Chapter 18

Christmas morning I was woken up by a very excited James shaking my shoulder screaming, “It’s Christmas!!!!!!!” I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped my throat as James smiled at me. Once he saw that I was awake, he headed towards my door with a happy skip in his step. I sat up and rubbed my tired eyes before I heard James yelling at someone else to get up. They didn’t sound too happy as I heard a giant groan come from them. 

I got out of bed and dragged my butt downstairs to see everyone except for Myles sitting in various places in the living room. They were all going through their stockings to see what for candy and stuff they were given. 

As I took a seat on the floor near the tree James walked over and handed me my own. He looked so excited and everyone else looked so happy that I felt so full of joy. It’d been so long since I had a real Christmas. 

I could see out of the corner of my eye that James and Tessa were watching me, hoping they had gotten me stuff that I would like. I prepared to give them a good reaction, but I didn’t have to because all of the stuff that was in it were my favorites. There was Pez candy, Lindt Truffles, a Hershey’s bar, and even a bag a Skittles. 

Once Myles had made it downstairs and everyone had made their way through their stockings, James declared that it was time to start opening gifts. James quickly explained to me how they did presents. They had a bunch of numbers in a plastic container and everyone would pick a number. Since I didn’t have any money and James and Tessa insisted that I didn’t need to get anything, I didn’t need one. Everyone grabbed their numbers as James continued to explain. 

“When everyone has their numbers, we’ll go in order. The person who has one will grab a gift that they bought and hand it to the person it’s for. Got it?” 

I nodded, but couldn’t help but ask, “Why don’t you just go by age?” Everyone laughed and I just grew more confused. Marley laughed again as she explained. 

“When I had my first Christmas here, I complained that I didn’t want to go last, but when James suggested that we go youngest to oldest mom complained that she didn’t want to go last.” I looked towards Tessa to see a blush settling on her cheeks as she looked away embarrassed. 

“After that,” Chris continued, “dad came up with this so it was fair for everyone.” 

Admittedly, it had taken me awhile to get used to everyone calling James and Tessa mom and dad, but it didn’t even bother me now. I still was nowhere near ready to call them that though. 

Everyone laughed once more, including me and then we got started. Myles had gotten one so he got up and grabbed an envelope from underneath the tree. To my surprise, he walked over and handed it to me. I watched him walk back to his seat in shock. I stared at the envelope for a few moments before I heard James gently tell me to open it. I did so slowly and found a Christmas card inside. On the front in simple black writing it read, “ ‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, everyone was on their phone.” I couldn’t help but laugh, but it made perfect sense because inside the card there was a $15 gift card for Google Play. I quickly thanked him and explained that I loved playing games on my phone. 

Next, Marley gave Tessa a set of books about writing methods. Lately, Tessa had been complaining about wanting to change up some things in her next book. 

After James and Tessa had given out gifts, Chris walked over to me with a rather large, but light box in his hands. He sat it down in front of me before heading back to his seat with a smirk on his face. Those two things should have warned me, but I was oblivious. I was too busy appreciating the pure joy radiating from everyone. 

Despite my earlier hesitation, I dug right in and tore the wrapping paper off of the box, only to discover a regular box. Only, it was completely covered in tape. It took me several minutes to get enough off to open the box, only to discover another box. Thankfully though, this one was not covered in tape. All of the others were laughing, and I realized that I was too. I was practically rolling on the floor. I continued to open box after box until I got to a frozen pizza box and all possible openings were taped shut with duct tape. It took me several more minutes to open that and luckily for me there were no more boxes. In the bottom of the box was a small gift wrapped in paper laying at the bottom. I was rewarded with a $50 Amazon gift card. I gasped yelling out, “Do you know how much I could buy with this?!?!?” 

Quickly, James cleaned up the mess that I had made and I caught him looking at me as he did so. He had a giant smile on his face and his eyes held pure joy. I could understand why. He had never seen me this happy. And to be honest, it had been forever since I was this happy. I sent a smile to him in return, a subtle way of thanking him for bringing me into this family. They really did care for me, though I still couldn’t understand why. 

But, I shoved that to the back of my head as Marley handed me a small box with a snowman on the front. I shot her a skeptical look. 

“I’m not gonna find another box inside of this will I?” I shot a glare towards Chris, but they all only laughed. 

“No,” she said, “I’m not that cruel.” 

I opened the box, honestly half expecting to find another box. Instead, I found a really nice long sleeved Arrow shirt. 

Tessa handed a gift to Valerie and then James handed me a bag with yellow tissue paper sticking out of the top. I pulled out the tissue paper to see an adorable yellow stuffed teddy bear. I pulled it out of the bag and hugged it to my chest tightly. 

More gifts were handed out, there was a lot until, there were only a few more left. Valerie had gotten me a beautiful snowflake necklace. How she knew I wanted one, I had no idea. Tessa and James had also gotten me several more things including a cute calendar with puppies on it, an extremely soft purple blanket, and a charm bracelet with several of my interests on it. 

Finally, after many gifts and happy faces, there was only one more gift under the tree. James grabbed it and handed it to me. I was so excited to have one last one to open that I tore off the wrapping paper right away to reveal the box for a brand new laptop. 

“Wh-what?!” I looked up to see James and Tessa with small smiles on their faces. I got up from my seat on the floor and pushed the box back into James’ hands. “I-I… I can’t accept this. It’s too much!” 

A frown made its way onto James’ face and I felt bad, but I just couldn’t. He pushed the box back into my hands a smile back on his face. 

“Yes you can and you will. You’re gonna need this for school. I wanted to get it for you.” I looked towards the laptop unsure and sent the same look towards James who nodded. 

Suddenly, a hand was placed on my shoulder and I looked over to see Myles. “Just take it,” he said, “dad got all of something big like this for our first Christmas.” I turned to face him fully. 

“What did he get you?” 

“Ah, well, I didn’t have a phone so that’s what I got.” 

“I loved video games so he got me a DS,” Chris spoke.

“I’m obsessed with music so he got me an iPod,” Marley chimed in as well. I looked between the three of them and then James before nodding a small smile on my face. 

“O-okay… I’ll keep it.” I gently sat the laptop on the floor before surprising James and myself by wrapping my arms around him.