I wake up and it is still dark outside. My first thought is: It’s Christmas! There are no other words to describe the feeling of Christmas morning. On Christmas, I get everything a seven-year-old could ever ask for
Unlike school mornings, when I prolong sleeping in, I am wide-awake. I cannot go back to sleep if I try. I immediately throw the covers off my bed and quickly shuffle my feet across my bedroom floor. I make my way down the spiral staircase, skipping two steps at a time, and then clearing the last five with a leap. As soon as I step into the living room, I spot my present: a huge rectangular box, taller than me, sitting in front of our skyscraper-tall tree. I know it is my present because it is the biggest. I attack the blue and silver wrapping paper, digging my fingernails into it and ripping it apart like a hungry animal.
I stare at the box in shock. The Super Extreme 300 Racecar?! I wanted The Super Super Extreme 500 Racecar! This is unbelievable. The Super Super Extreme 500 Racecar is so much better than just the Super Extreme 300 Racecar! The 500 Racecar is faster, bigger, and cooler. The 300 Racecar is lame!
Burning with anger and disappointment, I storm upstairs to my parents’ bedroom. They are still sleeping but I do not care. I shake my mother’s shoulder and scream, “Santa got me the wrong present!”
She seems alarmed. With her eyes half open, she croaks, “Wha-?”
“Caleb, it’s five in the morning! Go back to bed,” my dad mumbles.
“Dad, I asked for The Super Super Extreme 500 Racecar, but I got a stupid Super Extreme 300! Don’t you understand? You guys have to do something!” I shout as my eyes start to tear up.
“Honey, the Super Extreme 300 is just as good as the other one. Besides, you should be grateful you even got a present for Christmas,” my mother tells me.
Unbelievable! Not knowing what to do, I run downstairs, out the door, and collapse onto the steps of our front porch. It is snowing outside. I hate snow. I am so cold, and I cannot stop crying.
Suddenly, I hear laughing. I look across the street to see a little girl about my age in front Mr. Miller’s house. I stare at this peculiar sight for a while. She is jumping, singing, spinning, and occasionally she picks up a handful of snow from the ground and throws it into the air. The strangest thing is that she is hanging out alone in front of Mr. Miller’s house. Mr. Miller lives in an old, broken down shed, and my parents said that he went to prison for four years for stealing a car.
Burning with curiosity, I walk across the street and approach the girl. As I get closer, I notice that she is barefoot in the freezing snow. Her wardrobe is an oversized t-shirt and jeans that are too short to reach her ankles. “Uh, hi,” I say nervously. She stops spinning and turns to face me.
“Oh, hello!” She greets me as she brushes her messy brown hair out of her face. It is light enough outside now to see that her face is covered with dirt along with the rest of her body. It looks like she has not taken a shower in weeks. She says, “My name’s Carly. What’s yours?”
“I’m Caleb. Uh- what are you doing?” I ask cautiously.
“I’m playing!” Carly exclaims.
“Why?”
“Because it’s snowing on Christmas, silly!”
“How is that a good thing? Snow is cold.”
“Snow is beautiful! And it’s the one thing that I wanted for Christmas,” she says, beaming with a smile.
“You mean, you didn’t ask for any toys? You just asked for… snow?”
“That’s right!” Carly proudly says. This girl is crazy. I stare at her like she is an alien. Maybe she is an alien. Suddenly, she grabs my hand and I realize how skinny her arm is. “Come on!” Carly says as she guides me up to the old house and opens the door, stepping inside.
“Wait!” I shout. “Mr. Miller lives here! He’ll be mad!”
“What? My dad won’t mind. Besides, he’s not here right now,” responds Carly.
Surprised I reply, “Mr. Miller is your dad? Does he have a wife, too?”
“You mean my mom?” She pauses for second then says, “She passed away when I was little,” she says sadly. It is quiet after that and I am still in shock.
“Oh, sorry,” I finally manage to answer. Carly does not say anything and leads me inside. It is frighteningly cold inside, and I can see their whole house from where I am standing. The wooden walls are worn and grey, and in some spots I can see the outside through holes. Their toilet looks yellow and cracked and there is no bathtub. What seems to be a bed is just a mattress on the floor with one thin blanket and a few clothes for a pillow. Other than that, the only furniture is a wood chair in the kitchen, which consists of just a counter and a sink.
“Where’s your Christmas tree?” I ask tentatively. Carly opens her mouth to answer, but she is interrupted by my mother calling for me from across the street. “I have to go. I’ll see you later,” I say as I wave my hand goodbye and run back to my house, a mansion in comparison to Carly’s.
That night, we have cauliflower for dinner. I hate cauliflower, especially my mother’s. I want to gag when I smell it. “Mom,” I yell, “I’ve told you a million times, I don’t like cauliflower!”
“Caleb, it’s Christmas for Christ sake. Eat the dinner your mom made you,” my dad tells me.
“No! I won’t eat this garbage!” I scream at my parents as I run out of the house again today. I am still mad that I did not get the present I wanted this morning. Without thinking, I run outside and cross the street to Carly’s house. Unexpectedly, she is standing in her front door, waiting for me. It is dark out, so I almost do not see her.
“What’s wrong, Caleb?” She asks. I do not even notice I am crying until now.
“Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s just that my mom made cauliflower for dinner and I hate cauliflower,” I speak quietly and realize how foolish I sound.
“What’s cauliflower?” She questions and tilts her head a little. I wipe my tears and look up at her in astonishment. Wow, this girl truly is insane. She does not even know what cauliflower is? “Is it a dinner?” asks Carly, and I nod.
“What did you have for dinner?”
“Oh, I didn’t have dinner tonight, but it’s ok. I get soup tomorrow night!”
“Did you … have anything to eat today?” I inquire. My mouth drops when Carly shakes her head. No wonder the poor girl is so skinny. She almost never eats!
This is when I realize that everything about Carly’s life is horrible. She is only about seven years old, her mom is dead, her dad has been to prison, she never has enough food to eat, she lives in a shed, and she has nothing. Absolutely nothing.
“How can you be so happy? Your life is awful,” I blurt out without thinking.
Carly pauses and looks at me. After a few moments of thinking she says, “I’m not really sure. Maybe, I don’t want an awful life. I want it to be good, so I make the most out of what I can and enjoy it.”
Feeling dreadfully guilty in some way, I wander back inside my house and into the kitchen. My mother and father have gone to bed and there is no more dinner sitting on the table. I almost get the cauliflower from the fridge for myself, but I’m not hungry. In the same way, I would feel guilty for eating. I feel guilty for living in a beautiful house with a fireplace and a bathtub, and taking them for granted. I feel guilty for having two loving parents, and not loving them back sometimes. I feel guilty for having a Christmas tree with hundreds of presents underneath, and not playing with them.
The next morning, I wake up and I see The Super Extreme 300 Racecar in my room. I decide to open it and I learn that it is not as bad as I thought. In fact, I think it is better than The Super Super Extreme 500 Racecar. I play with my new toy for hours until my mother calls me downstairs for breakfast.

I race downstairs and see a bowl of steaming hot oatmeal. I hate oatmeal. However, I sit down at the table and try a little spoonful. I discover that oatmeal is actually good. I eat the whole bowl and ask my mother for seconds.
“Last time I checked, you wouldn’t eat oatmeal, Caleb,” she says teasingly. I shrug and sit down to finish my second bowl of oatmeal.
After breakfast I run outside as fast as I can. It is snowing and I want to ask Carly if she wants to build a snowman. I hurdle her front porch steps and eagerly knock on her door. No one answers, so I knock again. Finally, I hear heavy footsteps approach me from inside and the door opens slowly. Mr. Miller looks down at me from fifty stories high. I am suddenly frightened and nervous. I have never met Mr. Miller before.
“Hi uh- Mr. M-Miller. Is… um… is Carly home?” I ask him shyly without making eye contact.
“Carly?” he responds.
“Your uh- daughter?”
“I don’t have a daughter.”