This Christmas Ended Up Being Trash
Growing up, when I was a kid, my grandparents always gave us weird gifts. They learned one thing about us and locked on to it so hard that it became a theme. For example, my sister said once she liked giraffes, so every year, they got her something cheesy with a giraffe on it. Despite our best efforts to thank them and be grateful for their presents, they could always tell we didn’t like what they got us. It made them sad every year, and we felt terrible about it. One Thanksgiving, when my sister and I were around ten years old, we were at their house playing. We accidentally found what they had intended to give us for the next Christmas. They were these two beautiful handmade dollhouses. We loved them and were excited to get them eventually. We were also happy we didn’t have to pretend to like the gifts. So, my sister and I concocted the most brilliant plan that a 10-year-old could. When the conversation with family about what we wanted for Christmas came up, we said we really wanted dollhouses. My younger sister even told Santa that was what she wanted, and we were so happy that our grandparents would be able to get us exactly what we wanted! There was no way they saw through our genius scheme.
Christmas arrived, and our grandparents went to another room to get our presents. We prepared ourselves to be elated, even practiced being surprised. We had no idea what we were in for. Instead of the dollhouses, they brought us out two new trash cans. At that point, we didn’t have to pretend to be surprised anymore. Our grandma smiled at us and let us know that they knew we snooped and found the presents. They said the trash cans were a more fitting present for the “garbage granddaughters that you are.” Needless to say, after that, we had very little contact with them. ~ Devornine