS’ Secret Santa 2009

TO: Episkey

FROM: Leslie

*

The Christmas Present

            The stockings were stuffed by the chimney with care on the morning of Christmas, not a sound to disturb the peaceful sounds of silence. Under the lighted tree were perfectly wrapped presents of various shapes and sizes, waiting for the paper to be ripped off to reveal what had been hidden beneath it. However, there was one present which was much too big to fit underneath the brightly decorated pine tree, never mind the fact it was also too big to tuck away in the house. This present was outside in the stable and it waited for the youngest of the three children in the family.

            In the upstairs hallway the only sound was when a small foot rested on the creaking floorboard just outside of the master bedroom. The little intruder reached up to grasp the doorknob before she quietly swung it open and tiptoed over to the bed. The girl’s messy blond curls swinging where they hung in pigtails as she pounced up from the floor to the foot of her parents’ mattress. “Wake up, it’s Christmas!” She started to jump up and down on the bed before a pair of arms reached out and grabbed her around the middle and started to tickle her. “No! Daddy, stop it!”

            The sounds of the little girl giggling filtered out of the open door and down the hall and woke the two eldest children from their beds. Soon, there were two more people on the bed and it was obvious that mom and dad were not going to get anymore sleep. It only took a few minutes to calm down the kids before the family headed down the stairs and into the family room where the twinkling lights on the tree flashed in a multicolor frenzy, thus enhancing the fact there were even more presents underneath the tree than the small girl had ever seen before.

            “Where is it?” she questioned as she spun around to face both of her parents, whom were both slumping into the comfy, soft cushions of the couch.

            “Where’s what?” her father asked.

            “You know what I wanted,” she said. “Where is it?”

            “I dunno,” he said, smiling. “Why don’t you go check the barn sweetheart?”

            “Yay!” she ran to the front door and was opening within seconds, just catching her mother’s voice drifting out the door as she dashed through the snow in only her socks and pajamas (“Natalie, come back to put her coat and boots on!”). The last thought in her mind was whether she was warm or cold as the crisp, fresh powdered snow crunched beneath her feet, her eyes only on the stable.

            When Natalie had reached the closed doors of the stable, she pushed her petite frame against it to make it budge inward, slipping in and looking around frantically. Her eyes scanned each of the living quarters of the horses before they met with a baby horse with a red ribbon tied in a bow around its neck. Letting out a squeal of glee, Natalie ran forward at the horse, causing it to stir restlessly before calming back down once she had come to a halt next to it.

            “What do you think of her?”

            Natalie twirled around at her father’s voice, “Daddy! Thank you so much!” She ran over to her father, who had a small pink coat and brown boots in his hands, and wrapped her arms around his legs. “I love you forever and ever!” she squealed as he kneeled down to envelope her small, delicate frame in one of his great, big bear hugs he was famous for in their family.

            “Now let’s get you bundled up before you catch a cold in this freezing weather,” her father said, leaning away from her and then helping to put the coat and boots on before walking over to the baby horse’s stall. “Do you want to ride her?”

            “Yes, yes, a hundred times yes!” she said, whilst excitedly clapping her small hands together in glee.

            Her father smiled warmly as he opened the stall door once he had grabbed a blanket and small saddle from next to the door. When he had finished strapping it on the young horse, he led it out of the stall before he picked his daughter from under the arms to swing her up on the horse’s back. He instructed Natalie to hold onto the horn of saddle while he led the horse around on the reins so that she would not fall.

            The chilly breeze blew Natalie’s tangled blond tresses off her forehead, and frost bite nipping at her nose making it appear to be a lovely shade of light pink. She looked up at the fluffy, grayish clouds in wonderment with a feeling as though she were soaring instead of sitting on the back of a horse. Her parents had often teased her of being born in a saddle since she had first rode a horse at only a few months old, though her father had carried her snuggly to his chest with one warm wrapped around her. It had nearly given her mother a heart attack anytime she watched, half expecting Natalie to fall out of her father’s arms, but that had never happened. The only thing had been able to get her to stop crying and fall back asleep as a baby was if her father took her out into the pasture on one of their quarter horses.

            At that moment the sky opened up as snow flurries drifted down. Natalie smiled even wider at her father as he continued to lead the horse around in a circle. The pace in which the horse was trotting at picked up only slightly, causing Natalie’s spirits and heart soar more than it already was. She loved the snow, she loved Christmas, and most of all she loved her Christmas present.