Free The Moment Keeper by Buffy Andrews

desserts are just as amazing and include everything from red velvet cupcakes to eggnog cheesecake with gingersnap crust and pomegranate glaze. And cookies, lots of cookies, for the kids.
    I imagine how everything would taste. Olivia especially likes the pecan-crusted chicken tenders and her favorite cookie is sand tarts. It’s just about the only item on the tables that hasn’t been prepared by a caterer. Grandma Cindy and Olivia always spend a day making sand tarts. Grandma Cindy takes Olivia shopping for special Christmas tins that Olivia puts cookies in to give to her teachers.
    The night of the party, kids run from room to room, playing with the toys Santa has brought. The adults are always in good moods. They eat and drink and become kids again. Then the next day, Olivia always finds a mountain of gifts by the tree. While Santa stopped by in person the night before, he always surprises Olivia in the morning with even more things.
    I have never seen so many gifts for one person in my life. And they are always wrapped in ballerina-themed paper. No other gifts in the house are wrapped in this paper, a sure sign, according to Tom, that Santa brought them.
    Olivia always opens the cerise and pink crochet Christmas stocking Grandma Cindy made her last. It’s always filled with little surprises and usually, at the toe of the stocking, is something extra special, like a birthstone ring.
    My Christmases were nothing like Olivia’s. Most of my gifts came from the dollar store and the others through the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree program. Each year, Grandma filled out a registration sheet with the items I needed. The charity wrote the items people submitted on paper angels and hung them on trees at area businesses. People would pick an angel off a tree and buy the items listed. There was one angel for each child.
    I always got pajamas and underwear, things that Grandma didn’t feel right buying used at the Goodwill store. But there was usually something fun, like a toy, to go with it. And our church always gave us a box of food and a turkey so we always had a nice Christmas dinner.
    When I got too old for the Angel Tree, Grandma said that I would get only three gifts. One for each of the wise men.
    “I wish I could give you more,” Grandma said. “But I got too many bills.”
    “Gram. Who cares about gifts anyway? You don’t have to buy me anything. I don’t buy you anything.”
    “You’re my gift, Sarah,” Grandma said. “And I thank the good Lord for you every day.”
    “But that’s not the same as getting something,” I said. “Like a new toaster. Only the one side works on the one we have and that’ll probably go soon. And I know how much you love your toast in the morning.”
    “I’ll look at the Goodwill store the next time I stop. I’ll get me a toaster soon enough. If they don’t have one, I’ll tell Phyllis, the clerk who goes through the donations, to keep her eye out in case one comes in. She’ll put it back for me. She’s done that a time or two before when I needed something special.”
    I never had any money to buy Grandma gifts so I made things to give her. When I was little, I dug a coffee can out of the trash and covered it with a piece of white construction paper that I had decorated with blue and red stars. Then I wrapped it using paper Grandma had saved from presents we had received. In our house, Grandma always recycled, from empty bread bags to plastic grocery bags. She found a use for everything.
    “It’s a drum,” I told Grandma when she unwrapped it that Christmas.
    “Just what I always wanted,” Grandma said. “A drum to play. And I love the red and blue stars.”
    Grandma sat the drum on her dresser and every now and then she would parade around the house tapping on the plastic lid. She acted as if that drum was the best gift she had ever received. When she died, I put the drum in her casket, just in case she wanted to play it in Heaven.
    Olivia comes in from outside