We Need a Little Christmas by Sierra Donovan Read Free Book Online Page B

much. Liv girded her loins and pulled open the hall closet. Nammy’s coats—not easy. Liv kept a bright red car-coat for herself, and Mom kept a cardigan sweater she’d given Nammy for her eightieth birthday. Clenching her teeth, Liv finally packed up the rest.
    The boxes on the closet floor and on the top shelf all appeared to contain Christmas ornaments. “I’m surprised she hadn’t started decorating yet,” Liv said.
    â€œShe had a rule,” Mom said. “December first. When I was little, I had to wait till December before I could put on the Christmas records. I would have driven her crazy otherwise. I played ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ all month long.”
    Liv grinned. Then her heart twisted. She’d heard the same story countless times from Nammy.
    Rachel must have seen her falter; bravely, she reached past Liv and pulled out the two metal canisters Nammy had used for her tree decorations.
    â€œLiv?” Rachel said uncertainly. “Maybe you keep one and I keep one? And Mom, you could go through and pick out your favorites?”
    Mom nodded, her eyes glistening. “Let’s don’t open them right now.”
    â€œThat’s what I was thinking,” Rachel said.
    Liv silently hauled the two canisters to the to-keep pile. The growing stack would catch up to the to-go pile if they weren’t careful. But she wasn’t ready to sift through the Christmas ornaments either.
    When Liv returned to the hallway, Rachel had dragged out a box containing Nammy’s artificial tree and was reaching into the back of the closet. Her muffled voice exclaimed, “Holy cow! Is this what I think it is?”
    Rachel hauled out a long blue-and-white box that Liv recognized immediately.
    Liv gasped. “I didn’t know she still had it.” A surge of childhood nostalgia hit her. Taking over where Rachel left off, she pulled the box the rest of the way into the dining area.
    â€œLook, Mom.” Liv brought the box to rest at their mother’s feet. “The silver tree.”
    For Liv, just looking at the closed box conjured up a host of warm memories. Inside would be the branches and base for Nammy’s old silver aluminum Christmas tree—the kind that came with a color wheel to shine different shades of light on the branches. Four panes of plastic rotated in front of a bulb aimed at the tree, making the metal branches reflect red, blue, orange, and green. Nammy used to put the tree up when Liv and Rachel were little, and the two of them would sit on her living room floor for what seemed like hours at a time, watching it change colors.
    Mom viewed the box with a little more reserve. “You’re kidding. She kept it?”
    At her less-than-joyful tone, Liv and Rachel exchanged a mutual look of betrayal. “Mom!”
    Rachel added, “You mean you didn’t like it?”
    Mom flushed, as if she’d been caught in a guilty secret. “Not that much. But I knew you girls loved it.”
    Liv remembered her mother helping Nammy set up the tree for them, year after year. She didn’t remember any complaints. “I never knew you didn’t care for it.”
    â€œMaybe just because it was the first tree we had when I was growing up. Sometimes you want what you don’t have. I was always kind of jealous of kids who had real trees. When I was older we started getting them from the tree lot at the home store, and I was glad. Nammy started putting up the old silver tree again for you kids when you were little. You got a big kick out of it.” Mom nodded at the box with a rueful smile. “You’ve got to admit, it’s pretty cheesy.”
    Liv lowered her eyes and studied the box reluctantly. Through the eyes of an adult, she supposed, it was sort of hokey. But still . . . “I wonder what kind of shape it’s in by now.”
    She hadn’t seen the silver tree since she and Rachel were in their