The Last Minute

My sister-in-law is my 11:59 story. She was the strength I needed at a moment when I felt pathetically incapable of thinking straight to make an unfortunate and disappointing situation work out just fine.

My husband and I travelled out fo town for Christmas holidays to be with family, so I had to pack our children stockings (which come from Santa) for them to open with their cousins Christmas morning. It was Christmas Eve and I had just tucked my kids into bed and listened to their excited chatter about hopes of Santa leaving that one special thing for each of them in there stocking. I left the room with a happy heartland a big smile because I knew we had both of these item for them. We didn’t start to unload the packed gifts from the car until 10:00pm Christmas Eve. This was when the sick realization came that the box containing ALL of my daughters stocking items and most of her presents did not get packed nor did the one special item that my son was so desperately hoping Santa would leave him. I simply fell apart thinking about the look on their faces in the morning when they realized there was nothing at all from Santa and that he must have forgotten them, yet remembered everyone else. I just did not see how I could avoid disappointing them.

My sister-in-law was not home at the time but the minute she returned (coincidently, very close to 11:59) she simply looked at me and said “we’ll make it work”. And because of her, it did work. To my sister-in-law, THANKS for showing me how to never give up!