Setting: December 2020 — When holiday spirit met pure chaos.
Picture it: Christmas season, 2020. Holden, freshly two and completely feral, had discovered the thrill of unearned reward. His chocolate advent calendar became less a countdown and more a personal buffet. While I was in the shower one morning, unbeknownst to me, he was elbows-deep in future December, popping doors open like it was a game show. Caleb, dutiful and rule-following, tattled every time... but the chocolates were already gone.
He didn’t even pretend to care. The kid had tasted power, and there was no going back.
Weeks later, having already decimated his own calendar, he escalated. Day 24. The sacred final square. Not his calendar, mind you. Caleb’s.
Reader, he ate it.
No remorse. No shame. Just one toddler, one chocolate, and one broken-hearted big brother.
He didn’t feel guilty, not even for a second. And maybe that’s the thing I envy most about Holden — his unshakable belief that joy is meant to be taken, one chocolate at a time. He’s older now, but that same spark’s still there: a little wilder, a little wiser, and still chasing sweetness wherever he finds it.
This post is part of my One-Minute Memoir series — short reflections on small moments that still manage to say something big.
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