Her breath was eminent in the freezing air. She was tucked in nicely with her red scarf, her white furry coat (made her look so elegant, for a six year old girl), and she wore black boots, like her favorite hero of the season, Santa Claus. Cheese had trailed behind her, holding with his small amorphous hands their wagon, to take their desired Christmas tree to her mother's house. She giggled vivaciously, the snow collecting on her ears, on her extravagant coat, and she had touched them with her white gloved fingers, the crystals dissolving, the ones that Vanilla had told her that were unique in every way like people. She imagined snowflake people walking among the world, their ice cold hands feeling shocking, but soon, comforting, the snowflake people a kind, beautiful species.
The wagon marked their trail, as they met a man with combed beach white hair, and his teeth had shined so bright, almost as blinding as the snow when the light had refracted on it.
"Looking for a tree, my little girl?"
She nodded, smiling.
He directed her to the rows of massive green pines, dusted with a powder of the snowflake men and women, and as he shown her a beautiful pure white tree, as white as a dove's feathers, he asked her how much she had.
"Oh, well Mister, I only have about twenty dollars. Is that enough to buy this tree?"
And he laughed, and directed her to a small, barely green tree, the thorns still blushing brown, nearly baby shit-colored.
"That's all you're gettin', Miss Cream. Twenty dollars doesn't feed my family you know."
"It feeds mine!"
"You're different. What do you eat?"
"Well…we mainly eat out of cans donated from…"
His look was mocking, disdainful. She was quiet, as she bought the shitty tree and left, carrying it in their little red wagon, Cheese sighing.
"It's okay Cheese, I'm sure my mother would love this tree all the same…she always made the best out of everything, even when we didn't had much…"
She felt a shocking, stinging cold touch, the prick of an icy stalactite, as a man, bleach-colored, his eyes an arctic blue, had touched the little rabbit on the shoulder, smiling.
"I'll get that tree for you sweetie. What's your name?"
"My name is Cream, Mister…Mister…"
"Please. Call me Snowflake."
And she smiled, as the strange snowy man had went up to the other callous cold man and had asked him to donate the tree, as he knew Miss Vanilla, a wonderful rabbit woman who despite the harsh winter throes of the holidays, she had helped him and his family out, by feeding each of his millions of friends a piece of sugar, letting them shine brilliantly.
"Are you crazy, sir? Do you need to be put in an insane asylum? I'm not making a deal with unstable men like you…"
He sighed deeply, the snow that had powdered the tree like the sugar he so loved, the snowflakes had suddenly became men and women surrounding the salesman, and with their frozen, vacuous eyes, they all had given him a 20 dollar bill, all enough to feed the man's family.
"Merry Christmas," he said.
—
As her mother decorated their extravagant tree, she wondered where some of these wonderful things her mother could afford had come from, when she could barely afford much of a turkey, but she was quiet, staring at the tree's brilliant electric blue lights, as Vanilla opened the window to their poorly heated home, left a plate of sugar for the starving families in the air, and she smiled, thanking the frozen men with the warm hearts who had given her a wonderful, white Christmas.
Snowflake and the others danced on the windowsill, the panes becoming crystallized.