Part Four: In Which the Rosset
Parent’s get a Christmas Surprise
At last the big day arrived. Sariel
found her mother in the kitchen after lunch and her plans immediately swung
into action.
“Mom?”
Amaria turned around and smiled at her
oldest daughter. “Yes Sweetie?”
“I want to make dinner tomorrow night,”
Sariel said. “By myself.”
Amaria looked at her daughter in
surprise. “What?”
Sariel felt her face flush with
embarrassment. “I want to make our Christmas dinner so you can have a break for
once.”
“That’s really sweet of you Sariel,
but how were you planning on doing this? You don’t have a lot of practice
cooking things by yourself.”
“I know, but I have enough to make
this.” She held a recipe up for her mother’s inspection. “I am thirteen after
all and I’ve made things like this before.”
Amaria read the preparation
instructions and looked a little less doubtful. “Maybe you can make this by yourself honey, but we don’t have all the
ingredients.”
“I realized that too, and I was
thinking that you and Dad could go to the store together and buy the items.”
Sariel smiled and tossed out some bait slyly. “Besides, then this trip to the
store would give you and Dad some time together.”
Her mother was hooked. “Well, I’ll
talk to your Dad about it and see what he says. It would be nice to spend some
time with him…especially since he’s been so busy calling different places for
work.”
Sariel nodded. “I think Dad would find
it relaxing too. You could spend the whole
afternoon there…you don’t need to worry about getting home quickly or
anything because there’s leftovers in the refrigerator for us kids to eat if
we’re hungry. You and Dad could even pack something and eat by yourselves!”
The idea was growing on Amaria. It was
almost too tempting. “You don’t mind watching your two brothers while we’re
gone?”
Sariel shook her head. “We’ll have
stuff we can do to keep ourselves busy,” she answered vaguely.
Amaria raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure
you can…but make sure you aren’t breaking any rules.”
“I promise,” Sariel answered with a
grin.
***********
“Darien, can I talk to you for a
minute?” Amaria peeked into the small room she and her husband shared.
“Sure honey, come on in.” Darian
turned from the desk phone with a sigh. “I just finished another call.”
“And what did they say?” Amaria
prodded.
“No job openings yet…check again after
the New Year.” Darien rubbed his forehead. “It’s the same answer every time.
I’ve almost given up.”
Amaria knelt by her husband and looked
up in his face. “Don’t you dare give up,” she said seriously. “You remember:
‘Cast your cares on the Him, for He cares for you.’ Darien, God will provide.
We need to trust Him with our futures.”
Darien’s face cracked a smile. “I know
honey,” he said softly. “I just need the reminder every once-in-a-while.”
Amaria stood up. “Well, I didn’t come
in here for that. I came in here to ask if you had some time to go shopping
with me.”
Darien gave his wife a look of
confusion. “Shopping?” he asked.
“Sariel wants to make the Christmas
dinner tomorrow all by herself so I don’t have too, but we didn’t have all the
ingredients. Her idea was that you and I could go shopping, and have some time
by ourselves at the same time. What do you think?”
Her husband stood up also and gave her
a hug. “It sounds great. When are we going?”
Amaria laughed. “Next?”
Darien gave her a grin. “Why not?”
***********
The minute the Rosset parents left the
driveway, the Rosset children began their decorations. Talian and Adrian went
out to the woods and cut down the small fir tree growing there. While they did
that, Sariel brought up the old Christmas decorations from the basement and
started laying them out neatly.
Once the boys had brought the tree carefully
in and had it set up in the corner, Sariel was ready to put the unbroken
ornaments on it.
“We don’t have any lights,” Talian
mourned.
“We have candles,” Sariel replied. “I
like those better than the electric ones personally…they seem more homey.”
“And warm,” Adrian added.
Talian couldn’t think of anything else
to argue about so with that, they began decorating. Sariel was in charge of
putting the ornaments on in a neat fashion, Talian was ordered to go back in
the woods and get more branches, and Adrian walked over to their neighbor Mr.
Fledd’s house for some holly branches he had let them have.
After the branches were brought in,
Sariel finished her job with the tree and all three stood for a moment admiring
her work.
“Well done Sariel,” Adrian said.
“It looks nice,” Talian admitted.
“Let’s get those branches in place
now,” Sariel said briskly. “I want this place to look absolutely beautiful by
the time Mom and Dad get back, and we’ve already been working for over an
hour.”
Immediately, and surprisingly with no
argument, the trio went to work on decorating the various ledges about the
house. Soon the living room smelled of evergreen and cinnamon from the
branches, candles, and tree.
Adrian successfully made the fire, and
Sariel was able to finally begin cleanup. Pine needles and bits of broken
branches littered the floor. Not to mention all the unused ornaments lying
beside empty boxes.
At last, all the decorating, as well
as the cleanup after decorating, was complete. Sariel made the boys eat some
dinner, and she did too after making one last check that everything looked
perfect.
Soon all three heard the familiar
crunch of the truck tires on their gravel driveway.
“Turn out all the lights!” Sariel
commanded in a low voice. “I want only the candles to be burning.”
Quickly, the two boys obeyed her order
and soon the house was almost completely dark. The three siblings waited with
breaths held behind the couch for their parents to open the door.
***********
“We’re home,” Amaria sighed. “It was
so nice to spend some time with you honey.”
Her husband smiled. “Yes it was. We
owe Sariel a big thank you.”
The couple got out of the truck and
started walking towards their house. Suddenly Amaria’s eyes narrowed.
“Look at the house Darien,” she said.
“Is there something wrong?” he asked
worriedly.
Amaria nodded. “It’s too dark. There
should be more lights on.”
Darien frowned. “Do you think the kids
went to bed early?”
“I doubt that very much,” Amaria
answered. “It’s only six, and they hate going to bed early.”
“It is Christmas tomorrow,” Darien pointed
out.
“That’s never made a difference
before.”
“I hope they’re all ok.” Concern
leaked through Darien’s voice.
Amaria mentally braced herself for the
worst. “Let’s go in now. But be careful, there might be burglars or something.”
The parents crept up the door and
Darien unlocked it. “Sariel did obey us and kept it locked,” he whispered.
“Still, be careful,” Amaria repeated
her first warning.
The door creaked open slowly as Darien
cautiously pushed it open. The two stepped inside and closed it behind them.
A light flicked on suddenly and they
saw their three children leap from behind the couch.
“SURPRISE!!!” they all shouted in
unison and enveloped them in hugs.
It was then that Darien and Amaria
suddenly noticed the change in their living room.
A tree, covered in colorful ornaments
stood in one corner, fir and holly branches decorated the mantel and all three
windowsills. In the greens sat several lighted candles. The room smelled like woods
and cinnamon with a touch of eggnog and vanilla. The fire was lighted and
crackling merrily in the furnace.
The parents were temporarily at a loss
for words. When Darien tried to speak, he found that his voice was strangely
husky.
“You did all this…” he motioned vaguely
around the room, “while we were shopping?”
Sariel nodded. “We wanted to surprise
you,” she explained.
“Don’t you like it?” Talian asked,
seeing his mother have a tear run down her cheek.
She smiled through the blur of tears. “Oh
yes,” she whispered. “I like it very much.”
“How come you’re crying then?” Talian
demanded.
“Sometimes when one is experiencing
deep emotion, such great sadness, and one will cry,” Adrian answered for his
mother. “But just because one is crying doesn’t mean that they are necessarily
sad. One might also cry because of other deep emotions such as anger or joy.”
“And I’m crying for joy,” Amaria said.
“Because you did all this as a surprise for your father and I.”
Sariel’s eyes were shining. “And you
were surprised weren’t you?” she asked.
“Very,” Darien replied. “You all did
such a wonderful job decorating. Although,” he added walking over to the tree, “I
am curious where you got this beautiful Christmas tree.”
Talian beamed. “I found it out in our
woods. It’s one sweet tree, ain’t it?”
“Talian…” Amaria reproved.
“I mean,” Talian said quickly, “it is
a beautiful tree, isn’t it?”
A smile tugged at Darien’s mouth. “Indeed
it is,” he said.
***********
As Amaria tucked her children in at
night, she gave them all a special hug and kiss. “You all did such a wonderful
job brightening our Christmas,” she whispered to each.
When it was Sariel’s turn, the oldest
girl looked up at her mother and replied with a yawn, “Tomorrow is going to be
the best Christmas ever…despite no presents.”
Amaria felt tears come to her eyes
again as she kissed her daughter’s forehead. “Yes it is, because of you and
your brothers.” She went to the door and flicked off the light.
“Mom?” Sariel called from her bed
softly.
“Yes Sweetie?”
“When we have family, we don’t need
presents for Christmas do we?”
“No. No, we don’t,” Amaria answered. Out of the mouths of babes… she thought
to herself, and then added, “God will provide for our every need if we place
our trust in Him.”
Awww, this was such a a sweet story!! I really, really enjoyed it! And the ending was so true. I think a lot of the time our focus tends to stray to all the things we don't have instead of all the things we do have that God has blessed us with!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for sharing it! :)
You're very welcome! I had fun writing it! :)
DeleteAwww! I loved this story so much!!! :) I laughed when Talain said "It’s one sweet tree, ain’t it?" Hehe, sounds so much like my little bro. ;)
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing, Rebekah! And I apologize for being so late to comment in this. Happy New Years! ;)
(I was going to begin with Awww, but everyone else did so I won't) very nice, Rebekah. Happy 2016!
ReplyDelete