The big one wrapped in red plastic had to be the Adventure Station, though my parents were famous for putting little items like L-5 crystal-handled knives in packages the size of CRTs, complete with rocks to weigh it down so you couldn’t tell. I couldn’t wait to find out for sure what was in it, but I had to because my parents came in muttering about coffee and asking if it was even dawn and not caring that it wasn’t when they had their coffee and I put their first presents to open in their laps. I wanted to open the red plastic-covered package, but I couldn’t tear the plastic, and my big sister was hogging the slitter; so I opened a smaller one with my name on it. A shiny blue crystal that was almost mirror bright but not quite, so I could see the steel blade was in the package, and suddenly I felt good about the snow, too, and about looking for Bigfoot even if we did have to carry it back on Timothy’s sled. I got the slitter away from my sister and sliced open the Adventure Station, only it wasn’t. I looked at my parents in complete amazement and saw that they both had that special knowing twinkle in their eyes that parents get when they’ve done something you don’t expect them to do. In the packing popcorn was a new sled, the collapsible kind with a handle for carrying it back up the hill and a retractable towing cord and three runner configurations so that it could be used on hard-packed snow or powder. I extended it to its full length right there in the living room, awed by its metallic gleam and classy black racing stripes.
And then with my knife strapped around the outside of my jacket and my sled in hand, I was off to meet Timothy, determined to have Bigfoot in tow before lunchtime. The going was slow because the drifts were tall and I loved to break their peaks and feel the stuff collapse beneath my feet and to stand under the tallest pines and shake the snow off the branches, as if I were in a blizzard and not in the first sparkling rays of sunshine. I went the long way to the hill, sure I would find traces of Bigfoot so early in the morning, and I did. Huge prints that were bigger than I could make, even though they were filled in with new snow, and the stride sure wasn’t kid-size.
Besides, what grown-up would walk through the woods on Christmas Eve during a snowstorm? I’d follow them, I decided, until I had to turn off for the hill, then Timothy and I would come back and follow the tracks to Bigfoot’s lair. But I didn’t have to turn off. The fat tracks headed right off through the woods along the same shortcut Timothy and I had used yesterday.
