Will Taylor remembers some unfortunate Christmases

Will Taylor remembers some unfortunate Christmases

By Claudette Richards, The Whetstone

Sophomore Will Taylor doesn’t have many good memories of Christmases past.

“One time we were supposed to have a big family dinner,” he said. “So, I asked my mom if she could drop me off at my aunty’s house.”

Taylor thought his aunt’s children were going to be at the house.

“But they were at their father’s house,” he said. “So I was the only kid there.”

His aunty didn’t have cable.

“I was so bored,” he said, “so I just watched ‘Big Daddy’” – the Adam Sandler movie – “over and over again.”

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

“My aunt is a bad cook, so her food was nasty,” he said.

Taylor’s mother left him at his aunt’s house for three days.

“I was calling my house repeatedly, asking my mom to pick me up,” he said.

Still at his aunt’s on Christmas Eve, he opened his presents.

“There was no toys, just clothes,” he said. “I had nothing to play with. That’s why I was bored.”

There were other bad Christmas Eves.

“My mom tricked me one time,” he said. “She didn’t give us our presents until New Year’s Eve.”

But here’s where the trick came in.

“She wrapped empty boxes like toaster boxes and cereal boxes under the tree,” Taylor said. “We were so excited to open our presents, then we found out that it was just empty boxes wrapped in wrapping paper.”

He and his sister had been bad the whole month of December, he said.

“We got caught stealing my mom’s cigarettes out of her cigarette pack,” he said. “Then we turned around and had a small house party with some of the kids in the neighborhood, and my sister and I got suspended for cursing out the vice president of our school.”

But all these bad Christmases haven’t turned Taylor off to Christmas.

“My ideal Christmas would be spent in St. Louis,” he said. “I’d like to see my nephews there. I want to give them anything they want.”