A/N: It's short and there will be another part to it but it's Christmas and this popped into my head for a random journal entry for our anonymous heroine! I hope you enjoy and I'll get part two up as soon as possible. Before this day is over!
Christmas.
This time of year comes and goes now as if it has never happened, as if there is nothing to celebrate. It's just another day on the calendar and so few of us even know what day it is anymore anyway. When someone told us that Christmas was just days away, there were children in our group who got excited and others who said that there was no way that Santa would find them to get them presents. Those that didn't believe in Santa anymore just didn't think that anyone would be able to get them anything that might make them happy.
The night before Christmas, however, I went with a small group who ventured out to see what we could find. While there would be no time to wrap anything, we were hoping to find something to give to each child. There was no way that we could let this holiday pass without giving the children a little something to try to bring a little cheer into their lives.
We wandered for a bit until we came across a few small stores in the middle of what was once a strip mall. The stores weren't ransacked and we doubted that they would be booby trapped. It wasn't as if these aliens knew anything about a holiday such as Christmas or the joy on a child's face when they received a new toy. We had to stick with things that would be easy for us to carry and things that the children would still enjoy to play with but when we entered the darkened toy store, it was like walking into a movie. I still remember those and still remember my life before the invasion. That was all that I could think about as I wandered the aisle. There were a couple of young women with us so we went through all of the aisles with 'girl toys' while the guys covered the 'boy toys'.
As we walked, I pulled boxes of baby dolls and Barbie dolls from the shelves, finding accessories to go with those toys. I looked over to see the other girls doing the same, making sure that we covered our bases. Then I wandered to the board games, pulling out some that I thought the kids would enjoy. I even found a few educational toys for the youngest children and teething toys for any babies not yet born but who would make it into this crazy world one day nonetheless. Once my bag was full, I wandered to the front of the store. I stopped, however, to grab a teddy bear for myself. As silly as it might sound, I needed the comfort that it would bring me and I knew that it might even bring me comfort for some time to come.
We carried our haul back to camp just as another couple of groups returned as well. There was another group of teenagers who came with bags filled with toys and books for the small children and then a couple of other groups who had scavenged for food for us. We wanted to have as much of a feast as possible tomorrow to celebrate the holiday. We were, as well as we could anyway, going to celebrate the holiday season in the only ways that we could. Hopefully it would bring a little happiness to those children who didn't think that we would be able to have any kind of Christmas.