I said it like a woman who had everything under control… even though most days, my confidence was held together with tape and stubbornness.
But one icy evening, I pulled into our driveway and stopped cold.
My Christmas lights were gone.
Not fallen.
Not blown away.
Gone.
The porch rails were stripped bare. The roofline clips dangled like snapped bones. The candy canes lining the sidewalk were broken in half, scattered like discarded toys. Even the wreath I wired tightly to the column had vanished.
And there in the middle of the yard lay my long green extension cord—cut clean through.
My breath fogged in the air. My heart hammered. I’m a 47-year-old single mom who prides herself on staying calm, but something fierce rose inside me.
We’d only lived in this rental three months. A new start. A new school for Ella. A new life we were trying hard to make feel steady.
So when she asked, “Will Christmas still feel like Christmas?”
I had said, “It will. I promise.”
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