Joy to the World

All I want for Christmas is to get home safe.

It was Christmas Eve of 2002 and the snow was thick and wet. She could hear the windshield wipers thrashing through the sleet as she sat in the middle row of the family van. The dark sky made it almost impossible to see anything, save for the few street lights they went speeding past.

The van had two rows of seats in the back to accommodate her and her three sisters. The interior was beige leather and it smelled of Christmas dinner and whiskey.

She tried to focus on the snowflakes performing their charming dance as they melted down her window but every time the van swerved, she squeezed her eyes shut, missing the finale of her favourite little dancers.

Her belly was full of the feast they had shared at her grandma’s house, and she smiled at the plastic containers of leftovers in her lap. Leftovers were her favourite part of Christmas dinner.

She could barely hear the adults arguing in the front over her younger sisters singing Christmas carols from the row of seats behind her, except during the pauses they took every time the van left its lane on the highway.

In the middle of a song, the van jerked right and came to a halt on the shoulder of the road. The man who was driving, her father, forgot to unbuckle his seatbelt as he attempted to exit. Once he managed to figure out how to release himself from his shackles, he stumbled a few feet away from the van and turned to look at everyone.

Before her father began to speak, she looked over his head at the stones behind him. Not just stones. Tombstones. They were parked next to a graveyard. Before she could fully take in the morbidity of it, she realized her father was yelling. Yelling at her and her sisters.

He was yelling at them about death. About their deaths. About the graveyard. About how they would be the next ones to end up underground that night.

As her father continued his tirade, he turned around to urinate, and swore as he got it all over himself. She noticed that he was barely back in the vehicle and certainly not buckled up when they sped off.

They arrived home miraculously unharmed, physically, around 11pm that night. Her and her twin sister were about to lead the other two upstairs to bed, when her father blundered into their way and began to lead them downstairs to the Christmas tree. By this time her two younger sisters were in tears, their chests heaving.

As the four young sisters sat in front of the tree, her father made them open all of their gifts while they cried and he yelled, with Christmas music blasting from the surround sound speakers. Her step mother sat on the couch, eyes glazed over, ignoring the scene.

Only when their gifts were all opened and piled next to them were her and her sisters finally allowed to go to bed. Their sniffles filled the room as they attempted to sleep. She knew they would be waking up in a few hours to a beautiful Christmas breakfast, and her father wouldn’t remember a thing he’d done.