Dollar
"I'm so glad this semester is finally done," Freddie said as him and his girlfriend sat curled up on her sofa, drinking mugs of hot chocolate.
"Me too," Sam replied. "College is sort of hard."
Freddie laughed. "Well what did you expect, baby?"
"Well they make it sound so appealing!" Sam defended. "You have only a couple hours of class a day and you don't even have to go if you don't want to! And you don't have mandatory homework either; the professor doesn't check whether you did it or not at all! But then you go to take the tests and jeez…they just throw stuff at you!"
"See, that's why you're supposed to do the homework," Freddie explained. "You do it for your own benefit; not because the teacher collects it. That way you get a chance to really practice the material before the exam and-"
"Hey, can you not ruin the night with your lecturing?" Sam snapped. "You've been back from MIT for what, one day and you're already dorking up the place?"
"Sorry," Freddie said, rolling his eyes. "Force of habit."
"I guess I can forgive you since it is almost Christmas," Sam said, craning her neck up to give him a quick kiss. "Hey, speaking of Christmas, you realize it's gonna be just the two of us for Christmas this year?"
"I know," Freddie nodded. "Carly and Spencer are spending it in Italy with their dad, Gibby is going to Vermont with Tasha, your mom's in Vegas, my mom has to help my Aunt Susan with a fungal infection…you know, baby? This may be the best Christmas yet. I'll miss everybody, but it's gonna be real nice with just the two of us."
"Our first Christmas alone," Sam agreed. "Hey…since it is gonna be just us, why don't we decorate this place a little? Carly and I were planning on doing that but then finals got in the way and then she had to jet off to Italy."
"Okay," Freddie said. "That sounds fun. We can get a tree, some stockings, some singing snowmen-"
"Gingerbread houses, candy canes, those little Christmas cookies from the Armenian bakery we passed earlier today," Sam added. "Oh, and lots of mistletoe."
"Lots," Freddie chuckled. "Well let's get started on this! Let's go out to the store and buy everything we need to make this apartment perfect for the holidays!"
…
"Maybe we should've taken two trips," Freddie gasped as he staggered back into the apartment two hours later, dropping all of the bags and the small tree he had been carrying down on the floor.
"Nah," Sam said, coming in behind him with a single bag. "It wasn't that bad coming up here with everything at once."
"Not that bad?" Freddie exclaimed. "I think I have a hernia!"
"Quit complaining and let's start getting this chiz set up," Sam said, rolling her eyes. "Alright, let's set up the snowman village by the T.V., and then we can hang up this wreath on my bedroom door."
"Maybe it would be a good idea for me to put away at least one tin of these Christmas cookies," Freddie said. "You know, so we can actually have some left on Christmas."
"Er…maybe you should," Sam agreed. "Because once we get all this stuff set up I'm downing at least two of them."
"Where should we put the tree?" Freddie asked. "In the center of the living room? By the window?"
"Oh! By the window!" Sam nodded. "That way everybody passing by can see it and be really jealous about how lame their trees look!"
"The true spirit of Christmas," Freddie said, shaking his head.
It took the couple almost a full hour to get everything put up, but when they did, the finished product was truly worth it.
"Wow," Sam breathed, looking around the transformed apartment. "This place looks incredible!"
Freddie put his arm around Sam. "Looks good." He leaned down and kissed her.
"We're not even standing under mistletoe," Sam laughed.
"That never stopped us before," Freddie shrugged.
"Well let's just decorate the tree," Sam said. "And then we'll go back to my room and we'll really take advantage of being alone here."
"I think this is going to be the quickest I ever decorated a tree," Freddie grinned. "So where are the ornaments?"
"I dunno, aren't they in one of the bags you brought up?" Sam asked.
"No, we used all the stuff in those," Freddie said.
"Well they weren't in the bag I brought up," Sam frowned. "Oh no! We forgot the ornaments!"
"Well don't you and Carly have any lying around here somewhere?" Freddie said.
"What do you think we are? Elves?" Sam snapped. "Great! Now people are gonna walk by and look at our tree through the window and mock it. Christmas is ruined!"
"Well it's not that late," Freddie said, looking at his watch. "Maybe we can run out and buy some before the stores close."
"Ha!" Sam laughed. "I don't know about you, but I'm completely wiped out of cash now. I think my bank account has about seven dollars in it now."
"Oh yeah…" Freddie sighed. "I'm cleaned out too. On top of everything I had to buy for school this semester and what we just got, my savings took a definite hit."
"Oh well," Sam said sadly. "I guess we'll just have to deal with a naked tree. Kind of sucks that-Hey! I know what we can do!"
"What?"
"Let's make our own ornaments!" Sam said excitedly. "It won't cost anything and our tree won't be ugly!"
"Make our own?" Freddie repeated. "Can we even do that?"
"Sure, I saw on the craft channel once," Sam replied.
Freddie gave her a strange look.
"There was nothing else on and it was either watch that or work on my creative writing paper," Sam defended. "But it looked pretty easy. You just take some wire and bend them into different shapes and paint them."
"Well do you have any wire here?"
"Yeah, Carly has a bunch," Sam said. "See, at the beginning of the semester she thought she'd pick up a new hobby so she tried jewelry making. But then she quit after one day because she remembered how un-artistic she is. But there's a ton of the stuff here, and I have some paint from a project I did."
"Alright then," Freddie said. "Let's make ourselves some ornaments."
…
"I have to say," Freddie said as him and Sam placed the last handmade ornament on their small tree. "I like these ornaments better than any I've ever seen in the store…Even though I doubt either of us could ever become professionals at this."
"They don't look that bad," Sam said. "Let's see, we've got snowflakes, Santa hats, present boxes…all the ornament classics."
"Hey, what's that one?" Freddie asked, looking at an oddly shaped ornament near the top of the tree.
"Oh, I made that one for you," Sam told him. "It's supposed to look like Nug Nug, but I think I messed up his head."
"You made me a Nug Nug?" Freddie smiled.
"Well you did carry all the decorations upstairs," Sam shrugged.
"I love it, Sam," Freddie said softly. "Thank you."
"What's this one?" Sam asked, looking at the ornament right next to the Nug Nug one.
Freddie chuckled. "That's actually the one I made for you. I tried to make you a piece of fried chicken but it wound up coming out looking like a diseased cat or something."
"Whoa! A fried chicken ornament?" Sam beamed. "It's about time someone came up with one of these!"
She threw her arm around Freddie and kissed him. "Thank you, Freddie."
"This really is going to be the best Christmas, isn't it?" Freddie said. "Wonder if we'll ever top it?"
"Guess we'll just have to wait and see," Sam said.
….
Fifteen Years Later
"I want to put the star on top!" seven-year old Ashton argued as her twin sister picked up the gold star from one of the many boxes scattered around the Benson's living room.
"You put it up last year!" Emma retorted.
"But you put it up the year before!" Ashton pointed out.
"Guys, remember the schedule we worked out?" Freddie said, kneeling down and gently taking the star from his daughter. "Each year it's somebody else's turn to put the star on the tree. This year it's Tyler's turn."
"I want to put it on now!" Tyler said excitedly.
"You have to wait until we get the rest of the tree decorated," Sam smiled, looking up from the box of decorations she was looking through with Jason.
"I think we should stop buying ornaments, baby," Freddie said, looking around at the dozen boxes. "We have enough ornaments to decorate the tree at the Rockefeller Center."
"Eh, they gave our tree character," Sam shrugged.
"There's no more in this box, mom," Jason said.
"Okay, well see what you can find in that one over there," Sam told him. "Emma, Ashton, come here and start setting up these singing reindeer."
"Well me and Tyler are going to finish putting daddy's train set together to go around the tree," Freddie said. "Mommy tried to be tricky this year, Ty, and hide it from me, but I found it."
"That just means next year I'll have to do better," Sam smirked.
"There's just a bunch of weird wire ornaments in this box," Jason frowned, peering into the box he had been rummaging through.
"Huh?" Sam said. "What do you mean-Whoa! No way! Freddie, those are the ornaments we made!"
"Oh my God," Freddie laughed. "I haven't seen those things in fifteen years. I guess I accidently brought them down from the attic with all the other Christmas decorations."
"You and mommy made ornaments?" Emma asked, running over to get a better look.
"Yeah, when were younger," Freddie nodded. "It was our first Christmas alone and we decided to have some fun decorating. Look, Sam! Here's the Nug Nug you made me!"
"That looks like a waffle," Ashton commented.
"Thanks, kid," Sam grinned. "Oh! And here's that chicken leg you made for me!"
"That looks like a shoe," Jason frowned.
"They're pretty, mommy," Tyler said.
"At least one kid doesn't criticize our artwork, Fredwad," Sam chuckled.
"Can we make ornaments like these?" Emma asked. "Please?"
"Yeah, we can make ones that actually look normal," Jason said.
"Sure," Freddie agreed. "Go sit at the table and your mom and I will get all the supplies."
"Yay!" the four kids cheered as they ran off.
"Aw, look at them," Sam said as Freddie put an arm around her. "They got inspired by our terrible ornaments."
"I dunno, I still say they're pretty great," Freddie said. "After all, I think they just gave us a new Benson family Christmas tradition."
