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"The Secret Santa"

by Billy Adams
9/13/2012 / Short Stories

It was Christmas Eve and the festive season found Amy and Lisa Ridley in bed anxiously awaiting the arrival of Santa. Amy could not sleep that night with the knowledge of what she had done to her sister just a few days earlier. Amy and her sister were twins and both girls turned seven years old only two weeks prior to that evening. During their birthday party, Amy broke a figurine and instead of confessing to her parents what she had done, she blamed the incident on her quieter sister Lisa. Lisa denied having done anything wrong, but without any witnesses, their mom took Amy's word over Lisa's. Amy found it easy to lie to her mom, but as the week progressed, she would learn that one small lie would set into motion problems that she would be unable to control.

A week had passed at the Ridley house and as Amy and her family walked through the Woodlands Mall, Mrs. Ridley surprised the girls by taking them to Santa's Village to have their pictures taken with Old Saint Nick. When Amy finally reached Santa, she was escorted by an impatient elf to sit on Santa's lap. Santa positioned her on his knee and then asked Amy if she had been a good girl that year. Immediately Amy thought of the incident that had transpired the previous week. She asked Santa what would happen to her if she had not been a good girl. Santa explained to her as he looked at her mom that he would not bring her any Christmas gifts that year if she had been a naughty girl. There was also talk of coal and such, but I think Amy already understood what Santa would say. In Amy's mind, she felt that she was protected against being seen as naughty since there was a lack of creditable witnesses to her crime. Unfortunately, her sister was in the crossfire and would bear the brunt of her misdeed. She felt a blanket of guilt pour over her. Even though she was in the clear, she knew that Santa would not bring any presents for Lisa. Lisa would wake up Christmas morning and would find lumps of coal in her stocking courtesy of Amy. Amy knew that she was possibly the worst sister in the world. How could she allow her sister to take the fall for her misbehavior?

Amy could not muster up enough nerve to tell her parents what she had done, so she devised other clever options. She knew that if she could make enough money to purchase gifts for Lisa or acquire gifts somehow, then her parents and sister would be none the wiser. Amy pulled together every idea she could think of regarding how she could buy gifts for Lisa. While driving with her dad one afternoon, the local Christian radio station announced that there was only a few more days left to participate in their spirit of giving campaign. "A Very Merry Christmas, Season of Giving, Adopt a Child" program helped underprivileged children receive Christmas gifts. This was the break Amy was looking for. Lisa would receive cool gifts from other people, while her lie and consequences of lying went unnoticed. Once her family arrived home, Amy jumped out the car, ran into the den, looked around to make sure that the coast was clear and called KSBJ. She talked in as low a voice as she could produce while asking them to put a little girl by the name of Lisa on their underprivileged child recipient list. If anyone was underprivileged, it was her sister Lisa. Santa would not be bringing her any gifts this year and Amy could not think of anything as devastating as being passed up by Santa.

For the next two days, Amy started hearing requests for a needy child on KSBJ by the name of Lisa. The radio station would mention Lisa's name and the town she lived in. Her mom thought the similarity of the kid mentioned on the radio station and her daughter was funny so she would make a comment to Lisa every time the spot was played. Amy's nerves were on edge as the radio spots hit too close to home for her. She decided to pull the plug on plan A. The risk of her getting caught was just too great. When they finally reached home, Amy called KSBJ again to let them know that she had made a mistake and that they needed to take Lisa's name off of their list ASAP.

Plan B was much trickier than the previous plan, but looked promising. While her family drove across town, she noticed a couple of panhandlers on the street corners with homemade signs. Amy asked her dad why they were on the corner. He said that they needed money for different things and that this was one of the ways they went about acquiring money. A light bulb went off in Amy's head. She was extremely desperate, so when she reached home, she rushed to her room and constructed a one-of-a-kind sign that she could use for making money. She told her mom that she wanted to play outside, and then sneaked her homemade sign into the front yard. She looked around to make sure her mom and dad were not looking and then stood by the street with her sign held as high as her short arms could reach. The sign read "Need Money for sister, please help God Bless!" She added the "God Bless" because she remembered seeing every homemade sign held up in town had that same phrase. She knew that people would give to her cause because she added that phrase.

After standing by the corner for an agonizing 15 minutes, one of Amy's neighbors down the street drove up to her and asked how her sister was doing. The neighbor seemed extremely concerned. Amy responded that Lisa needed help and that her family needed money right away. When the neighbor asked Amy if Lisa was sick, Amy replied by saying "Yes". She was going to correct her statement, but before she could get a word out of her mouth, the neighbor handed her a few dollars and then drove off. Amy could hear her mom calling her, so as quickly as she could, she threw the sign away and then went back inside the house. Plan B was cut short. It was a great plan, but with mom watching her throughout the day, Amy would have to find other ways to make money.

She thought about grabbing a few gifts from the family gift closet, but knew that mom and dad would quickly become suspicious and the questions would then fall to her and her sister. Amy could not afford to get in trouble and thought that if Lisa got in trouble one more time, Santa would write her off completely. Then she remembered that mom found a couple of dollars worth of change in between the cushions of their living room couch. Amy quietly tiptoed over to the couch and started lifting each cushions to see what money she could find. She failed to find any loose change, but was excited when she finally found her long lost Galveston Beach Barbie Doll. After washing off the old rock candy and two or three stray bugs that were stuck on her doll's head, she placed her doll in her toy box and started working on Plan D. Plan D would surely work. It was her last chance.

It was Christmas Eve and Plan D was her final attempt to acquire gifts for her sister Lisa. If she failed at this plan, she would go to bed that night knowing that Lisa's life would forever be changed. She decided that Santa would be done with putting presents under the tree and eating his two cookies and warm milk around midnight, so if she set her Dora the Explorer alarm clock to 1am, she could then sneak down stairs, take the name tags off of her own presents and place Lisa's name on them. She set aside around 45 tags since that was how many gifts she decided Santa was leaving her. She was willing to go without gifts that year so that her sister would not have to experience a Christmas without presents. How sad would it be for Lisa to watch as Amy opened up her glorious presents only to know that she was the reason for Lisa's plight. Before she went to bed, her mom walked into the room. Under the conviction of the last few days, she gathered the courage to tell her mom the truth about the incident at the birthday party. The previous Sunday, her Sunday School teacher talked about how lying was a sin and that God hated sin. She thought about her sin for a couple of days and then right before her mom left the room, Amy asked her mom to stay, telling her mom that she had something important to tell her. Although her mom was upset about Amy lying to her, she was happy that Amy made the correct decision to come clean.

As Amy's mom left the room, closing the door behind her, Amy was relieved that she had done the right thing, but at her age, she still believed that Santa would not know about what she had done and Lisa would still reap what she had sown. Amy woke her sister up a few minutes later and apologized to her. Her sister grinned a little because she had forgotten about the incident, and kind of shrugged her shoulders as if to say that she could care less. Amy let Lisa go back to sleep, but still believed that she needed to make things right. Plan D was still a go. Dora the Explorer, don't fail me now, Amy thought as she laid her head on her pillow.

As Christmas morning arrived, Amy woke up in shock that she had slept through the alarm. Instead of getting up to the sound of the map song, Amy only dreamed of solving problems with her monkey sidekick, Lisa. She slept through Plan D and knew that when they went downstairs to attack the Christmas tree, Lisa would not have anything to unwrap.

Amy woke up her sister and both she and Lisa walked down the stairs. As they walked up to the tree, they saw many presents underneath. To Amy's surprise, there were many gifts tagged with Lisa's name on them. Amy was relieved that Lisa would not experience a Christmas without presents. In addition, she was relieved that mom and dad did not know what other things she had done in her efforts to make money for her sister. Amy opened her next to last gift. On the card, read the following "Amy we are glad that you made the decision to tell the truth. At your birthday party, Aunt Mimi saw the entire incident and told us a few minutes later. We wanted to see if you would tell the truth. We were disappointed that you blamed your sister, but are happy that you did what God wanted you to do. You are a good sister to Lisa. Love Mom and Dad"

She knew that it was better to never blame other people for her own problems, never to lie and to always keep an eye on Aunt Mimi. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. Dad opened the door and to Amy's amazement, it was the neighbor down the street that had given her money for Lisa. Dad greeted him and then the neighbor handed dad a gift basket. Before they knew it, the neighbor wished them a Merry Christmas and then left before Dad could say anything. Dad opened the card, scratched his head and asked Mom what the card meant. Mom read the card out loud. It read "Dear Mr. and Mrs. Ridley, we are heartbroken to hear about your little Lisa. Our prayers are with you. Let us know if there is anything we can do." Without saying a word, Amy smiled at her parents with a look of guilt on her face. "Merry Christmas, mom and dad" were the only words that came out of Amy's mouth. They continued to open the last of the Christmas gifts as the morning came to a close.

Billy Adams is a creative director for a small software development company located in Texas. His passion is writing short stories as well as commentaries on Christian topics and politics. You can view all of Billy's creative writing postings at www.contentservant.com

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