I'll Be Home? For Christmas
Who: Bethany What: I'll Be Home? for Christmas When: Christmas Eve, Dec. 24th, 11:45PM (before snowfall) Where: Searchlight, in her apartment
Christmas felt different this year. It wasn't Bethany's first time away from home by a long shot, and most holidays, she wasn't able to scrounge up the funds to make it back to Utah.
She huffed and puffed, trying to use a bread tie to keep her Walmart Christmas lights tied to the curtain rod in the living room. It was a bit of a trek to get to the Walmart - and she's pretty sure the Uber driver had no idea Searchlight existed until she put in the request - but these were an open box steal. The kitchen folding chair on which she precariously stood wobbled with the effort and she took a second to take a breath and steady herself. And almost worth the effort.
The tiny fake tree on the kitchen table twinkled with the fiber optic branches and the small monogrammed stocking she found at the dollar store hung above the couch. The small red sock looked so lonely. Bethany finished the last twist tie and let the rest hang down, the lights framing the window. Looking at the blank wall with a dot of red, she put her hands on the back of the chair and closed her eyes. The high ceilings of her parents' home in Utah, rustic stone fireplace from floor to ceiling, with three rows of stockings between the siblings, their spouses, and the grandchildren. The tree, usually real with artificial flocking, would tower over them, the tip just brushing the ceiling, topped with the homemade lace angel that they were pretty sure dated back to the "This is the Place" declaration. Her mom and dad would start as soon as dawn peeked over the horizon on Friday morning.
Bethany stepped off the chair and fingered the strand of Christmas lights that trailed on the ground. Her parents would be surprised that she had waited until Christmas Eve to decorate, but there was a lot going on in her life.
No, that wasn't true. There was a lot going on in her brain. The mental effort to arrange a ride to sacrament meeting, even though the Young Single Adult ward met in the afternoon only thirty-five minutes away, just made her feel tired. She was a lot older than a lot of the other people, and only three short years away from aging out into the Single Adults ward. The meet market atmosphere was overwhelming, and, at twenty-eight today, this Christmas Eve baby just couldn't handle it, even for that Sunday's Christmas service.
Not that she would want to burden her parents with all of that. She was Elf-In-Charge at home, especially as the others married and moved in with their husbands and wives. The loss of Christmas spirit together with her current feelings on the Church? That's the last thing they would want to hear. Bethany walked over to the Walmart bag on the floor by the door and dug through it until she found her new light up Reindeer ear headband. Pulling the tag off, she pushed her hair back and switched them on. Catching a glimpse of the lights reflecting in the window, she turned to look.
Bethany was startled to see a woman with sad, sunken eyes looking back at her. She tried to smile, but it made the vision, framed with her new lights, look even more depressing. Looking over at the couch at her laptop and stack of new textbooks for the next semester, Bethany perked up slightly. At least I can read. Checking her watch, she sighed when she saw it was late. Like super late. She pulled off her antlers, threw them onto her stack of textbooks, and walked into her bedroom, pulling the blanket to her chin.
At least in Boston, however, it snowed. Closing her eyes, she sighed. It would be a great belated Christmas and birthday present. It would be nothing short of a miracle to see snow on the ground in Searchlight.