Snow For Xmas

by Oksana Vasilenko

Copyright Oksana Vasilenko 2010

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Snow for Christmas

When I woke up it was still dark. A blue and white ball was hanging above my head in the blackness dotted with stars. It was only a picture. On the Far Side of the Moon we couldn’t see the Earth. We had millions of photos of planets, stars and galaxies taken by the observatories all over the Solar system to choose from, but for Christmas I wanted to see the Earth. The white clouds looked like fluffy snow and I had never seen real snow. Tim wanted to have the NGC1097 galaxy instead and we had a fight. Mom came in and told Tim to be nice because he was the big brother. Tim made a face and called my a crybaby. That wasn’t fair—I’m not a baby, I’m already seven, and I don’t cry. Well, not much anyway. And I’m the only one in the family who had never seen real snow. I was only three when we left the Earth and the two times we went back to visit it was summer—everybody wanted to go swimming in the ocean and nobody cared for snow.

‘Snow is just frozen water,’ Dad told me. ‘Exactly like the ice cubes from our fridge.’

‘No!’ I said. ‘Snow is made of snowflakes and each snowflake is different. Look, I’ve got ten thousand photos of snowflakes and they are all amazing!’

‘You’ve already got zillions of snowflakes photos,’ Tim said. ‘What more do you want? Snow is just cold and it gives you a runny nose and a sore throat. I’d much rather spend the vacation on the beach!’

‘I just want to see it! Once! Please, Dad, can we go in the winter? Can we have snow for Christmas? Just once? Oh, please!’

Dad sighed. Tim rolled his eyes.

‘Denny, don’t get so upset.’ Mom hugged me. ‘In two more years Dad’s contract will expire, we’ll go back to the Earth and you’ll have all the snow you want.’

Two more years! That’s ages away!

So, this year, as usual, we had a bright and sparkly Christmas tree in the corner of our bedroom. It looked quite nice, it even smelled like a real tree should, but it was all a fake. The tree was artificial. Shipping real Christmas trees to the Moon would be a waste of the precious cargo weight, Dad told me. Not to mention shipping some snow. That was a totally absurd idea, too silly for such a big boy.

‘Maybe Santa Clause will bring you some snow in his sled,’ Tim sneered.

Well, sometimes parents just don’t get it. But when your big brother is making fun of you, too...

All right, I’m not a baby to believe in Santa Claus. I do know that miracles happen only in fairy tales, not in real life. In real life nobody gets snow as a Christmas present. Not on the Moon anyway.

I sighed and looked at the stupid plastic tree...

Hey, what was that? I rubbed my eyes and jumped off my bunk.

Under the Christmas tree there was a sealed glass bowl. A really big one, the size of our fish bowl. And inside it there was a teeny-weeny Christmas tree covered with some white stuff! I could hear quiet humming coming from the bowl. I looked closer and saw that it had double walls and a thick plastic bottom. The tiny tree looked real. And the white stuff on its branches looked like snow!

I grabbed Tim’s magnifying glass—I saw snowflakes! Big, fluffy, white snowflakes!

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

A real Christmas tree covered with snow? How did it get here? Am I still asleep and having a dream?

I squeezed my eyes shut and even rubbed them. Then I opened them very, very, very slowly.

The bowl was still there! And there was a gift tag attached to it. It said ‘For Denny’.

‘Tim!’ I yelled, shaking my sleeping big brother awake. ‘We’ve got snow for Christmas!’

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This story is from the book ‘Star Children’.

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