Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

The Magic Coat

I remember a Christmas when my now grown daughter was four. The whole family was out shopping for gifts to send to out of town relatives when my daughter spied a jacket in Macys. She fell in love with this fancy coat and as she drug me over to show it to me she kept telling me that it was what she wanted for Christmas. When I saw the price, I went into 'sticker shock' and I told her I was sorry but there was no way she would be getting that coat. I went on to explain that she was growing so fast and with our short winter season in California, it was just too impractical to get a four year old a coat that expensive. She was sad but she understood and we continued with our shopping.

The very next day I won a big football pool at work and as the money was counted out in my hand all I could think about was that coat. I stopped at Macys on my way home and bought the coat. I gave her the coat and told her it was not a Christmas present but merely her part of my winnings. I'll never forget the look on her face or my wife's I might add. Of course, she was ecstatic and wore it all evening I even thought she might try to sleep in it.

You know, the funny thing about that impractical coat was it was like magic, it was her size, but large enough that she actually wore it all the way through to late spring. She did grow fast as I told her yet the coat was the only thing she received for Christmas that still fit her in June. The next fall when she was too big for the coat, we gave it to the neighbor's younger daughter and she wore it all season. Next, it went to our niece who was never happier to get a hand me down. So, you see we got more use out of that 'impractical coat' than any other coat we bought before or after.

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