Snowy Traditions

Seral was still just waking up. The shower had been warm, but it didn't wake her up much. She walked over to the coffee machine, which she turned on before the shower for once. She was happy to see she still had her favorite coffee creamer, caramel fudge, a few more cups of coffee, and she would be out. She was gonna need a trip to the store anyway. 

Her small house, which she referred to as a cabin more often than not, had only a small amount of storage space consisting of a few cabinets no more than seven, a small fridge, and a big bottom drawer, which was her entire freezer. She felt lucky to still live in the house she grew up in, as she had three brothers and two sisters, any of whom could have gotten it. She could never figure out how her parents got enough food for everyone without making trips to the store several times a week.

She wandered over to the living room, hoping for dear life her TV was working. With the press of one button, the static went through the house as if it could break the house with a loud roar. As fast as she could, she turned it off. However, her lovely cat, Prissy, had already been frightened awake. Prissy had bright brown fur, fluffy as ever, with a little white on the face around her nose. Unexplainable to Seral was her dark underbelly. She thought it was a dark brown, but it was so dark she didn’t know for sure. Prissy came over and sat down half on Seral half on the couch. Seral decided that the only thing to do was hang around. 

She found herself getting pulled like a magnet to the snowman she made yesterday. It was the only tradition she followed through with making a snowman on the first of December. She had put on some of her less warm mittens, the bright green pair, a blue striped scarf, and gave him the slightly warmer red hat.

She remembered making snowmen every since she was three-years-old. Everyone in the family got to make their own snowman (or snowgirl if you listened to her sisters). This winter, Seral had made a snowcat for Prissy. She had spotted her snow counterpart and loved it at first sight. Prissy clearly wanted to go out, so Seral chose to take her cat away from the window. Reluctantly Prissy lay down, and then they both fell asleep…

Hours later, they woke up… well, rather, Seral woke up and then woke up Prissy. They both felt cold. Seral retrieved a blanket from the cabinet across the room, and they snuggled in together. Seral remembered when she and her family snuggled in a blanket, trying not to sit on each other while watching TV. Her father and mother always seemed so worried that the TV wouldn't get reception. It was clear to her now, it's pure luck that the TV would work, then and now. She decided to try the TV again, despite her result earlier. 

To her amazement, it worked; she flicked through the channels, and after about 10 minutes, she decided nothing good was on. She turned it back off and went into the kitchen to make herself a can of spaghettio’s, more out of pure laziness than actual craving. She put it in the microwave for two minutes as the instructions said to do. While she waited she looked over at the photograph of her parents, she missed them. She also wondered why they named her Seral, why not Sarah? 

The beep from the microwave broke her thoughts. As she pulled the hot dish out with the oven mitts, she divided it among herself and her cat. It provided great warmth, and she could only imagine what it did for Prissy. As they ate in silence, she thought about all of the great things she used to do with her family. 

They use to buy gifts in secret Santa style as no one could afford to buy for everyone. This year she would probably not see her siblings as her parents had passed away. She always remembered they would have a traditional spaghetti dinner a the start of the 12 days of Christmas, which, come to think of it, was never explained to her. It made no sense to Seral, but that was how it was. But the most significant thing was always the snowball fight. There was a set of rules, consisting of:

If you are hit four times, your out! You can not interact after that point besides bringing drinks and getting anything needed because it was cold! The only way to do anything again is if someone who was still in the fight required a bathroom break. That person would be replaced temporarily by the substitute player.

When an entire team wins, the quickest player to throw a snowball at the losing side gets to change teams. This would continue until there was one survivor. That person would become the sole champion and got an extra dessert. They can give it away if they want to be kind.

Suddenly, in the middle of her thought, she heard the sound of several hits to her door. It didn't sound like one of the neighbors at her door. It almost sounded like crashing at her door but whatever it was was too soft to hit hard.

In the fury of the moment as to what was going on, Seral didn't realize how Prissy was reacting. She had an arched back, and she let out a loud hissing sound try to scare off whatever was on her doorstep. Seral had never heard her hiss so loudly; then again, nothing was ever thrown at her house. She decided to grab her jacket, no matter what, it was going to be cold, and she threw on Prissy's jacket and covered her with a warm blanket too.

Seral ran to her door, which she knew wasn't needed, as the kitchen was only about ten feet from the door. She felt like a flash and opened the door, and that very second, she and Prissy were both hit with a snowball. It took her only another second to make her own snowball and destroy the one coming at her. Everything just paused for a moment. 

She saw a ginormous tree that would barely fit in her house. She saw a second snowman that she didn't make and then saw just a foot away, the two youngest of her siblings, the twins, Jerome and Moree. Who turned 20 last May but looked more like 16 or 17-year-olds; they were definitely more mature than most of the other siblings for being the youngest.

Then she saw everyone else run to the snow walls that had been made, apparently. Then Chulisa called, "Come on, Seral." Seral knew from childhood this was really just an invitation to come over and be on her team. And She accepted the invitation and wished she could have skipped over, but knew she would inedibly fall if she did. So instead, she walked over and, along the way, pet Prissy as she snuggled with her snow counterpart. Prissy looked annoyed, but she didn't move.

Seral crawled up to the left of Simon behind the snow wall, while Chulisa sat to the right of him. And then they all took aim at Gus, who was on the other team with Jerome and Moree. Everyone said, "THREE! TWO! ONE! FIRE!"