A Cost Less Christmas

In that tiny apartment that first Christmas on my own, I painted those tiny snowmen, dressed up in hats and scarves. I collected all those empty cigarette packs from my friends and wrapped them like little presents. I scoured Cost Less for cheap ornaments, little Santa Claus figures and fragile little glass balls.

A tabletop Christmas tree was never good enough for my holiday. Even in that shoebox of a space, I crammed seven feet of fake evergreen in any corner it would fit. I crammed dozens of people around it to drink and laugh and eat my bacon wraps. You could barely walk for all the wrapping paper strewn all over the floor.

Now the Christmas tree has plenty of room to breathe under high ceilings in view of a pool in a room so bonus we do not even have a name for it. But those wrapped cigarette boxes and Cost Less ornaments still hang. Because I cannot forget how it used to be.