The Worst Christmas Ever

12/25/14. Every Christmas I spend the morning with my mom and dad. We usually open presents early, and then eat breakfast. My grandparents love to celebrate Christmas, and love to be with me, my brother, and my mom. So we usually go to Traverse City to celebrate with them later in the day.

Last year we bought a dog named Nelly. She’s shiny black with short legs. When we got her, everyone that knew her instantly fell in love with her. We took her to Traverse City with us that day.  When we got there we opened presents, and we had dinner. For dinner, we had shrimp, fries, corned beef, and steak.  My brother’s really picky about the kind of food he eats.  He doesn’t like all meats, so he asked my grandpa to make him a steak. The steak had to be cooked on the grill outside, but the sliding glass door was broken so he had to leave it open a little bit. My dog Nelly is a lab/ hound mix. Hounds usually love to be outside, so she’s always frolicking. She tries every possible way to get out at any time of the day, including whining at 8 O’Clock in the morning, or every time someone goes outside crying, and barking.
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We had eaten dinner. My brother went outside for a cigarette for a few minutes, and the rest of us were just hanging out in the kitchen. I called my dog’s name for at least 5 minutes. She never came to the kitchen, so I just figured that my brother took her outside with him. A little while later, when my brother came in, he told me that he didn’t take her outside with him. Suddenly we were looking for her all over the house, and then me and my brother went outside to look for her. My grandma, and grandpa own a plant nursery, so they live on 5 acres. so it was a lot of land to look on, and it took a long time. We all just kind of gave up looking for her on their property. We decided to try and look for her on the main roads, in case she ran far away from where we were. We got in the car in a panic. Instead of just looking for her on the roads, we also looked for her on side roads. We called her name, tried to get out and look for her, etc. By this time it was getting darker and darker, and we all knew in our minds it felt like the impossible to find her. While my mom, my brother, and me were driving, my grandparents were back at home still walking around trying to find her. The pain of losing her was unreal. Eventually my brother got out of the car to keep looking, so my mom drove more. I kept trying to call my grandma’s cell phone to see if she found her. Minutes had gone by, and looking back on it, it felt like everything was silent until my grandma called back to tell me that my dog was walking in the middle of the road, and a woman noticed her.  She almost got hit, but the woman was able to stop in time.  The woman brought Nelly back. The amount of happiness I felt in that moment was so wonderful. We rushed back home, and when we got inside I couldn’t stop kissing, and hugging her. Dogs are the kind of animals that make you feel your happiest when you’re sad, and almost losing happiness was insane.