A Special Present

This year the thought that Christmas was going to be extra special because they were in their new house. Their parents usually don't get them any presents, but this year they all got to buy presents for each other. They even went to buy a Christmas tree and decorated it with their grandmas old ordainments. But Christmas didn't turn out as well as they planned. Their dad had gotten really drunk on Christmas and by the time they were ready to go to midnight mass he could barely stand up. When they went he started to swear and yell in the middle of the service. The usher had to kick them out. When they got home he lit the Christmas tree on fire. After that Jeanette said, "When Dad went crazy, we all had out own ways of shutting down and closing off, and that was what we did that night". This was not their idea of an extra special Christmas. I can't imagine having to deal with a drunk father on Christmas. Even though Jeanette loves him so much, she also gets so frustrated with him. He seems to love his kids so much, but when he always drinks it makes me think he doesn't really care.

Jeannette turned ten that spring. Usually birthdays aren't a very big deal in their family and they only get small gift, but this year was different. Her dad took her out on their porch and told her that she can have anything that she wants. It was hard for her to tell him what she wanted but finally she took a deep breath and said, "Do you think that you could maybe stop drinking?" He said, "You must be awfully ashamed of you old man." She said, "No, it's just that mom would be a lot happier. Plus, we'd have extra money." Finally he made the decision to quit. He locked himself in his room for over a week. It was hard for him and took the whole summer to recuperate. Once he got better they decided that they were going to move again. But this time it was different, they were going to move into the Grand Canyon and camp. They were going to cook their meals on an open fire and they weren't going to go to school.