A Gift to You Read Online Free

taken care of, you could last a long time. That was what I wanted. To last a long time with a family who would take care of me, a family I would get to know and love, a family I would be with for
generations. It was the dream of every Christmas Angel.
    I’d been picked up and put down a few times. It was nerve-wracking. I’d liked the first lady who picked me up, an elderly woman with white hair, and a kind face. ‘Isn’t
she a lovely little Angel?’ she said to her granddaughter. ‘If I had the money I’d buy her, but your mammy would give out to me for spending my money on gewgaws.’ I
didn’t like the sound of the mammy.
    My friend, Angelica, was bought the day after we were placed side by side on our shelf. A thin, middle-aged woman with short hair and a pinched look about her, picked her up, gave her a cursory
look and handed her to the shop assistant. ‘Good luck, Angelica,’ I said. We could communicate telepathically.
    ‘Thanks, Angelina.’ She gave me a little wave and I could sense her nervous excitement as the woman handed over the money – two and six – and the assistant placed it into
the tube and it rattled along to the cashier. Things have changed a lot since those days – every so often I gad off to Dublin, once Christmas is over of course. I leave my little glass body
and fly free. Anyway, it was just before closing time the following day and I was lonely for Angelica and wondering how she was getting on, when I heard a girl say, ‘Ah, Matthew, look!
Isn’t she gorgeous? Let’s buy her for the tree.’ I looked up and saw a young woman in her mid-twenties, with long auburn hair and big hazel eyes, wearing a black coat with a wide
belt, looking like a young Rita Hayworth. I still think the Forties and Fifties had the most stylish and elegant clothes. I love looking at the old black-and-white films they show in the afternoons
around Christmas time, but I digress.
    ‘We’d better buy it quick, Lillian, if we want to get to Amien’s Street to catch the early train back,’ the young man said. He was a dish. Tall, broad-shouldered, with
chestnut hair and blue eyes fringed by long black lashes a woman would die for. ‘I’ll buy it,’ he said, taking a ten-shilling note from his wallet. ‘A gift for
you.’
    ‘Oh, Matthew, I’ll treasure her always,’ the girl said, tucking her arm into his, and I could see she was mad about him. I felt ecstatically happy as I was neatly wrapped and
placed in a Clery’s bag and handed to my new owner. At last! I’d found my family and they had found me.
    The city was brimming with pre-Christmas excitement. Couples embraced under the big clock as we left the department store. Carol singers sang enthusiastically, the shop windows shone with
festive glitz and the trees, festooned with lights, sparkled and twinkled like the diamonds in Weir’s window. The frosty chill turned breath white and reddened cheeks and noses as Lillian,
Matthew and I, swinging in my bag, hurried along Talbot Street, weaving in and out of the crowds before running up the steps of the packed train station.
    I was bursting with excitement as they made their way through the carriages, laden with cheery bags from all the big stores, Clery’s, Arnotts, Boyers and Roches. They found two empty seats
and moments later the whistle blew, the doors were slammed shut and we clickity-clacked our way out of Amien’s Street, crossed the Liffey, and headed south to my new home, a neat little
cottage in a village called Riverside, not far from Brittas Bay.
    How proud and happy I was that Christmas Eve, two weeks later, when Matthew reached up and gently placed me on top of their Christmas tree as the fire blazed up the chimney and the aroma of
pudding wafted around the cottage as it bubbled merrily on the stove. Outside, snow-flakes drifted down silently dressing the trees for Christmas morning, as my beloved owners kissed under the
mistletoe and a slender red candle flickered