The Last Christmas Worth Celebrating

Every year families, big and small, come together on December 25th. For some it’s to celebrate the birth of Christ, to be thankful for his sacrifice and for each other, while others use it as a chance for everyone to be in the same place for just one day in the year, where you have a big meal and exchange presents. No matter what your reason is for celebrating the holiday is or who you spend it with, almost everyone looks forward to Christmas Day. Usually, I am one of those people, but not this year. Not ever again.

Seven days ago my world fell apart. Celebrating anything right now is last thing I want to do.

My brother has been diagnosed with cancer. At only twenty years old he is being forced to face something that has the potential to kill him. I know he’ll beat it – I’m supplying him the best medical care possible – but that doesn’t stop us all from being worried for him. Him being sick is hard on everyone, but it’s particularly hard on me.

Mikey is the only family I have left. My parents aren’t dead, but when they do to you what they did to me you begin to wish that they were. They couldn’t accept that I was gay, despite the fact that for my whole life up until I was twelve they’d led to me believe that I could tell them anything without fear of judgement or contempt. Clearly, I was wrong. When the Bible – handed to me by a man who had never stepped foot into a church in his life – didn’t set me straight, they began to alienate me. It went on for years until I could take it no longer. At seventeen I moved in with Ellie and Bernard Theroux, neighbour of ours who knew I needed a way out. My parents thought that by working longer hours and completely ignoring my existence they would be able to punish me, but it was Mikey, my little brother, who truly suffered.

After I had moved out, Mikey became my parents’ obsession. Suddenly they had all the time in the world for him, but it was easy to see that they were more concerned with making sure he didn’t turn out like me than with his happiness. Once again he suffered because he couldn’t live up to their expectations. Apparently getting married young to the person who everyone could see was your soul mate was not good enough for our parents. In the end they drove him away just like they had me. The only difference was, this time they actually cared.

For a long time it felt like it was Mikey and I against the world, and as a result we became really close. He is my best friend, the one person I would force myself to take a bullet for; I love him more than life itself. So discovering that Mikey could die is quite literally the worst thing I could ever imagine experiencing. Unless he were to die from this, but as I’ve said, that will not happen.

Being an artist whose work was suddenly thrust into the limelight means that a lot of money is coming my way right now. With that comes influence, so I’ve used both this past week to get Mikey a brilliant doctor and to deposit enough money into his bank account to cover his upcoming medical expenses. It’s all that I can do for him, but it doesn’t feel like it’s enough.

That brings me back to Christmas.

Learning my brother has cancer on December 18th makes Christmas null and void in my opinion. I would completely skip the day if I could, but it was Mikey who requested I do the exact opposite. He has always loved Christmas – the presents, the food, the time spent with your loved ones – and he didn’t want to let his illness ruin his favourite holiday. No one knows how he’s going to feel this time next year so we want to do what we can for him this year while his cancer isn’t affecting him too badly. That means pretending that he’s perfectly fine, not mentioning the C word. It’s going to be difficult, but I’m determined to do that for him.



Christmas morning has arrived and it’s time to drag myself out of bed. I take a quick shower and get dressed before trudging down my mansion stairs to the living room. Mikey and Alicia slept here last night; knowing my brother he’ll already be downstairs shaking the wrapped presents. My sister-in-law isn’t quite as into Christmas as he is, but she always musters as much enthusiasm as she can for his sake. Today, however, I’m not sure she’ll be able to do it.

When I enter the living room Mikey is exactly where I knew he would be – by the tree with a wrapped box in hand. Alicia is sitting on the floor next to him watching on with sad eyes.

“Didn’t we establish last year that every time someone shook a present there’d be a ten minute gift opening penalty?” I asked when I was a few feet behind my brother. I like to sneak up on people.

My voice startles him and the present fumbles in his hands. Thankfully, he catches it and places it back under the tree.

“I’ve been asking you not to sneak up on me ever since I could talk. When the hell are you going to stop?” he snaps back jokingly.

I shrug. “When it stops being fun. So, never.”

I bend down and kiss the top of Alicia’s head. We’ve been friends since Mikey met her in his first year of high school. We’ve always bonded over our mutual love of Mikey, and she’s just so damn nice and sweet that you can’t help but like her. If I weren’t gay I probably would have been after her myself.

“Merry Christmas, Gerard,” she says, stretching her arms up to hug me awkwardly.

I return her hug as best as I can. “Merry Christmas, sweetie.”

Stepping away from Alicia, I take a seat on the couch opposite the Christmas tree. Just as I settle into the cushions I hear the front door open. A moment later Ellie and her husband Bernard appear in the living room.

“Good morning! Merry Christmas!” Ellie greets us all.

Bernard is carrying a pile of gifts that is stacked so high he can only just see over the top of them. Ellie adds the one thing she’s holding to the stack before she comes over to us with her arms outstretched. She hugs me first, then Alicia, and lastly Mikey, holding on to him a few seconds longer than usual.

“Let me give you a hand with that,” I say to Bernard, getting to my feet.

Bernard hands me the presents and I take them over to the tree. I smirk as I notice Mikey attempting to pick up one of the new presents, then slap his hand away. He narrows his eyes at me good naturedly as he slides himself back from the tree. I join Bernard on the couch and engage in light conversation with him as Ellie bustles around the living room, making it more Christmassy with ornaments, while she talks to Mikey and Alicia about what she has planned for dinner tonight.

“Can we open presents now? Please?” Mikey whines after a half hour of Ellie talking.

“Oh, alright, Michael,” Ellie replies. She points at the tree. “Go on.”

A big smile spreads across his face; he scoots closer to the tree and plucks up a present – my gift to him, specifically. This bit of Christmas is the only thing I’m truly excited about. Ellie came up with the great idea to give each other gag gifts. That way we would all be able to smile and laugh instead of thinking about... the C word.

“Oh my God!” Mikey shrieks as he removes the cream colour paper. He starts laughing hysterically, as do I at his reaction. Somehow he manages to hold up my present for Ellie, Bernard, and Alicia to see. “Oh my God!”

“Mikey Skywalker!” Alicia exclaims as she reads the engraved gold tag before laughing uncontrollably herself.

I drew Mikey a caricature of himself as Mikey Skywalker, complete with his glasses and favourite beanie – ironically, the beanie he was currently wearing. I had my P.A., Marlene, get it framed two days ago. Generally, I’m not that impressed with my artwork, but the likeness to Mikey is uncanny.

“Oh, that’s hilarious!” Mikey says, wiping tears of laughter from the corner of his eye. “Thank you so much, Gee.” He reaches under the tree and grabs a rectangular box. “Open my present next.”

The box is passed along to me and I open the red Christmas tree paper carefully; unlike my brother, I have some self control. I immediately send a sarcastic glare to him when I see just what he’s given me.

“Oh, that’s low,” I say darkly. He has given me a beard trimmer and the bear of a man on the box is taunting me. “Not everyone has to grow a beard.”

“You’re right,” he replies, smirking, “but every man except you can.”

I grab the throw cushion next to me and throw it at him.

“Hey, hey, hey! No fighting, you two – it’s Christmas.” Ellie berates us. “Now come on, next present.”
Mikey reaches under the tree and hands Alicia a box. He reads the label aloud. “To Alicia, from Gerard.”

I smile in anticipation as Alicia begins to untie the ribbon around the box. She lifts the lid and smiles broadly.

“You didn’t!” she screams as she lifts the pair of shoes I bought her out of the box. “Pac-Man high heels! I love it!”

The pumps are a dark blue and depicts Pac-Man moving through a maze eating pac-dots. They’re pretty awesome, even if I do say so myself.

“If you don’t wear those next time you bring my lunch to work, we’re going to have to get a divorce,” Mikey tells Alicia in mock-seriousness.

Ellie stands up, takes me by the hand, and drags me over to the Christmas tree. She pushes me down by the shoulders until I’m sitting on the floor next to Mikey. There are six presents with labels written in Ellie’s cursive handwriting sitting in a small pile; she gives us each three that are wrapped identically. We’re told which order to open them in before Ellie steps back to watch the fun.

The first parcel is the length of my forearm and soft to the touch. Mikey tears the paper while I open mine where the tape is. Both of us have an item of black clothing.

“Matching vests?” Mikey and I ask in unison.

“Keep opening your presents,” Ellie says gleefully. Her thin, wrinkled hands are clasped together in anticipation.

We grab the smallest parcels next. Once again Mikey rips the paper like a child, which makes Ellie smile more; she misses seeing her children opening her presents up Christmas morning. Mikey gets his paper off first, then holds up his present – a black and white striped tie. I immediately notice that my gift is the same thing.

I chuckle. “I’m sensing a pattern here, Ellie.”

She winks at me and urges us to open up our last present. This one is the biggest, which gets Mikey more excited; he always likes opening the biggest presents. I watch him pulling the paper back to see if we’re going to match again. I can’t quite see what it is, but whatever we’ve been given are different colours; his is red and mine is a navy blue. As we both pull out our presents I see that we’ve both been given pyjamas... that match.

“You’re so alike that you might as well be twins,” Ellie explains.

Everyone bursts into laughter at that, even Bernard who’s not much of a laugher at the best of times. Mikey and I get to our feet, still laughing, and dress ourselves in the vest and tie; Alicia has to tie Mikey’s for him. Ellie hands us Santa hats – with bells on them – and pushes us together so she can take a photo.

“Oh, how does this fichue chose work?” she asks of the digital camera, sounding frustrated. She shakes it and presses every single button on the silver device before admitting defeat and handing it to Alicia. “You do it, dear.”

It doesn’t take more than two seconds for Alicia to snap off a photo of the pair of us. She shows us the screen where the picture is displayed. I really like it; I’ll need to get a copy of that from Ellie later so I can get it framed.

We continue with the present giving. My present for Ellie is a sexy French maid’s outfit, with exception of the sexy part it is an extremely accurate gift as she is French and basically my maid. Where most women her age would be both embarrassed and offended, she took it in her stride and made jokes about wearing it when she makes my bed. Funnily enough, I think Bernard was more excited about the present than anyone else. He liked it far more than the ‘World’s Most Arrogant College Lecturer’ coffee mug I gave him. Mikey and Alicia gave them both a cookie jar with French “Go Away” and “Fuck off”, among other things, written on it in French as everyone goes straight to the cookie jar when they go to their house; Ellie is always baking more to refill it.

“Okay, last gift,” Alicia says, plucking up a small box from under the tree, “and it’s for my amazing husband.”

“From my amazing wife,” Mikey comments as he reads the label.

While Mikey is attack the wrapping paper, Alicia says, “I know we’re meant to be giving each other gag gifts this Christmas, but I couldn’t go past giving you this.”

His jaw drops when he opens the small box. A gasp escapes his mouth and he flicks his eyes up to meet his wife’s. “This isn’t a joke?”

“No.” An overwhelmed smile breaks out on her face.

Mikey looks to Ellie, Bernard, and I. “We’re pregnant,” he says, lifting a positive pregnancy test from the box. “Alicia and I are going to be parents.”

My eyes widen. My brother is going to be a dad... I can’t believe it. Here I am watching my brother hugging and kissing his wife, and all I can see is a little seven year old boy covered in black ink from a mishap when we were kids. When did he grow up and turn into a man?

Alicia pulls back from the embrace, smiling happily. “It’s only early days – really, really early days – but I wanted to share this with you guys.”

Ellie is crying, reaching out to both of them for a hug while Bernard congratulates them. I’m a bit teary eyed, too. After everything that has happened to them this week, and all the pain they’ll have to go through over the coming months and years, this is the Christmas miracle they needed. It’s going to give us all hope for the future now that Mikey has so much more to live for. And he will live, I know it.