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friends. It is a known fact that reindeers are herbivores who subsist on plant life and shun meat, so I hardly think they’d be gunning for someone’s gramma. It upset me to think about a reindeer harming Gramma, because we all know that if that happened in the real world and not in the movies, then the Wildlife Service would go hunting for that reindeer and do away with the poor antlered guy when it was probably Gramma’s fault getting in his way like that! She always forgets to wear her glasses and osteoporosis hunches her walk and slows her down. She’s like a walking bull’s-eye for dear ol’ Bambi!
    I figured the whole point of bothering going to the movie at all would be to possibly get a look at mystery boy. But thedares he’d left inside my stocking with the Moleskine notebook, on a Post-it note placed onto the movie ticket, had said:
DON’T read what I wrote in the notebook until you’re at the theater .
DO write down your worst Christmas memory in the notebook .
DON’T leave out the most horrific details .
DO leave the notebook behind for me, behind Mama’s behind .
Thank you .
    I believe in honor. I didn’t read the notebook ahead of time, which would be like peeking in your parents’ closet to see your Christmas present stash, and I vowed to hold off reading it until after the movie.
    As prepared as I’d been to dislike Gramma Got Run Over by a Reindeer , I was completely unprepared for what I’d find at the cinema. Outside the theater showing this particular movie, there were rows of strollers in uniform formation against the wall. Inside was complete pandemonium. The 10 a.m. show, apparently, was the Mommy and Me viewing, where moms could bring their babies and toddlers to watch really inappropriate movies while the little ones babbled and burped and cried to their hearts’ content. The theater was a cacophony of “Wah wah” and “Mommy, I want …” and “No!” and “Mine!” I barely had a chance to pay attention to the movie, what with having Goldfish crackers and Cheerios thrown in my hair from the aisles behind me, watching Legos hurl through the air, and unsticking Great-aunt Ida’s taps from the sippy cup liquid spillage on the floor.
    Children frighten me. I mean, I appreciate them on a cuteaesthetic level, but they’re very demanding and unreasonable creatures and often smell funny. I can’t believe I ever was one. Hard to believe, but I was more put off by the movie theater than the movie. I only made it through twenty minutes of watching the black comedian man playing a fat mama on the screen while rows of mommies tried to negotiate with their toddlers in the seats before I couldn’t take it any longer.
    I got up from my seat and went outside the movie theater to get some peace and quiet in the lobby so I could finally read the notebook. But two mommies returning from taking their toddlers to the potty accosted me before I could dig in.
    “I just love your boots. They’re adorable !”
    “ Where did you get that hat? Adorable! ”
    “I AM NOT ADORABLE!” I shrieked. “I’M JUST A LILY!”
    The mommies stepped back. One of them said, “Lily, please tell your mommy to get you an Adderall prescription,” as the other tsk-tsk’d . They quickly hustled their tykes back into the cinema and away from the Shrieking Lily.
    I found a hiding place behind a huge, standing cardboard cutout advertisement for Gramma Got Run Over by a Reindeer . I sat down cross-legged behind the cutout and opened the notebook. Finally.
    His words made me so sad.
    But they made me especially glad I’d gotten up at four that morning to make him cookies. Mom and I had been making the dough all month and storing it in the freezer, so all I’d had to do was thaw out the various flavors, place them in the cookie press, and bake. Voilà! I made a cornucopia tin ofspritz cookies in all the available flavors (a strong affirmation of faith that Snarl would be worthy of such efforts): chocolate snowflake,