I slowly pulled the tape off the first gift, and unwrapped it. Inside I found a wheat cushion, that looked like Shaun the sheep. I smiled.

"I, Zeb and Maddie used to watch Shaun the sheep all the time when we were little.. or… before they left. Zeb liked Gormit the best, Maddie liked that baby- sheep, and I just loved Shaun."

"Isn´t that one of those that you can like, put in the microwave and heat." Kurt asked. I nodded.

"I think so, hold on, there´s another thing here." There was a small, jewelry- box. I opened it, and found a bracelet. It was a chain, but no charms were hanging from it. I put Shaun the sheep and the chain to the side, and looked for the one for my ninth birthday. While unwrapping it, as usual, I did every move slow. It turned out to be a springy.

"Springy!" I said, a bit overexcited. "Gosh… we used to play with springy all the time." I ran up the stairs and placed the springy on top of it, and bent it. It "jumped" all the way down the stairs, I ran after and put it to the side with the wheat cushion and the chain. The next thing was Christmas 2009.

It turned out to be a jewelry box, one of these that you turn up, and then when you open it, it plays music, and it has a plastic ballerina spinning around. In the box, where a smaller jewelry case, I opened it, and found a charm, looking like a heart. I hung it onto the chain, and laid the chain in the jewelry box, and kept it open.

"This is fun," I said. "and the most fun thing is, it brings out the child in me to unwrap things I liked when I was little." The others chuckled at me, and I reached for the birthday- present the day I´d turned ten. I unwrapped it, to a small carton.

"A carton, Wehey! I´ve always wanted a carton." I lifted the lock of it and stuck my hand down in it, up I got a cup- for coffee, or tea, or hot chocolate. It was dark- blue, with golden stars, and had my name "Alexandria" written around it. I smiled, and put it to the side.

"But Lex!" Burt began. "It says Alexandria… what are we going to do now?"

"Suppose I´ll never really get away from the fact that Alexandria is my name." I searched for the Christmas present for 2010, and found it. I unwrapped it to a Rubik's cube, and another small box with a charm. This charm was an angel with a heart.

"The year Maddie died," I whispered.

"Pardon?" Kurt asked.

"Nothing!" I hung the angel in the chain. And then reached for the present for my eleventh birthday. And… it was a package with three things that seemed to be balloons stuffed with flour, with faces drawn on them, one happy, one angry and one sad. They had yarn on top of them, to make it look like hair.

"What are these?" I held them up, and showed the others.

"Stress balls, when you get stressed, you squeeze these, they´re filled with something that looks and feels like flour- so don´t break it. But it´s supposed to ease stress." Kurt explained to me.

"And I guess the faces is like this…. Sad is blue, of course, and you squeeze that one if you´re sad. And angry is red, and happy green… so you… does it make any sense?"

"No….t really." Kurt said, I smiled, and moved on to the Christmas 2011. I unwrapped it and revealed another small box with a charm, and a box with stationery paper. It had got flowers around the edges of the papers, and lines to write on I opened the box with the charm. This charm was shaped as a turtle, with green sparkly stones on the shell of it. I hung that also in the chain. I smiled and moved on to my twelfth birthday, this was one of the biggest packages, and as I unwrapped it, it revealed duvet- and pillow- covers with a 3D- print with dolphins and a night- sky, and the ocean of course.

"She didn´t forget," I said in a low voice.

"Forget what?"

"I and Maddie… we had a dream… we… we used to talk about that, when we were old enough, and could afford it, we would go swim with dolphins. We used to talk about it every day for like months. I´d almost forgotten about it myself. Hrm… moving on." I reached for the Christmas present for 2012. I unwrapped it, and revealed yet another box with a charm and…. A dark blue pencil- case, with small light- blue, pink, and light-green dolphins on it.

"I bet the charm is a dolphin!" I said, and opened it slowly. And wasn´t I right? "Oh yeah, it is." I said, and held up the small, silver- colored dolphin, and hung it then onto the chain.

"Wonder what she got me when I became a teenager," I said and reached for the present. This was also one of the biggest, and it felt as if it had books in it. I unwrapped it in and found all the four books in the twilight- series.

"I gotta admit," I began. "I`ve never read these, not even seen the movies, or been the tiniest bit interested in doing so… but who knows, I may be happily surprised." I laid the books in a pile and moved it onto the side, and started with the present from Christmas 2013. I opened it, and found…. What looked like a book. I opened it- okay, it wasn´t a book. The title read "Ceci n'est pas un livre"

"French! What does that even mean?" I showed it to the others.

"It means this is not a book."

"Well… then what is it?" Blaine came over and looked at it.

"I read about these a while ago, you screw it onto the wall, and then lay other books, or whatever you want to put there on top of it, which makes it look like this shelf… and what´s on top of it is floating in the air." He explained to me. I nodded.

"Cool!" There had been another box in the present, another charm. This looked like a book, and I hung it with the others onto the chain.

"More than half way through." I pretended to stroke the sweat of my forehead. Then I searched through all the piles of paper, and unwrapped present to find the present for my fourteenth birthday. It turned out to be a knitted cap…. But not an ordinary one it turned out. There were a pair of headphones with it, and those could in some way be pulled into the cap, and stuck about where my ears would be when I would wear the cap.

"Oh great… does this work?" I pulled the cap over my head, put the headphones in my ears, and put it on.

"It works. " I pulled out the headphones out again and laid the cap to the side, and then reached for the Christmas- gift for 2014. I unwrapped it, and found a pair of knitted mittens. I pulled them on, but another box with a charm box was in one of them, so I pulled it out, and then tried to take it on again.

"A bit too big," I said. "But that´s not a bad thing… I guess." I pulled the mittens off and opened it, this time, it was a beautiful, sparkly snowflake, that I hung on the chain, with the others. And then reached for the gift for my 15:th birthday.

"Guess I´m the only person in the world´s history who´s getting tired of opening presents." I joked, as I started pulling of the tape from the fourteenth parcel.

"You know we could stop doing this for a while, and do it later." Carole said. I shook my head.

"No, might as well do them all at once, and there´s not many left now." I finished unwrapping the current gift, and found a package with eye- liner, mascara, lipstick, a bottle of perfume, eye- shadow in some different colors, and a toiletry bag.

"o… kay, someone knew nothing about me when she bought this, but whatever, might have need for it some time." I put it to the side, and reached for the next. I sighed, and unwrapped a purse, and another small box with a charm. This charm was shaped as a lipstick.

"Only one left of each now."

"Each what?"

"One birthday- gift and one Christmas- gift." I reached for the last birthday- gift, and unwrapped a laptop.

"look at that." I mumbled.

"Oh this is great, that one´s a lot newer than Brian´s old… that one´s from the middle of the last century somewhere." I smiled, and nodded.

"That you´re right about, that one´s also slower than my great grandma…"

"Is she slow?"

"She doesn´t move anymore." I joked. "No… she´s dead, but you get it. I was gonna say that I hope this works faster." I put it down and reached for the last gift, and unwrapped it to a twist folder, I opened it and the letter on top said.

Dear Alexandria

Every year, at New Year´s eve, since I left, I´ve written one letter for you. In them, I explained the cause of me buying the year´s birthday and Christmas gift. It´s also explained why I chose the charm for the chain as I did. But as I never sent the presents, I could neither send the letter.

I hope that you understand, that in every letter I wrote, I meant every word I wrote.

I love you

Mum

I opened the last of the boxes with a charm in it, and this time, it was a tiny version of the earth itself.

So, I´ve got nine of those letters to write, and if someone could give me some tips on what she wrote (except for the part about the gifts) it would be wonderful.