Page 88 of The Book Feud
“Next year we’ll buy you a real one,” Elliot says, wrapping his arm tightly around me. “One with, like, an elf on it. Or a snowman.”
“And we’ll put fairy lights around the house,” I add. “Wherever it ends up being.”
“We’ll drink eggnog.”
“And watchIt’s a Wonderful Life.”
We smile up at each other. Next year, everything will be different. For now, though, we’ve reached the end of Dad’s street, which is quiet and sleepy, with just a handful of people outside — kids playing with the new toys they got for Christmas, and adults out for a walk. As we walk, I think about all of the people that came before them, and all of the other Christmases they’ve celebrated. Evie and Luke, crunching their way through the snow on their way to a dance at the town hall. Mum, laughing as she pulls me up the hill on a sledge, just so she can watch me slide right back down, before asking if I can do it again.
All of the ghosts of Christmas past.
But now it’s time to take them all with us into some yet to be written future. All the people we’ve lost: their laughter, their smiles, and all of the weird, wonderful, and totally random things they did. I hold all of their stories inside me; and when I write them down, they’ll no longer feel like ghosts.
THE END
