{"id":1704,"date":"2026-10-14T23:10:05","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T23:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?p=1704"},"modified":"2026-10-14T23:10:05","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T23:10:05","slug":"the-christmas-tablet-that-made-aunt-jessicas-smile-collapse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?p=1704","title":{"rendered":"The Christmas Tablet That Made Aunt Jessica\u2019s Smile Collapse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christmas morning at my parents\u2019 house used to begin with cinnamon rolls, coffee, and my father pretending he was awake behind the newspaper.<\/p>\n

That year, I needed the ritual more than I wanted to admit, because my children and I had spent two years rebuilding a life that my divorce had split down the middle.<\/p>\n

My daughter Melody was eight, old enough to understand that adults left but still young enough to believe a perfect Christmas video might reassure her father in Seattle.<\/p>\n

My son Tyler was five, wearing train pajamas with hot chocolate on the front, bouncing between the tree and the cookie plate as if joy might fly out of his skin.<\/p>\n

My parents, Patricia and Robert, had given us their house, their patience, and the quiet mercy of never making me feel like a grown woman crawling backward.<\/p>\n

My mother had turned my old bedroom into Melody\u2019s room, complete with glow-in-the-dark stars, because Melody wanted to be a scientist.<\/p>\n

My father had built Tyler a bed shaped like a train, then pretended the work had been easy on his knees.<\/p>\n

I had saved for months to buy Tyler a wooden train set and Melody a chemistry kit that came with a plastic microscope, little safe experiment bottles, and a book of projects.<\/p>\n

Those gifts were not expensive to the kind of people who buy new cars without calling the bank first, but they were expensive to me.<\/p>\n

They represented extra shifts, skipped lunches, and a hundred small refusals I never told the children about.<\/p>\n

Garrett, my brother, arrived at exactly eight, because Garrett had been punctual since he was ten years old.<\/p>\n

Jessica came in behind him smelling faintly of wine, with her blonde hair stringy under a designer coat and her eyes already looking for a fight.<\/p>\n

She had always been polished, chilly, and careful with her words in a way that made every compliment feel like a receipt.<\/p>\n

That morning, though, nothing about her looked careful.<\/p>\n

Tyler ran to hug her and she pushed him back with two fingers on his shoulder, not hard enough to leave a mark but hard enough to change his face.<\/p>\n

My mother asked if Jessica wanted coffee, and Jessica laughed as if coffee was proof we were all pretending.<\/p>\n

Garrett looked at me, then at the children, and in that one glance I understood he had spent the drive over trying and failing to stop something.<\/p>\n

We began opening gifts because parents do foolish hopeful things when children are watching.<\/p>\n

Tyler opened the train first and lifted the little engine with both hands, whispering that it had a caboose like the one in the book Grandpa read to him.<\/p>\n

Melody kept her tablet propped against a stack of wrapped presents, recording because she wanted to send the video to her father later.<\/p>\n

Jessica stared at Tyler\u2019s face, and something ugly moved across hers.<\/p>\n

She crossed the room before anyone understood what she intended to do, took the box from my son\u2019s hands, and asked why my children should get everything.<\/p>\n

I stood, but she slammed the wooden train against the coffee table before I reached her.<\/p>\n

The engine split, the track scattered, and Tyler screamed with the pure confusion of a child who had not yet learned that adults can break things on purpose.<\/p>\n

Melody grabbed her chemistry kit to her chest, but Jessica ripped it away and threw it into the wall.<\/p>\n

Plastic cracked, safe crystals spilled across the carpet, and the little microscope landed beside my mother\u2019s slippers.<\/p>\n

Garrett said Jessica\u2019s name like a warning, but she was already crying and shouting about clinics, failed cycles, empty nurseries, and how unfair it was to watch my children be loved.<\/p>\n

Then she looked at Tyler and said, \u201cStop crying. Your kids don\u2019t deserve happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n

I stepped in front of both children and felt my hands shake so hard I curled them into my sweater.<\/p>\n

I wanted to answer her with every furious sentence in my body, but Melody was pressed behind me and Tyler was sobbing into my hip.<\/p>\n

So I told Jessica that pain did not give her the right to punish children.<\/p>\n

She hated that more than she would have hated shouting.<\/p>\n

My mother had gone white near the doorway, and my father had risen from his chair with the newspaper still crumpled in his fist.<\/p>\n

Garrett looked ashamed enough to vanish.<\/p>\n

The room was full of adults, yet the bravest person in it was still wearing candy cane pajamas.<\/p>\n

Melody slipped out from behind me and stood among the broken presents with her pink tablet held in both hands.<\/p>\n

She did not yell.<\/p>\n

She asked, \u201cAunt Jessica, should I show everyone what you did to Grandma\u2019s jewelry?\u201d<\/p>\n

Jessica froze with her hand still reaching toward the last present under the tree.\n\nMy mother touched her throat because the emerald wedding set from her own mother had been missing for weeks.\n\nShe had searched every drawer and closet, apologizing to a dead woman in whispers because she thought grief and age had made her careless.\n\nJessica tried to call Melody a brat, but fear had already changed her voice.\n\nMelody tapped the screen and said she had a video.\n\nThe first seconds were shaky because she had recorded from inside my mother\u2019s bedroom closet during a visit in November.\n\nShe had been playing hide-and-seek while the adults discussed my father\u2019s birthday plans downstairs.\n\nOn the screen, Jessica entered the bedroom alone, opened the antique jewelry box, and took out the velvet pouch.\n\nHer recorded voice was clear enough to make the room feel smaller.\n\n\u201cThese should have been mine,\u201d she said on the video.\n\nShe emptied the emerald ring and earrings into her palm, jewelry my grandmother had worn for more than fifty years.\n\nThen she knocked other pieces sideways in the box and said Patricia would blame her age.\n\nMy mother sat down as if her legs had been cut from under her.\n\nGarrett whispered, \u201cJess, tell me that\u2019s not real.\u201d\n\nMelody kept the tablet steady and played the next part.\n\nJessica made a phone call to a man named Derek and said she could sell the stones after Christmas if he still knew someone who paid cash.\n\nThe sound of that call did more damage than the broken toys.\n\nUntil then, there had been pain in the room, but pain could still ask for help.\n\nThis was planning.\n\nThis was theft.\n\nThis was a woman letting my mother think her memory had begun to fail.\n\nBroken things can still carry the truth.\n\nJessica lunged for the tablet, and Garrett caught her wrist before she touched Melody.\n\nMy father stepped between Jessica and my daughter, and for the first time in my life I heard my father\u2019s voice turn sharp enough to make everyone obey.\n\nMelody said Jessica had brought the emeralds with her.\n\nShe had seen them in the car when Garrett was getting presents from the trunk.\n\nGarrett picked up Jessica\u2019s purse from the couch and turned it over above the coffee table.\n\nLipstick, receipts, prescription bottles, and a folded white tissue hit the wood.\n\nInside the tissue was my grandmother\u2019s emerald wedding set.\n\nMy mother picked up the ring with both hands, not because it was fragile, but because the memory inside it was.\n\nJessica began saying she needed the money, that the treatments had emptied them, that nobody understood what it felt like to watch other women have children.\n\nGarrett\u2019s face folded in on itself because he had been making excuses for smaller explosions for months.\n\nHe told us about the baby shower cake Jessica had thrown at her sister\u2019s wall.\n\nHe told us about the wedding photos she had destroyed because there were children in the pictures.\n\nHe told us he had kept calling it hormones, grief, stress, and bad luck because calling it cruelty meant admitting his marriage was sick in a way love could not fix.\n\nMy mother surprised us all by standing.\n\nShe told Jessica that sadness could explain pain, but it could not excuse stealing from family and terrifying children.\n\nGarrett took Jessica home long enough to pack a bag, then drove her to her sister\u2019s house two hours away.\n\nThe next morning she entered treatment, and within the week Garrett filed for separation.\n\nNone of that fixed Christmas morning.\n\nRepair looked ridiculous at first, because there is no dignified way to kneel on a carpet full of torn wrapping paper and pretend a child\u2019s heart can be sorted into salvage piles.\n\nMy father taped the train track pieces in a shoebox and told Tyler that good mechanics always inspect the damage before deciding what can be saved.\n\nTyler believed him because children will accept hope from a trusted voice even when the evidence is scattered at their feet.\n\nMy mother swept the experiment crystals carefully, then sat with Melody at the kitchen table and counted every unbroken bottle as if each one were a rescued thing.\n\nI called my ex-husband that afternoon because Melody had been recording for him, and I knew the story would reach him in pieces if I waited.\n\nTo his credit, Daniel did not turn it into a fight about my family or ask why I had not protected the children faster.\n\nHe listened, asked to speak to each child, and told Tyler he was sending a box of replacement train cars from Seattle, not because presents solve pain, but because fathers still owe comfort from far away.\n\nThat call mattered to Melody more than she admitted.\n\nShe had made the video for a man who left, and somehow it became the thing that made every adult in the room stay.\n\nLater, she told me she was afraid the truth would make everyone angrier, and I told her courage often feels exactly like that before anyone thanks you.\n\nTyler still cried when he touched the broken train.\n\nMelody still slept with her tablet under her pillow for three nights, as if truth needed guarding even after everyone had heard it.\n\nMy mother still looked at her jewelry box with a hurt that had nothing to do with emeralds.\n\nThen the doorbell started ringing.\n\nMrs. Henderson from next door arrived with a casserole and went back home long enough to return with her grandson\u2019s old wooden train set.\n\nMy boss from the dental office brought a chemistry kit her daughter had outgrown and a pair of real safety goggles from her husband\u2019s college lab.\n\nNeighbors came with cookies, board games, paintbrushes, puzzle boxes, and the awkward kindness of people who do not know what to say but refuse to let children sit in wreckage.\n\nBy evening, Tyler had built a train city across the living room carpet with my father lying on his stomach beside him.\n\nMelody was showing my mother how to label pretend samples with tape, and my mother was laughing for the first time that day.\n\nThat was when Patricia opened the velvet pouch again to return the emeralds to the box.\n\nBehind the earrings, folded so tightly it had been missed for years, was a small card in my mother\u2019s handwriting.\n\nShe had written it after Melody was born and forgotten she placed it there.\n\nIt said the emeralds were for Melody when she became old enough to understand that family stories belong to the people brave enough to carry them.\n\nJessica had not only stolen from my mother.\n\nShe had stolen from the child whose Christmas she tried to shatter.\n\nThree months later, a letter arrived for Melody and Tyler in Jessica\u2019s careful handwriting.\n\nShe apologized without asking them to make her feel better, which was the first honest thing I had seen from her in a long time.\n\nShe wrote that her grief had become something poisonous, that she was in treatment, and that Melody had shown more courage than most adults.\n\nTyler asked if accepting the apology meant he had to like her again.\n\nI told him forgiveness did not mean handing someone the same match twice.\n\nMelody wrote back with a child\u2019s mercy and an old soul\u2019s firmness.\n\nShe said she hoped Jessica got better, but nobody was allowed to break her brother\u2019s trains again.\"\"\n\nGarrett rebuilt his life slowly.\n\nTwo years later, he married a widow named Ruth who had three children and a laugh loud enough to clear bad air from a room.\n\nMelody wore my grandmother\u2019s pearls at their wedding, and Patricia wore the emerald ring because Melody said heirlooms should be seen before they are inherited.\n\nTyler still keeps the repaired train on his shelf, even though he is old enough now to want things with screens and motors.\n\nHe says the glued pieces make it look like it survived a story.\n\nMelody is sixteen now and already filling college notebooks with equations I cannot follow.\n\nShe still has the video saved, not to punish anyone, but to remember that truth sometimes arrives in the smallest hands.\n\nWhen people ask about our worst Christmas, I do not start with the broken gifts anymore.\n\nI start with the child in candy cane pajamas, the tablet held tight to her chest, and the moment a room full of adults learned that courage does not wait until you are grown.\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family-drama-stories"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Christmas Tablet That Made Aunt Jessica\u2019s Smile Collapse - Reading Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?p=1704\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Christmas Tablet That Made Aunt Jessica\u2019s Smile Collapse - Reading Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?p=1704\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Reading Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-10-14T23:10:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/746648863_888112404345462_8332160738719128337_n.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"825\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Reading Times\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Reading Times\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/?p=1704#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/?p=1704\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Reading Times\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/06a3767c0fb0e51b2877733bde1d1cc7\"},\"headline\":\"The Christmas Tablet That Made Aunt Jessica\u2019s Smile Collapse\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-10-14T23:10:05+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/?p=1704\"},\"wordCount\":823,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/?p=1704#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/10\\\/746648863_888112404345462_8332160738719128337_n.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Family Drama Stories\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/?p=1704#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/?p=1704\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/?p=1704\",\"name\":\"The Christmas Tablet That Made Aunt Jessica\u2019s Smile Collapse - Reading Times\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/?p=1704#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/?p=1704#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/10\\\/746648863_888112404345462_8332160738719128337_n.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-10-14T23:10:05+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/?p=1704#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/?p=1704\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/?p=1704#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/10\\\/746648863_888112404345462_8332160738719128337_n.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/10\\\/746648863_888112404345462_8332160738719128337_n.jpg\",\"width\":825,\"height\":1024},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/?p=1704#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Christmas Tablet That Made Aunt Jessica\u2019s Smile Collapse\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/\",\"name\":\"Reading Times\",\"description\":\"Short reads, big emotions: betrayal, revenge, love, and plot twists daily\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Reading Times\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/reading-times-logo.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/reading-times-logo.png\",\"width\":512,\"height\":137,\"caption\":\"Reading Times\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/06a3767c0fb0e51b2877733bde1d1cc7\",\"name\":\"Reading Times\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/62edd62ba20ff63cad9a09a957f2266f6d1b738c997137e7da9487a3b3dbba94?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/62edd62ba20ff63cad9a09a957f2266f6d1b738c997137e7da9487a3b3dbba94?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/62edd62ba20ff63cad9a09a957f2266f6d1b738c997137e7da9487a3b3dbba94?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Reading Times\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/readingtimes.work\\\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Christmas Tablet That Made Aunt Jessica\u2019s Smile Collapse - Reading Times","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?p=1704","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Christmas Tablet That Made Aunt Jessica\u2019s Smile Collapse - Reading Times","og_description":"…","og_url":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?p=1704","og_site_name":"Reading Times","article_published_time":"2026-10-14T23:10:05+00:00","og_image":[{"width":825,"height":1024,"url":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/746648863_888112404345462_8332160738719128337_n.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Reading Times","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Reading Times"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?p=1704#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?p=1704"},"author":{"name":"Reading Times","@id":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/#\/schema\/person\/06a3767c0fb0e51b2877733bde1d1cc7"},"headline":"The Christmas Tablet That Made Aunt Jessica\u2019s Smile Collapse","datePublished":"2026-10-14T23:10:05+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?p=1704"},"wordCount":823,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?p=1704#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/746648863_888112404345462_8332160738719128337_n.jpg","articleSection":["Family Drama Stories"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?p=1704#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?p=1704","url":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?p=1704","name":"The Christmas Tablet That Made Aunt Jessica\u2019s Smile Collapse - Reading Times","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?p=1704#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?p=1704#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/746648863_888112404345462_8332160738719128337_n.jpg","datePublished":"2026-10-14T23:10:05+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?p=1704#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?p=1704"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?p=1704#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/746648863_888112404345462_8332160738719128337_n.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/746648863_888112404345462_8332160738719128337_n.jpg","width":825,"height":1024},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?p=1704#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Christmas Tablet That Made Aunt Jessica\u2019s Smile Collapse"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/#website","url":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/","name":"Reading Times","description":"Short reads, big emotions: betrayal, revenge, love, and plot twists daily","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/#organization","name":"Reading Times","url":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/reading-times-logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/reading-times-logo.png","width":512,"height":137,"caption":"Reading Times"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/#\/schema\/person\/06a3767c0fb0e51b2877733bde1d1cc7","name":"Reading Times","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62edd62ba20ff63cad9a09a957f2266f6d1b738c997137e7da9487a3b3dbba94?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62edd62ba20ff63cad9a09a957f2266f6d1b738c997137e7da9487a3b3dbba94?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62edd62ba20ff63cad9a09a957f2266f6d1b738c997137e7da9487a3b3dbba94?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Reading Times"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/readingtimes.work"],"url":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/?author=1"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1704"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1706,"href":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704\/revisions\/1706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readingtimes.work\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}