2nd Place in Newspaper Contest

My Favourite Christmas
By
Sam Goertzen

Last Christmas I opened up all my presents and was so happy. I got a huge tube of candy that I really liked and I also got tons of chocolates. I also got some clothes and a few toys. When we were all done opening our presents and our stockings, my mom said she had one more thing to give us that was very special. She handed my two sisters and me each a piece of paper rolled up and tied with a ribbon. All three of us kids opened ours at the same time and saw a picture of our cousin’s dog. I said, “Aw that is so sweet you to give us a picture of Lucy, a dog which we all love." Then my mom told us that we were actually getting this dog. My sister Karly, who had been begging for a dog for years, started crying and I was running around the living room like a madman because I was so happy! We got Lucy a few months later when my cousins moved from North Carolina to London, England. They knew they could not bring her along because she would not survive the quarantine. They had secretly asked my parents if we would like to have her and they miraculously said yes!

We got her at the end of March and six weeks later I was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. My mom and I had to live in Vancouver for four months while I got treatments. I think that God’s timing for us to get a dog was perfect. Lucy really comforts me when I feel sick, which was pretty much twenty-four-seven there for a few months. Lucy always cuddles with me and often sleeps with me at night. This is our first Christmas with Lucy and it is going to be remembered forever. She is the best dog in the world. No other dog could ever replace her. That is the story of how we got a dog for Christmas and how she has been so special to me and my family.