One night, when I was in third grade and Christmas was approaching, I had trouble sleeping and went to find my mom. I opened the door to the den. She froze, tape stuck to her finger as she finished wrapping a gift. The floor was covered with Christmas presents, wrapped and unwrapped. There were countless rolls of wrapping paper littering the floor. A cigarette burned in the ashtray on the side table and my mother stared at me open-mouthed.

Soon after, she explained to me that Santa couldn’t wrap all of the presents himself, and instead of putting that burden on his elves, he asked the parents to assist. I imagined that Santa periodically hovered outside the den window, passing gifts through to my mom to wrap and place under our tree on his behalf.

Eventually I discovered that Santa wasn’t real. My mother made me an ‘elf,’ which meant I helped wrap all of my sisters’ gifts and sometimes even tiptoed around on Christmas Eve to set the presents under the tree.

I was the lone elf for about four years. One Christmas Eve night, when Gina was about five, we lay in the same twin bed whispering about the gifts we hoped to open the next day. Suddenly, we heard movement in the living room, just down the hall from our room. Vanessa was in the twin bed on the other side of the room. Gina looked up at me wide-eyed, and we listened intently.

Before I knew it, there were bouncing shadows on the wall outside our room, and we heard someone tiptoeing down the hall. I froze, my heart beating out of my chest. Someone had broken into our house!

Gina whispered, “It’s Santa!!!”

I was only ten, but I started thinking through my action plan, should some stranger enter our room. I looked over my shoulder at Vanessa, sleeping soundly, mouth open, arm draped over the side of the bed.

Then my dad walked into the room. He waved us out into the hall, putting his finger to his lips. We shuffled out of the room. I let Gina go ahead of me and glared at my father.

We walked out into the living room, where my mom was sitting on the couch beside the tree and gifts flooded out onto the living room floor. Gina and I rushed forward, shaking them and checking the name tags. We played with a few that were unwrapped while our parents sat together watching us, smiling at our happiness. I wanted to thank them, but I couldn’t give away the secret to Gina.