Their Christmases had always been small. It was usually just the two of them having dinner. Kerry always gave Remmy the same gift: 100 dollars in a card. Remmy gave her mom what she could afford that year, and her efforts were shamed by the country club her mother belonged to. Remmy really didn’t care. She had the thing they didn’t: work ethic.

Remmy did have a plan to get her mother something extra-special for her mother, though. She had been saving up since she was six. “This year is the year” she thought to herself. Remmy glanced at her mother and smiled, but Kerry was not so kind as to return the favor.

Kerry loved Remmy more than anything, but Christmastime always brought back memories of her own childhood. Her parents had been too consumed with money to pay attention to their own daughter. They rarely spent time with each other, let alone Kerry. Kerry had always gotten everything she wanted, and even now she loved off of her parents. She’d never done any cleaning; there were maids for that. She’d never done any cooking; she had a personal chef. The only time she looked after Remmy was on holidays, because there had always been a nanny to do it for her.

Of course, Kerry didn’t pay for very much of it. The miniscule amount that her parents didn’t pay, she paid by using the money from her secretary job at her second house. Remmy went to school over two hundred miles away and was asked to stay with the nannies in her mother’s other house.

Despite her efforts to provide a better childhood for her daughter, Kerry’s childhood had only a few differences with Remmy’s. Remmy was self-motivated and often refused certain free rides from her mother. She got a job at the local Target as soon as she could and tried hard to earn money for the things she wanted. She cooked decent meals for herself and tied the house on her own, refusing help from the maids and chefs. Not wanting to be spoiled, Remmy tried as hard as she possibly could to get money for college by herself, with help from academic scholarships and a little from her mother.

Remmy went into her large bedroom and picked her purse up from her queen sized bed. She walked back through the hallway and into the kitchen. Her mother was eating lunch. “Hey mom” she began, “I’m going to go shopping, ok? I’ll be back in an hour or so.” Kerry looked up from her bowl of beef stew and nodded. Remmy gave her mother a peck on the cheek and left through the side door. Just as she had said, she was back within the hour.

After she retrieved the wrapping paper, Remmy went straight into her room. She wrapped the gift she had gotten for her mother and placed it neatly under the tree, next to the card waiting for her. It was tradition that they open their presents Christmas day, which was now only two days away.