A few days later, we celebrated our first Christmas since the end of the world. And let me tell you, Christmas is really strange when civilization, as far as we were concerned, had completely collapsed. The "hustle and bustle of the Holiday season" gag was especially cute now. We -- and by "we" I don't mean the "all of us" we, I mean the "old hapless people" we -- always kind of played along with the idea that life was so stressful during the Holidays and that it was an unwelcome presence in our lives, despite the fact that we did it to ourselves. In line for three hours to buy your son a Playstation 2? Ouch, that's rough. Almost as bad as rummaging through your belongings and trying to think of something to give your family that they haven't seen before. The day before, Mom called a family meeting and proposed that we not worry about presents. Perkins initially suggested we search the long-abandoned houses of our neighbors for goodies, but ultimately we all concurred with Mom's plan.
I know this sounds like a sad story, but honestly, it really wasn't. We spent our days talking, riding our bikes, throwing around the football, playing board games. We were poor, uncomfortably so, but we had enough. We were able to eat enough to keep our stomachs from growling around the clock. We lit a fire every night in the backyard, and we sat around it and told jokes. It was an existence sometimes lacking, but never obligated. We had no jobs to go to. We only ate, survived, and enjoyed each other's company. That night, after Mom and Dad had retired upstairs to go to sleep, Perkins, the kid who always had everything, the man who in the last year had lost his entire family and nearly everyone he held dear, the guy who never lost his cool, told me with tears in his eyes that it was the best Christmas he had ever had.