I was bouncing on the balls of my feet. I couldn't believe I was finally going to see my best friend after so long! Here I was, waiting for her to come out of those doors so I could run up and hug her.

It has been a couple of years since I last saw her. We lost contact since she changed her number and deleted all her social media. She must've changed so much after all this time. She could have died her hair blue or some other crazy color. Or maybe she has a tattoo going down her arm or back. Or she could have gotten plastic surgery and changed her whole appearance.

I felt my stomach churn as I saw people pour through the doors. I scanned the crowd for anyone familiar. I mainly looked for her dark brown hair with dyed blonde tips.

"Talia!" I heard someone from the crowd yell. "I'm over here!"

I looked through the crowd. My eyes went from person to person. Then I spotted her. I ran up and hugged her.

"Alexa! Oh, my gosh! I can't believe I finally get to see you after so long! How are you?"

Her hair was now all blonde. She had both her bottom lip and nose pierced. She was at least half an inch shorter than me. "I'm great! What about you?"

"I'm great now that you're here! I'm so excited you get to stay during the holidays! I have so much planned!"

"Then we probably should get going."

I nodded and lead her to my car, "I see your mom finally let you get piercings."

"No, they're fake." She took the piercings off, showing they were fake.

I nodded, and we continued talking. We went to Starbucks, and we both ordered a peppermint mocha. Once we got our drinks, I drove home and asked her if she to help me decorate the tree and finish decorating the house. After all, my family had gone out of town for a bit; so I had to finish getting everything ready for Christmas on my own. She agreed and took a sip of her drink.

We soon got home and went inside. "It looks like Santa Clause threw up in here."

"I'm sorry about the mess. I just finished sorting through the decorations."

"Well, enough talking. We have a tree to decorate!"

I laughed and grabbed the ornaments. We put our drinks to the side, taking small sips every once in a while, and decorated the tree.

Alexa and I looked at our work once we finished. "This looks amazing, Talia!"

We picked up our cold, half-filled drinks and clinked them together before taking a long drink. Suddenly, the tree fell forwards almost hitting us in process. Pieces of the glass ornaments scattered the floor.

"What the heck?! How did this happen?!" I yelled.

"I-I have no idea!" Alexa stammered.

"I guess I'll have to go buy some new ornaments to replace these. Come on, Lex. We have a mission to accomplish."

She laughed, grabbed the car keys, and put her jacket. "I call driving!"

"No, you'll just crash!"

"I'm driving!" Alexa yelled, running outside and getting into the driver's seat.

"Fine!" I sighed as I followed her outside. I regretted not bringing my jacket but shrugged it off as soon as I entered the car.

"Do you remember where to go?" I asked Alexa.

"Of course!"

She rolled out of the driving, hitting the mailbox in the process. "ALEXA! BE CAREFUL!"

"Sorry!"

I sighed again as she continued driving. The whole way to the store and back home we sang songs, really off-key may I add, to the Christmas songs on the radio. We successfully made it to the store and back without a disaster. Unless if you count forgetting you had something in your pocket then being stopped by a security guard. At least that was Alexa's excuse.

As soon as we arrived home and entered the house, the color drained off my face. I had forgotten to close the front door after exiting the house. Luckily no one had raided the house. Unfortunately, I now had to find a way to get rid of a bunch of animals.

My phone suddenly rang. Alexa quickly tossed me my phone. "It's your mom!"

I quickly answered the phone. "Hey, Mom! How's your trip?"

"It's amazing, Talia! I wish you were here with us! How are you and Alexa?"

"Oh, we're fine! We just finished decorating the house. We decided to go for a walk in the park."

"Well, I'm glad you guys are doing good. I just wanted to let you know we'll be home tomorrow."

"That's great! I can't wait!" I exclaimed.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Tals. Bye!"

"Bye, Mom." I hung up the phone then looked at Lex in panic. "We need to get this place cleaned up! My parents are coming home tomorrow!"

"TOMORROW?!"

"Yes! Tomorrow!" We both started screaming at the top of our lungs.

"Okay. How are we going to do this? You're good with animals, right?" Lex questioned.

"Not really. I've been bitten by a rabbit, many dogs, scratched the heck out of by cats, and many other things I don't want to mention." I admitted.

"Fine, I got the animals downstairs. You go upstairs and get the ones there. I'll get the ones down here. Deal?"

"That works." I shrugged. I quickly ran upstairs and started opening the windows for the squirrels could get out. I opened my parent's room door only to find a deer there. I screamed in frustration. What was this? Snow White's cottage?

"Come on, deer. Let's get you outside."

I tried everything. Pushing it out, bribing with food, dressing up as another deer, etc. Nothing worked. It took about two hours to get it out of the house. It took us another two hours to the other animals out of the house.

"Thank goodness! We're finally done!" Lex exclaimed, flopping onto the couch.

"No, we're not. We still have to clean everything up!"

"Come on! Can't we have a little break?"

"Fine!" I went to the kitchen and took two mugs out of a cabinet. Just when I thought things couldn't get worse, it did. As soon as I closed the cabinet door, the whole cabinet crashed to the floor.

I heard the door open. "Lex, where are you going?"

"Hey, honey! We're ho-Talia! What happened in here?!"

I ran out of the kitchen and stopped as soon as I saw my parents. "Hey, Mom. I thought you were coming tomorrow! Not today!"

"I was! But I thought it would be a good idea to surprise you!"

"I'm done! I'm done with Christmas! Just put me on the naughty list. I don't care."

"Me, too. This is just insane!"

"I didn't even do this! It all happened by itself!"

Suddenly, the floor above us decided to collapse on top of us. Everything was ruined. This was going to be the worst Christmas ever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So this is for the Christmas Awards held by Manuel022

It's not that great since I kind of rushed it... (I started it on December 19th since I had so much school work!)

Anyway, hope you guys like this terribly written, short story!

Word Count: 1,215 (Sorry...I seem like an overachiever...)

~Ale_Vegas