The fiction piece Don’t Spoil The Tablecloth by Molly Pearson was certainly different from what you’d usually expect to read during the holiday season. And yet, I found it immensely relatable. Molly is able to portray a teen’s holiday experience well; although it’s fiction, it’s detailed enough to seem to have been her own life. Between the fancy tablecloth and braggy extended family, I think there was something throughout the piece everyone has experienced at some point.

   Like the tablecloth, my mom has glasses that’re for guests only, and I can’t touch them. I remember washing one and breaking it in the process; but I felt kind of satisfied, like when Molly’s character watched the table cloth be spoiled. “Rise, grinches, rise!”  She thinks at the end, and out of spite I agree.