"Brown and owls on Christmas Eve?" my mother sighed, clicking a picture of me and Esperanza next to my pink flocked tree in our sunken living room with its golden curls of carpet.  It was my mother’s birthday and all day the adults had quipped their usual Christmas Eve refrain, "Today is your mother’s day, NOT YOURS."  
Well tonight, I wanted to wear my light brown dress with the princess sleeves, tan pinafore, and red and yellow pinstripe quilted owl perched on the hem because it matched the new leather boots my father gave me as an early Christmas present.  Already Mama and I had sparred over wearing the boots with my pink lace Christmas dress. I decided I wanted to wear the boots even more than my pink dress, hence the owls.
Besides, the owl dress still had life in it, only a few more wears before it inched up and away to Niña.  
Tonight we were celebrating my mother’s birthday at Neil Divan’s, the fancy French restaurant with fondue on Cannery Row.  Although I loved Neil Divan’s teensy forks, I wanted to go to China Row which had a long tunnel like entry-way with pictures of the old canneries that we scoured for glimpses of PapaNick and Grandma Carmen, and a maitre-d who remembered my name
was NICOLA and never failed to lift me up so I could hit the giant brass gong that hung in the doorway of the dining room.  
"But I want to go to China Rowwwwww," I pleaded all afternoon.  
"It’s your mother’s birthday, she wants go to Neil Divan’s, so we’re going to Neil Divan’s," Dee, my mother’s stepmother told me.  
"It’s your mother’s birthday, she gets to celebrate where she wants to," Papa John told me.
"We’ll go to China Row on your next birthday," my mother said.
Shortly after the fifth time our evening plans at Neil Divan’s were explained, along with an offending "children should be seen and not heard," I began hatching schemes to feign illness early in the morning next Christmas Eve so I could get some slack.   Mama’s birthday last year was the worst.  At dinner, I gave Dee a hug, not realizing I had icing on my sleeve, and
ruined her silk Christian Dior blouse.  Even though I had also stained my own dress- it, unlike the blouse, could be washed- the adults accused me of spite, and still mentioned the incident a year later.  
At least tomorrow morning was Christmas, when my crochet NICOLA emblemmed stocking would bulge with oranges and goodies from "Santa Claus," and the adult fuss over Mama and Nicola chastising would end.  In the meantime Auntie Barbara and Niña were due any minute to deliver presents and see our trees; at last, kid refuge from "her" birthday, and "her" gifts, and the constant barrage of Nicola bad, Nicola bad, Nicola bad.  
"Can we listen to the Nutcracker since Niña is coming over?" I asked.  
"Let...me....get....it.   Do not touch the stereo," my mother said, pulling the record from its sleeve and placing it onto the stereo in the long gold and grey-white chest next to the fireplace.  
The doorbell rang as the stereo played the falling familiar lilting notes of the Nutcracker Overture.   I placed Esperanza on the living room’s green velvet sofa, whispered to her "wait a minute," and raced up the four steps of our living room after my mother to greet my cousin at our front door.
The Nutcracker melody marched, and I blurted loudly, "Niña!!! Look what my father gave me as early Christmas presents!" wriggling out my wrist and feet.
"Aren’t you going to say hello to Auntie Barbara?," Mama asked.
"Hi Auntie Barbara."
I held out and turned my booted left leg and then my wrist.  "Look, it’s Strawberry Shortcake and digital!" I boasted.
My cousin took my wrist and held it up to her nose, "I’ve never seen a digital watch before," she said, her large eyes shiny.
"Daddy says digital is  better than regular watches."

  I could brag to Niña without worry:  My father had taken me Christmas shopping early this year, and got me boots and a watch, as well as a purple sweater and pink glass vase for me to give my mother for Christmas and her birthday.  I wore my new  watch and boots with pride; however, the mention of my father’s gifts sent the adults into tsks of disapproval and questions like, "what about the gifts I gave you?"  Until  a few days ago I hadn’t seen Daddy for months because he and
Mama argued over their divorce.  He regularly visited his twin, Uncle Jerry, just up the hill from us though, and I heard that he had gotten Niña an inflatable robot for her birthday this year, while missing mine completely.  
"Aren’t you jealous?" my mother asked.  
I wasn’t, just curious that Niña had seen him.  
Finally things had calmed down, and he was actually spending Christmas with us- not so unusual as Mama’s step-mother, father and mother spent the holidays with us peacefully in muttered sarcasm.  Hence, everything was back to normal, except of course for the $80,000 settlement on our house Mama said she owed Daddy, and the $80,000 she owed in twelve years, on my 18th
birthday, to Papa Nick because he built our house.
"Aren’t you going to show Niña your tree?" my mother asked as she and Auntie went into the kitchen to talk about things I was only supposed to hear but not comment on.
Last year, Doodee, Mama’s mother, offered to get  me my own 3 foot tall Christmas tree to accommodate the growing collection of ornaments from the box in my mother’s closet marked NICOLA’S ORNAMENTS.    I begged for a pink tree, pink like my bedroom, bed-spread and bed, pink my favorite color.  
"Is it pink again this year?" Niña asked.
"Of course! And I have even more ornaments than last year!" I said pointing down into the living room at my tree, its branches thick with fake pink fuzzy snow and glossy Snoopies, angels, cats, and clay ornaments I made in school.  My tree stood on the marble table next to the big tree that glittered with multi-colored
lights, green and red silk balls, and pink suede
doves.  
The stereo tiptoed into the delicate tinkling steps of the Sugar Plum fairy while Niña pranced down the four living room steps not to my tree, but to Esperanza sitting on the green velvet sofa.  
"Esperanza is mine!" I shouted, running across the living room, before she grabbed my doll with her fingers which I knew were, as usual, probably sticky with some candied substance.  Esperanza was my Spanish doll, my favorite doll.  She had dark brown hair, and
a heart shaped face and beauty mark like mine.  She wore a flouncy red flower behind her ear, and a dancing costume with a stiff red velvet bodice,
fringed  shawl, and black lace tiered skirt.   The eyes of my Spanish doll told me about the woman I would become, the men I would love, the hearts I would break, and I listened. Niña had her stupid Barbies that looked nothing like us, maybe that was why she mangled them.  I did not want her to destroy Esperanza the same way.  
Niña  stopped and looked up at me, her eyes swelling with tears.  Drat.
"You never let me hold Esperanza," she gulped.
I had to do something- other than letting her hold my doll--before she really began to cry.  I hated it when people cried, I never knew what to do.   If I tried to comfort Mama, she yelled at me.   I hated it especially when Niña cried, she looked so pathetic: First noiseless tears trickled down her face, then her face got red, and before you knew it she howled like you were killing her.
The green ribbon on Niña’s glossy brown ponytail drooped, and the Nutcracker moved into the slow sad notes of the Arabian Dance.
The adults were in the next room.  We were out of sight but not out of earshot.  I had to think fast.  
I grabbed Niña’s hands, "Let’s dance like we’re princesses!" I said.  
She looked up at me with tears dribbling down her face.
"It’s ballet music, it’ll get faster," I pleaded.    
Niña’s face reddened.   I didn’t have time to wait for the next song.
"Hold on. I have an idea!" I said, scampering over to our record collection.  Niña  stared at me, interested, as I quickly found what I was looking for--an album marked "The Power Of the Orchestra."  I
pressed the red button on the record player, stopped the slowly spinning record with my fingers, and carefully took the needle off, exactly the way Mama did it.  I then placed the record I  selected onto the stereo and pressed play.  The first song on the album was one my mother always played on Halloween, but it had oomph and was sure to elicit a happy response
from my cousin.
The violins opened in swirling crescendos, and urgent back and forth notes like a rabid  paintbrush.  As soon as the trombones blared, my cousin exclaimed, "It’s Fantasia!!  It’s Mickey and the brooms!"
Despite the familiar ballet music of the Nutcracker, we thought Fantasia was too weird, and hit each other with our boxes of Sweet  Tarts during the entire film, except for the part with Mickey and the  brooms.  
"We can pretend we’re Mickey!" I said.  "Let’s dance!"
"I don’t want to be Mickey, I want to be a princess!" Niña whined.
"Okay, then you’re princess and I’m Mickey!"  I said, picking up Esperanza and beginning to twirl.  "And Esperanza is my broom!"
"I don’t have anything to hold!" Niña said, her voice beginning to break.  
I desperately looked around the room, and my eyes fell onto the large glass swan Grandma Carmen—knowing my mother’s love for glass- had brought back from Mexico  before my parents split up.  When my father left, my mother- who liked to break things when she was angry--put it up in the closet; however when Grandma got really sick and had the hole put in her throat it reappeared back in our living room.  The swan was pale and green and magical with a sparkling translucent stripe along its long neck.  Perfect.
"Here," I said to Niña handing her the swan, "you can be a magical fairy princess, and this is your special magic swan-wand."
Niña glowed.   We began to twirl faux pirouettes.  I waved Esperanza back and forth like a magic broom, while Niña hugged the swan in glee.  I danced around the living room, my favorite room in the house, even more than my bedroom.  I pretended our living room with its chandelier, gold nymph lamp in a green velvet
coat holding a violin, green velvet sofa, marble
tables and green and maroon swirled velvet chairs, was my ballroom.  I was a princess and our house was the castle my grandfather had built for me, and  Niña was a visiting princesses from the neighboring castle he built for her.  
We danced and pirouetted, I tap tap tapped my feet like flamenco, holding up Esperanza like a beacon.
Niña began to swing the swan by the neck.
   "My swan is  sprinkling fairy dust all over the room!" Niña  said.  
And then, it happened: The swan’s neck, lighter than its body but carrying all of its swinging weight, snapped off, a small but audible SNIP while Night On Bald Mountain thundered.  Niña ripped into red faced tears and loud sobs, still holding the swan’s neck and
head, its body thudding on its glass feathered side next to her mary-janed feet.  Before I could hide the implicating evidence, my mother, Auntie and the adults came rushing into the room at the sound of Niña’s cries.  
"Why is Moussorgsky playing on the stereo?" Mama asked  glaring at me, before noticing the decapitated swan at Niña’s feet.
Niña  began to sob even louder, "Now Santa won’t visit!!"
Mama then noticed the swan’s head in Niña’s fist.
"My swan!" she shouted.
"Santa!! Now Santa won’t come!" Niña bawled while Auntie frowned and bent down to wipe her tears, taking the swan’s head from her tiny hands.
I froze, my mother and the adults looked down at me.

My mother glided across the room and hissed into my ear, "What were you doing?  You know you are not supposed to touch the stereo.  Now my swan is broken. Thanks a lot, happy birthday."
"Monkey see, Monkey do," I heard one of the adults say, "There’s always trouble when those two girls get together."
Moussorgsky’s trombones angrily blared notes up the scale, the strings  began a pleading rationalizing, Niña sobbed "Santa, Santa," while I stammered, "I...I....I..."
My mother turned off the record  player with an abrupt scratch.  
"Monkey see, Monkey do," I heard one of the adults say again.
I looked down at Esperanza for help, her face said nothing.  Although I knew better than to believe the real Santa would visit that evening, that it was really Mama  who put the oranges and gifts in my stockings, just in case I didn’t want to displease him.  
"Please, it wasn’t her fault, I gave her the swan to dance with, it was all my idea,"  I turned to Auntie Barbara, "Please tell Santa that it was my fault, it was my fault, not hers, tell Santa it wasn’t her fault."
I began to cry, the tears ran down my face in hot streaks.  "It was my fault, I gave her the swan to dance with, we pretended we were dancing princesses. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please tell Santa to still visit Niña, it wasn’t her fault."
  I didn’t care if "Santa" left me a lump of coal, but I didn’t want him to punish my cousin.
"We’ll get going," Auntie said, ushering Niña, still crying, up the stairs of the living room towards the door.
"It’ wasn’t her idea, it was mine, please tell Santa, please, please," I said as Auntie and Niña disappeared out the front door.
"Monkey-see, Monkey-do," I heard the adults say to each-other again.  I began to cry louder. "I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please tell Santa it wasn’t Niña’s fault, it was my idea," I explained to my mother, shaking my hands wildly.
"Sorry won’t put the hair back on the Emperor’s cat," I heard Dee say.
My mother sighed, patting the carpet to check for any splinters of broken glass, "Don’t shake your hands.  I am sure Santa will still visit Niña.  We’re leaving for dinner in a few minutes, I’d like to enjoy my birthday, so no more about this."
I did not dare ask if Santa was going to still visit me. Dinner at Neil Divan’s was a blur.  I repeatedly asked the adults if they thought Santa really wouldn’t visit Niña.  
"You sound like a broken record," my mother said.
I couldn’t enjoy dinner, my food tasted like the coals I knew I would receive in my stocking.  Dee told me that she was sure Santa knew I felt bad, and was sure he’d visit Niña.
"I wish she felt as bad about ruining my blouse," Dee said under her breath with a laugh to my grandfather.
I went to bed with a heavy heart, I knew that this year Santa would definitely not visit me but not visit poor Niña too.  I was a rat, a disgrace to childhood, bad news that ruined Christmas even for my poor cousin.  Usually on Christmas mornings, I dragged my mother out of bed and raced to my stockings at 5am, before everyone else was awake.  This year, my mother
woke me up at 7, surprised to find me still in bed.  
"What’s wrong with you?  Aren’t you going to check your stockings?" my mother asked.
"Why?  I am sure Santa didn’t visit," I said, not bothering to lift my head from the pillow.
"I think you’ll be surprised," my mother said with a wink.
Was this a trick to get me down to my stockings to find lumps of coal, a stern lesson to shame me about my ill-behavior?  I trudged down to the living room.
My stocking bulged I was sure with not just a few lumps, but a mound of coal.  I squeezed my stocking, dreading the contents inside.  It felt hard, but squidgy, like..."It’s my Christmas orange!"  I exclaimed.
My mother gave me a wink.  "Look inside," she said.
I dove into the yarned cavern of my stocking, inside was an orange, a doll with a white face in a crimson and yellow satin kimono, and a note that said "To a real princess, LOVE SANTA."
"But what about Niña, did Santa visit Niña?" I asked.
"You can call her in an hour, I am not letting you call over there this early," my mother insisted.
Instead of opening presents, I waited under the kitchen clock next to the phone. I chewed on my fingers and made the painful decision that if Santa didn’t visit Niña, I’d give her my loot.  As soon as the clock hit 8am, I dialed Niña’s number.  Auntie answered the phone.
"Auntie Barbara, I have to speak with Niña!"
"She’s still asleep," my Auntie said, sounding still asleep herself.
"I have to know, did Santa visit Niña last night?"
"Yes he did.  He even left a few presents for her to open at midnight."  
Phew.  I hadn’t ruined Christmas for her, and I could keep my doll and orange.
"Now, about those presents," I commanded to my mother as she instructed me "slowly Nicola, one at a time, and don’t rip through them, we like to save the wrapping paper around here...."

As the little girl cried herself to sleep, convinced Santa wasn’t going to visit, Esperanza shook her head and sighed, "Poor Henrietta, first stuffed into the closet, then taken out again to meet this demise."
"She can’t be fixed?" the Filipino doll asked.
"It was a clean break, but no, not worth fixing," Ezperanza said.
"Will ‘Santa’ really not visit the little girl," the Jamaican  doll asked.
"Posh.  Histrionics.  The girl really didn’t mean any harm, and it’s Christmas, the adults can’t restrain their sarcasm but also can’t refuse spoiling her, they’re all so passive-aggressive," the Swedish doll said with a wave of her hand  "and tragi-comically try to forget about things with gifts and objects."
"They mean well," said the Filipino doll..  
"The girl shook her hands again tonight," Esperanza said quietly.
"Nooo..." the Jamaican doll said, "I thought she got over that."
"I thought so too," said Esperanza.  "But as soon as the tears and the sarcasm began to fly, so did her hands."
"Did the mother notice?" asked the Jamaican doll.
"Yes, that’s why she let it go," Esperanza said.
"What about the cousin,  did the mother know it was not the cousin’s fault that Henrietta’s neck snapped?" the Filipino doll asked.
"Probably not," Esperanza said.  "All she could see was the girl’s hands shaking."
"Yes, but when will the mother actually do something about how the girl waves her hands," the Swedish doll asked.
"I don’t think she’s ever going to do anything about it," said Esperanza.  "The little girl must learn to be strong on her own..."