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Today, I’ll be having my first big Christmas in a long time. I say ‘big Christmas’, because we don’t really have extended family close to Hawkins, so it’s usually just me, my mom, and Jonathon. But this year, we’ll be spending it with the Wheelers. I do like our small Christmases, but this time I managed to convince mom to ask Mike’s mom if we could have Christmas with them this year, as a treat. I knew she’d have no problem with it, but I was a bit worried about what Mike’s dad would say. Although, knowing him, he probably didn’t care enough to put up much of a fight. I’m looking forward to it - Mike’s mom is a great cook, and their house is really big, but it still feels cozy. And I’ll get to see Mike. So that’s nice.
Anyway, that’s why mom, Jonathon, and I are standing outside the Wheeler’s front door right now. It’s just started snowing again, so I’m very pleased when the door opens and I see Mrs Wheeler standing there, welcoming us in. And I’m even more pleased when I see Mike running up behind her, a big grin on his face.
“Will!” I run inside after him, before Mrs Wheeler stops us for a moment to say,
“Now, Mike, I know what you’re going to ask me, and no, you can’t go down to the basement or up to your room.” Mike hardly gets the chance to protest before she continues. “This is Christmas, so we have to have family time. You’ll have to wait until after we’ve finished eating.” I can tell Mike wouldn’t have preferred this, but he didn’t bother arguing. Mom smiled at us before she went off towards the kitchen with Mrs Wheeler, mentioning something about what she’s ‘done with the place’.
“It’s ok, Mike, I really don’t mind being up here. We can still go down to the basement after dinner.”
“Yeah, I guess,” and I followed him towards the living room where everyone else seemed to have already made themselves comfortable. Mike can be stubborn at times, but I know it’s usually just out of love.
-
Mike’s somewhat disheartened mood was instantly replaced with excitement when Mrs Wheeler appeared from out of the kitchen and suggested that we open our presents while we wait for the dinner to be ready.
“Oh, but what about you, Karen? You’re sure you don’t want to join us while we’re opening the presents?” My mom teased as she winked at Mike and I, and I think Mike was about to explode under the anticipation.
“Oh, no, I’m happy to stay in the kitchen,” Mrs Wheeler responded, smiling over at us. Mike and I beamed at each other before Mike practically sprinted over to the Christmas tree, while I stayed close behind. Mike immediately began searching for all the labels with his or my name on it, before Mr Wheeler stopped him (from the comfort of his armchair, of course).
“Mike, how about you hand out everyone else’s presents instead of just worrying about yourself.”
“Wh-“ Once again, Mike’s protests fell short.
“Mike,” warned Mr Wheeler, sternly. Mike rolled his eyes, but not before turning back to the tree so that nobody else would see it. He rapidly picked up each present and passed - or, more accurately, tossed - them to each person according to the names on the labels. Mr Wheeler didn’t seem too impressed by this, but mom seemed amused.
Once the underneath of the tree was empty, we all got to opening our presents, saying our thank yous, and waiting anxiously for Mike to open his present from me. Although I’m pretty certain I was the only one doing that last thing. In Mike’s present from me under the tree, there were two things. The first was a new, special edition Superman comic that I knew he’d been wanting, and the second was a full colour drawing of our whole party as superheroes taking off into the sky. Mike has been really into superheroes lately.
It didn’t take long for Mike to get to my present - in fact, it was the first one he opened. As soon as he did, I saw his face light up, and he picked up the comic, showing it to me as if I was seeing it for the first time, too.
“The special edition comic!” Mike immediately started flicking through it, but once he looked down he noticed the drawing that had been sitting underneath it. He looked back up at me, as if to ask ‘did you really draw this?’, and carefully picked it up to look at it closer. “Wow, Will…” I always thought Mike was too easily impressed by my drawings, but it still felt good to see his reactions.
“Well, are you going to say thank you?” Mom teased, and once Mike noticed she had been watching him, he quickly went to put his gift beside him and mumbled a ‘thank you’ as his face turned red.
“Hey, you should open my present next!” suggested Mike, once he had gotten over his embarrassment. I looked over to the small pile of presents beside me, and found a flat, rectangular shaped one labelled ‘To: Will, From: Mike’, with a small wizard hat drawn next to it. I carefully opened the wrapping paper, and quickly realised what it was: A large sketchpad that, once I looked inside, I realised had easily removable pages, and a pocket at the back. “Open it to the front page!” I looked up at Mike’s eager expression before doing as he suggested, and saw that he had stuck a piece of paper in the front of the book, covered in his handwriting. I looked up at Mike once again - probably with the same expression that he had given me when he saw my drawing - and he simply gave back a look of encouragement, which I knew meant I should read it.
It was a story about our party, going on D&D style adventures, just like we had in our last campaign. It was quite long, so Mike told me I didn’t have to read the whole thing right now, but I did. And it was amazing.
Once I had finished, I looked up to see that Mike had finished unwrapping all his other presents, and was now inspecting the instructions of a Lego set that seemed to be unnecessarily complicated.
“Oh, Mike-” but I was quickly interrupted by Mrs Wheeler coming to tell us that the Christmas dinner was ready. Mike gave me a quick smile that I knew meant that he’d make sure he’d remember to ask me what I wanted to say once dinner was finished.
-
The dinner was delicious. I don’t want to say it was better than mom’s cooking, but… it was close. And it was probably the biggest meal I’ve ever had in my life. Mike also kept tapping my foot under the table, and offering to pass me different plates of food that I had tried yet. So that’s nice. Mrs Wheeler kept asking me things about school, and Nancy chimed in sometimes, too, but I was mainly focused on Mike’s story about how he cleverly beat Nancy in what sounded like an extremely competitive snowball fight they had last week. That was usually when Nancy chimed in.
As soon as Mike and I had finished eating, Mike looked over at his mom, his hands already on the table, ready to get up.
“Yes, okay, you can go,” she said, reluctantly. Mike practically jumped out of his seat the moment the words left her mouth, and I followed him after giving a polite smile to the rest of the table, tucking Mike’s chair in as well as my own, and running off after him.
“Mike!” Mike turned around, already halfway down the stairs to the basement. “I, uh… I have another present for you.” Mike stood up straighter, turning around properly to face me. “I’ll just go get it.” I quickly went to grab the envelope I had hidden with my mom’s things, and came back to see Mike, looking at me with a question in his eyes. “We can… we can go down to the basement to open it.”
Once down in the basement, I expected Mike to quickly open the envelope in that messy, frantic way he usually does, but instead, he said,
“I, uh, actually got you another present, too.” As he spoke, he reached beside the couch and picked up a piece of paper which had been folded twice. “It’s uh… it’s a drawing. I’m not that good at it, but… I know you like art, so I thought maybe you’d like it.” I was already smiling at this, but my smile only grew when I unfolded the paper to see Mike and I sitting on the school swing set, complete with the remnants of many failed attempts that hadn’t quite been properly erased, and a what I assumed was supposed to be a signature in the bottom right corner. It had been a few years since we spent much time on that swing set - we’re almost in middle school now - but seeing this drawing made me feel like we still went there every day.
“Open your present, now,” I said eagerly, with a smile. He had to open it before I gave him a proper reaction. Mike opened the envelope - more carefully than usual, it seemed - and pulled out a piece of paper which contained a story I’d written about the two of us, going on an adventure into outer space. It was a lot shorter than Mike’s had been, but I was proud of it. “I guess I had the same idea as you,” I confessed, cheeks heating up slightly. Mike smiled at me before reading his story, and I started heating up even more. Was it good? Would he even like it? Would he think it was weird? But then he finished, and looked up at me with an even bigger smile than before.