One-Sentence Stories About Christmas

1. Two strangers become friends on a four-hour car ride, if only because of Noah Kahan's music and the kind of sunset that should be your view every single time you're welcomed home.
2. Midnight in the city, gripping onto the railing at an ice rink and ordering water at the McDonald's drive-through; an old friend becoming a middle-aged dad right before your eyes, lighting up and saying "Good, Deepti!" when you fall because "that's how you learn, it builds character".
3. A reunion with the women who raised you, weird comments about how you should date their brother aside. 
4. A Korean bibimbap and kimbap restaurant ten miles away from the world's best college town, ordering twice as many entrees as people present and eavesdropping on a conversation about how Trump "wasn't that bad". 
5. Hours rushing by at a bookstore, cold poke bowls in colder weather for lunch, joking about how pretentious John Grisham sounds writing about Harvard as though it's the hallowed halls of heaven.
6. Sisterhood finally becoming friendship; realizing there's nobody you root harder for, though you'd never tell her that.
7. An unexpected visitor bearing gifts, both literal and metaphysical.
8. Weeks of Gilmore Girls brain-rot, endless debates about whether Jess is annoying or iconic (spoiler: he's both); a silent contract -- we can never say no to each other.
9. Lunch with an old friend, wondering if this could've been my life had I stayed, and, for the first time, not resentful that it isn't.
10. Pretending to understand football as your alma mater (by proxy) becomes a National Champion; wondering if you'll ever know that much glory, joy, and satisfaction, but deciding that selfishness has no place here; sports is defined by human altruism -- nowhere else does a living creature cheer so hard for another's victories.
11. Dreaming with the girl who taught you to dream.
12. Smoothie bowls in a car we can finally drive without our parents -- well, not me, but the other two.
13. Feeling grateful -- really grateful.
14. And full -- in every way.