Emi's Winter Break, Part 5
***
“Hicchan, Emi, we’re leaving now!” Mrs. Nakai called out.
“Okay Mom! Enjoy your dinner!” Hisao called out from the den.
We heard the front door close, leaving us alone in the house.
“So you said your parents always have dinner out on Christmas Eve?”
“As long as I can remember. They get to exchange their gifts for each other without me ‘getting underfoot’, or so they used to put it. I think that occasionally there have been gifts they felt I didn’t need to know about.”
“Well that’s fine. That leaves us with time to exchange our presents.”
“We can order food as well; they always leave some money for me.”
“That’s real nice of them. I’m going to have to offer to cook some night this week, but I’m not used to cooking for four.”
“Don’t bother. Mom will never let a guest cook. Not even her own mother. I guess that’s part of the reason I can’t cook.”
“Yeah. We’ve seen what results from your attempts.” I exaggerated a look of disgust.
“Hey you have to be better than me at something.”
I stuck my tongue out at him for that.
“Okay, okay! Let’s get some food before we do presents, all right?”
“Sounds good. What’s around here that can get us healthy food?”
“Oh, uh… I hadn’t thought about that. I’ll get what delivery menus we have around.”
Looking through the menus, we had to eliminate Hisao’s former top two places for delivery, but the third one had a good selection. Food ordered, we watched some American Christmas specials on television while waiting.
“I’ve never thought the message of ‘Rudolf The Red-Nosed Reindeer’ was a particularly good one. It’s like it’s saying, ‘It’s okay to be different, as long as you’re useful’. How does that help anyone?”
“This thing is over 40 years old; it’s a product of its time. We’ve just moved on from that,” Hisao said.
“I guess. Still seems silly. Weird animation too.”
“I read that it’s called ‘stop-motion animation’. They pose the figures, take a picture, move the figures a little, and then take another picture. Repeat until done.”
“Hmm, not too different from regular animation then. Using figures instead of drawings.”
“Yeah, but 3-D environments were much easier to do stop-motion at the time. No computers.”
The doorbell rang to indicate that our food had arrived.
“You have to get off me now so I can pay for the food,” Hisao said.
“Okay. Let’s eat in the dining room; I’ve had enough television for tonight.”
“Good idea.”
I put my legs back on and set the table while Hisao paid for the food and brought it to the dining room.
“Dinner is served,” Hisao said dramatically, making me laugh.
The food was quite tasty. Hisao used to grumble about how the healthier the food was the worse it tasted. It took awhile to convince him that he just had to broaden his palate. Also that there were more seasonings than salt. We made light conversation as we ate. Both of us were looking forward to exchanging our Christmas gifts afterwards.
Finally, with dinner concluded and cleaned up, we went back to the den, where the Christmas tree and presents were. We turned out the lights except for the tree’s for a better mood.
“Who should go first?” Hisao asked.
“You go first; I like to go last with presents.”
“Okay.” He picked up my gift and shook it.
“Just like a kid to shake their present,” I giggled.
“It’s tradition,” he asserted.
Hisao tore off the wrapping and found a plain box inside. Opening the box, he found…
“A picture frame?”
“It’s a digital photo frame. You can put photos from your camera into it and it can do a slideshow. I’ve already loaded it with some of our pictures.”
“That… is really cool. Thanks, Emi.” He kissed me. “Much better than cluttering my room with all the pictures that I’d want. Okay, your turn.”
Taking a cue from Hisao I shook my present before opening it. The box was smaller than Hisao’s gift, but I knew that wouldn’t mean anything. Inside was a necklace; a silver necklace. Picking it up, I discovered there was a pendant on it. I looked at it to read what it said. “Emi? You got me a necklace with my name on it?”
“I couldn’t think of anything more appropriate for it to say than a name that means, ‘blessed with beauty’.”
“Aw, that is so sweet!” The kiss I planted on him for that left him speechless for minutes. Okay, mostly because we simply started making out.
We stayed on the couch after that, just enjoying holding each other. Snuggled together in the dimness of the room, we drifted into sleep.
***
Previous Next
That. Was. Awesome ^_^
