Ella , Evan - Christmas Coupons

Chapter 1

Tuesday, 24 December 2019

The rain was just starting to turn to snow as we drove past Squamish. Traffic slowed down on the narrow mountain highway as the road conditions worsened, which suited me just fine in the back seat of my parent's SUV. I was a bit nervous with my dad's driving through the mountains, he may drive a big SUV but he's definitely more of a Lower Mainland guy and driving around the drizzle of downtown Vancouver is more his speed.

The four of us were going to spend Christmas in a rented cabin in the mountains north of Whistler. In summer, the drive there from our parents home in West Vancouver would take about 2 hours, but in winter, with the usual rain/snow/rain you get in the Sea-to-Sky Highway in winter it took far longer.

Honestly, I was looking forward to it. It may sound lame, for a 19 year old guy to be happy to spend a week with his family in a cabin instead of hanging out with his friends but since starting university and moving to an apartment near the campus I've kind of missed being at home.

My family is me Evan, my twin sister Ella, and our parents Scott and Rebecca Gardner. My dad is 44 and my mom is 41... I don't think you really need to know that but while writing this story of what happened on our Christmas vacation I spent some time figuring out their ages before I realized you probably don't really care but fuck that, I'm going to include that tidbit now.

Dad is a pretty standard middle aged guy. Getting a bit doughy, but his graying hair is still thick thank god (that means I'm less likely to lose my hair too, right? Or is that determined by my mom's side of the family? God I hope not because my mom's dad has always been totally bald). Dad is the managing partner of an advertising agency in Vancouver. He works a lot but is a pretty good father all around. Allow me to paraphrase the Simpsons when I say that his half-assed underparenting style really suits Ella and me.

Mom works for the local city government in West Van but honestly I have no idea what she does. Some sort of office work for the planning department I think. Mom is still a very attractive woman, she's in good shape for her age, and she clearly takes pride in her appearance. She has strawberry blonde hair and green eyes, and she's medium height with a slender frame.

As for Ella and I, well we do both share some features in common as fraternal twins. It used to really annoy me as a young boy when people would say how much alike we looked but luckily puberty kicked in. Also, I grew up a bit and stopped thinking being compared to a girl in any way was some mortal insult. We both have darker hair than our mom's, more medium brown, and we both have brown eyes like our dad. Ella is quite curvy but in good shape from her love of running, and she's an inch or two shorter than our mom. I am 4 inches taller than Ella, and playing hockey and soccer all through high school gave me a reason to work out semi-regularly so I have that going for me. I'm pretty average looking honestly, somehow Ella has the same nose, eye and hair color etc as me but on her it all combines into an attractive young woman but on me I just look slightly goofy.

The sunset comes quick in the mountains, and it was just getting dark when we pulled into the driveway at the cabin. It was beautiful, with great views of the valley before us, all the trees covered in fresh snow. You could see the lights from some other houses in the area but not many, and none were closer than a kilometer or so away. The line of car lights from the highway at the bottom of the valley was partly hidden by the trees, so it made the cabin feel even more secluded than it was.

"Here we are, everyone grab some bags and boxes so we get the car unloaded ASAP," my dad called out. We had a big pile of luggage and stuff packed into the cargo area and on the roof rack. Since we were going to be there a week we all brought a good deal of luggage, and also mom had packed away a lot of food to stock the kitchen. There were some small stores not that far away, and even a restaurant at the big gas station down the road, but we still needed to bring a lot. Naturally we also brought our Christmas gifts to each other with us. We would open one of them at midnight, and the rest on Christmas morning the next day as was the tradition in our family.

Ella was as excited as I was, which made me happy. I am never quite sure how Ella will react to a situation, despite being twins we have very different opinions on a lot of things. When this trip was announced I had been worried she would complain and be difficult about it, but she had seemed enthusiastic.

Once we had unpacked, Ella and I quickly explored the house. It was very nicely furnished, with a big fireplace in the main living room and huge windows facing out over the valley.

"I call dibs on this bedroom!" Ella called out, dropping her bags in a small but serviceable room on the second floor with a nice view of the mountain. Escort That left me with the third bedroom, which was even smaller, with a twin bed barely bigger than a cot and a small window that looked out over the driveway. I had a great view of our SUV. Ah well, should have checked out the sleeping situation instead of wasting time getting my phone on the WiFi.

Mom and dad prepared supper for us all and we had a fun Christmas Eve meal, laughing and talking together more than we had in years. After Ella and I cleaned up everyone spent some time in the living room, enjoying the cozy fire and chatting. Mom took our stockings and set them out in front of the fireplace well away from the heat, the mantle didn't really have a place to hang the stockings and with a fire actually going it wouldn't be smart anyway.

In no time at all it was midnight, and time to open our one small gift (as children, it was the one from Santa, now it was just a supplemental present our parents had bought us, like a sweater or a iTunes gift card sort of thing) and get our stockings. Mom always spent a lot of time and effort on the Christmas stockings, jamming the large socks full with thoughtful little gifts we needed or could really use but rarely bought for ourselves.

"Here you all are, Evan, here you are Ella," she said, handing our stockings to us just after the clock struck 12. She then handed dad his stocking, bending over to whisper something to him as she did. Dad then handed mom her own stocking, which he had filled for her. Normally, he put some gift cards to the shops mom liked and little trinkets he thought she would appreciate.

We all talked happily and went through our stockings. I got some chocolates, some inexpensive workout earbuds (always nice to have), some toiletries in a nice little travel bag, socks, a neat little flashlight (I love flashlights), and so on. Looking over, I saw Ella get much the same but with some makeup accessories and hair clips and what have you.

As everyone was laughing and expressing thanks for the little gifts, I reached into my stocking and felt some paper. I pulled it out, it was a small bundle of thin paper cards, connected on the side with a large staple. At a glance, it looked like half of the paper slips were red and half were purple and they appeared to have been printed out, but had handwriting on them too.

"Naughty