I walked outside
the front door to a pleasant surprise, white flakes falling from the sky, it
was snowing!. Looks like we were going to have a white Christmas after all. It was
Christmas Eve, pony was still fast asleep and darry had gone to work hours
earlier. It was up to pony and I to get Christmas dinner prepared for the gang.
Every Christmas the gang would come to our house for and goof around, seeing
that none of us have a family that loves us or even a family at all. Even sandy,
my girlfriend, comes over for an hour or so, but the boys always stay the night,
we love sharing happy memories from our childhood and exchanging gifts, nothing
flashy of course, just what we were able to afford, we where grateful with
whatever we got, coming from a greaser, you could give us a dead frog on Christmas
and we would still be filled with Christmas spirit. Christmas is a time for us
greasers to get together and spend time with our family, not our real family,
the people who really count, our true family, the gang.
“Pony boy Curtis,
get out a bed and come with me to buy dinner!” I yelled in pony’s direction
“I’m
coming, I’m coming!, hold on soda” he replied briskly. Minutes
later I could hear pony’s footsteps emerging from the hallway, ponyboy had
combed his hair back like usual and had been wearing his usual denim jeans and sleeveless
t-shirt “you do
know it’s snowing out pony, go put a jacket on kid”
“heck
soda, I’ll be fine, we need to get a move on let’s just go”
“
oh, alright but if you get a cold kid, it’s on you” we stepped onto the white mush that covered
the road and started heading for the grocer, the gang all had contributed 15%
of their weekly pay to the Christmas fund from the start of November. This was
so that on Christmas day, us greasers could look forward to a huge Christmas feast.
I had asked sandy to meet me at the grocer to come back and help with the
cooking, pony and I aren’t exactly amazing cooks, last year we burnt the turkey
and ended up dropping the peas all over the floor. Having sandy there hopefully
would prevent any disasters from happening again, and I love her company
anyways, cooking with my two favorite people, sandy and pony seemed like a
great way to spend Christmas Eve.
When we came
close to the grocer, I could see sandy standing in front of the shop, chewing
gum and smoking a cigarette, sandy lit up the street , I could of seen her from
a mile away. “Sandy!,
sandy!, over here!” I called, her eyes moved in our direction, I could see that
she was starting to run toward me so I ran until she was in my arms “merry Christmas
doll “she said
“
jeez sandy, you’re freezing!” I pulled her in closer “let’s get you inside.” As We entered the warmth of the grocer I could
hear a few kids standing in line whisper about us being greasers, but not even
that could of spoiled my good mood so I just ignored it and carried on to the
counter. I let sandy order what we needed while
pony and I stared off into space or in my case stared at sandy whilst she
ordered.
Once we got
what we needed, we started to walk home in the snow. I held sandy’s hand and
sung Christmas carols to pass the time. I noticed pony shivering like crazy so I
took off my coat and handed it to him “gosh, thanks soda.” When we arrived home, I took sandy’s coat and hung it up as
well as taking my coat off pony and hanging that up as well, sandy went
straight to the kitchen and started to cook. “Do you need my help Hun?” I asked
“naa
doll, ill manage, I’ll call you if I need you.” I made my way to the living
room and put Mickey on the television, while pony did who knows what, probably
read a book or something. I soon found myself drowsing off. i awoke to the
sound of two-bits laugh and the smell of turkey . “Have a good sleep doll?” sandy
whispered
“Yeah,
how long was I out??”
“About
four hours” two- bit answered “not come to the table, we all are so hungry we
could eat a horse”
I stood up and sat at the set table. Sandy walked toward me “I
better get home to my sister doll”
“okay Hun, come by tomorrow"
“yeah, ill come around midday “ she bent down and gave me a kiss goodbye
“ merry Christmas soda"
“ merry Christmas sandy” I replied as she
walked out the door , everybody sat down and dug in, us greasers don’t care
about “ table manners” so we all looked
like a pack of dogs. Darry shared what he remembered from when mom and dad
where alive, he told us of the times that mom and dad used to take darry pony
and I to the country and I started to tear up. The rest of Christmas
was spent telling stories and watching the Christmas specials on television. We
exchanged gifts which were mostly poorly handmade and we crashed at about two
in the morning. Spending Christmas with the gang is my favorite time of the
year. It makes us remember that we are all family and that we have each other.