With Hope for Christmas - short story.

It's never easy to be the youngest of the family, but when this family has all these traditions as mine does, let's just say that things could backfire much quicker. I've always loved the Christmas season, I've been prepared for what sooner or later might come, kinda like grooming but served with much love and loads of hot chocolate. I have 7 older brothers and 2 older sisters. My oldest brother - John - he's 40 now, there's 15 years gap between me and him. Already married with 4 kids, I don't know how he's doing it, but, he absolutely couldn't be luckier, as his wife is not only very pretty but also sings like an Angel and this is a very important feature, especially in our family. We love to sing carols during Christmas time. Anyway, John is our dad's right hand, he is first in line to take over when the time comes so he has been prepared in business management and just making sure everything runs smoothly. While my dad is like the CEO, my brother is a VP, no one has a higher rank than that. Next, we have my brothers Philip and Andrew, the first twins in the family, they are 36 now and both already married. What's funny, is that they married twin sisters as well. In our company, they are making sure that the electronics are correct and nothing in this field breaks down. I remember that in my childhood I broke a lot of electronic stuff and it was never going to waste. Both of them are geniuses, they can fix anything. So, when I was getting tired of either my drums set or radios or anything that needed to be used with electricity, they were first fixing it and then put it for sale as used. But still managed to make it feel like a new item. Pretty cool if you ask me. Next in line was my first sister-Faith, she's currently 33 years old. She is also already married and about to have a baby so I'm not even thinking about getting in her wrong books, I'm not a masochist to make a pregnant lady angry at me. Faith was always the one that gave the best advice. Whenever I had some hard times at school or with girls, yes, mostly with girls, she was the one I was going to. Perhaps this was a reason she chose the psychology field as her career path. So, while still helping mom around the house and the bakery if needed, she has her own office and she's our town's only psychologist. Next, we have Thomas and James, I'm gonna tell you about them at the same time because they might as well be twins, haha, it is only a 1-year gap between them and as far as I know, they have been glued to each other all the time. They are absolute daredevils, loves danger and anything that comes with it. They have been skydiving since they were 17 & 18 years old, snowboarding, skiing, doing motocross, you name it. Once they even lit some metal hula hoop on fire and made a bet about which one of them would jump through it without any mistake. You could guess that they both ended up with a few burns and scratches but that also hasn't stopped them to perfect this idea and then 2 years later they did it so well, that even mom applaud them. After that though she hid everything and they couldn't find their hula again. In the company, they test the products, their sturdiness, and overall shape before we start packing the products and storing them in the warehouse. Without them we could have much more accidents on our heads, we don't want the others to suffer because of something that came out of our production line. Right? The second pair of twins, my brother Matthew and second sister Noel. My mom was beyond happy to have another daughter and well, yet another son. As much as I know, from mom, of course, they were pretty big rascals, always getting into people's business and wanted to know everything. And that itself pushed them to pursue a career in security. They are the ones that make sure our company and house security are top-notch. Mini cameras and other ambitious gadgets that take care of us and also others. Noel was my go-to person when I wanted to hide somewhere when I didn't want to be found. She was making sure I could skip classes or just go "missing" without anyone knowing about it. It wasn't anything serious, but like any teenager, I just needed that feeling every once in a while and thanks to her I could have that, without getting a detention or being grounded way too often. I remember that once when I was about 15 years old, I got this huge crush on one of my classmates, her name was Ember, and Noel was at that time working on some prototype robot, she let me borrow it so I could use it to bring Ember some beautiful lilies on Valentine's Day. This got me not only her smile but we were also a couple for about half a year. I was heartbroken because she had to do move away with her family. Last but not least we have Simon. I've always been very close with him, maybe because of our age or maybe because he was the one who always made our toys, of course as soon as he was at a good age to use all necessary tools to make them. He also made all the furniture in our house and the cupboards in mom's bakery. He told me once that he just feels the wood, I don't know how that's possible but I guess it does work for him because absolutely nothing that he ever made was ugly. His creations are amazing. On my 18s birthday he gave me this cross that I keep as a necklace on my neck, he said to always keep it close that it will protect me. I haven't taken it off ever since. So, as you can all see already we all had a part in family tradition for years, having different roles in progressing family business, and on top of that, we have my parents. My mum, who always knew what to say, always helped anyone in need. And despite that, she always had time for her children. I was the one who got into trouble the most, but she never shouted at me. There were times when I surely deserved it though. In the place where we live, we are the only family with so many children, funny when you think about it. The average maximum is 3, but in our household, my parents always said "the more the merrier", although, as soon as I was born and when I was about 5 years old I heard my brothers conversation with my parents and I am pretty sure they said something like "never again, he's the last one". I don't blame them for it. My mom, she's like the best baker in our village, we were selling her cakes and brownies since I remember. Don't want to sound too overconfident but I was her best taste tester. She would come to me when she needed new ideas my taste buds are the best, or she only said that out of love, I don't know. Nevertheless, I ate tons of sweets when I was a kid, and when I reached my teenage years and started caring about myself more, it was then when I truly began to exercise and finally lose weight. It doesn't mean that I stopped eating sweets though, none of that. But maintaining a healthy lifestyle is what keeps me in check. And I also learn to love it so, it only helps. I should mention one more, probably the most important thing about our mum. She's absolutely the sweetest grandma ever, when I say grandma it's because some of my brothers are already married and with kids. It's absolutely beyond me, from where is she getting that much space to love every one of us so so much. Not that we complaining, it's just I wish I could return so much to her as well. As for my dad, well, he is truly the greatest. When I grew up he always had the best stories. He saw the world already and every time he was coming back home after his travels he was bringing us some small significant souvenirs, each one different from another, something specifically for each of us. And, umm, one of my greatest memories, is, when one time at Christmas, I could have been 16 or 17, I don't remember well, but I was having this teenage rebel phase and I'm pretty sure I was not very pleasant to live with. Especially for my parents. So, my brothers with their families came for Christmas day and after dinner, we all gathered around the Christmas tree, we sang some carols and one by one we were opening presents. I remember that I began to shift uncomfortably in my seat just hoping that I could go to my room and sulk because absolutely everything about that day pissed me off. It might have been the atmosphere or the fact that there were like a bunch of kids running around and uh when my 2-year-old nephew began to undress himself in front of everybody I just stood up from my seat and left the room. My sisters were shouting after me but I couldn't care less. After a few minutes, I heard the knocking on my door, and the concerned voice of my pop's asking me if he could come in. I agreed. He opened the door and I saw him holding the tray of my mom's gingerbread brownies and my nostrils were filled with the aroma of my beloved hot chocolate with peppermint candy cane and marshmallows. He sat next to me on a couch, handed me my cup, put the tray in front of us on the coffee table, and turning his face to me, he said: little Eli is something, isn't he? Elijah or like we call him, Eli was the kid that started taking his clothes off just a few minutes ago. We both started laughing and as soon as I said that I'm sorry, my dad just sat there with a smile on his face saying that thankfully I'm the last one in our family, excluding his grandchildren. After that, we had a conversation about my school and how am I doing, and when he was about to walk out of my room he turned around, reached his sack and he took out the strangest looking snow globe I've ever seen in my life. None of my siblings travelled before, we just lived in our village all our lives, so when dad gave me this globe he said that the building that I see there is called Empire State Building and it's located in New York City. Inside of it was also a very nice-looking Christmas tree. I gave it shook and then I saw myself, right there inside. A little bit took aback by it I asked "How? What just happened, dad?. And then he answered: " Can you see what you're holding there son?" I had to look pretty close and when I saw this little rolled piece of paper I knew exactly what that was. It was my college degree. But I was still pretty confused about how the hell the globe knew what I was thinking. My dad seeing my face said to me, something that, at that point, I honestly thought he was joking. He said "Remember son, this snow globe is no ordinary one, at your toughest times when you give it a shake and you look very closely you will see what is that something that your heart desire", and I swear to God, I haven't taken him seriously then, I just thought it was something he said to make a child believe in miracles. But everything changed since last night, my whole world and thinking changed, and now I know he meant what he said. Because last night, I shook the globe again and I saw what my heart desire and then I saw it again in my dreams... Hey there, my name is Nicholas Jr, everyone calls me Peter, and I'm the youngest of 10 children. The youngest heir of Santa Claus. And this is the story of how I found my Snowflake.