Opening
The story opens on a note of irony. You Effie is bemoaning the travails of having to suffer through another Christmas and wishing that this would be her last. One might well assume that the young girl’s depression has been brought on by an economically enforced lack of festivities or gifts. Ironically, however, she bemoans Christmas celebration just as her mother is arranging a giant pile of gifts to be opened in just two more days.
Spoiled Rotten
The cause of Effie’s discontent becomes apparent rather quickly and it is steeped in irony. Effie complains that while she always receives of “heaps of goodies” on Christmas Day, those that aren’t immediately dislike quickly lose her interest and she is always sick the day after from having had too much to eat during the Christmas feast. So her disregard for Christmas is ironically caused not by an absence of festive enjoyment, but an overabundance of them
The Poor Rich
The irony of the bubble that privileged people live in is expressed by Effie in her obliviousness toward what the world is like for those not born into such privilege. She muses about how much better poor children have it than rich children in a statement not only dripping with irony itself, but featuring the addition layer irony derived from not realizing how ridiculous she sounds: “I can’t go out, and there is a girl about my age splashing along without any maid to fuss about rubbers and cloaks and umbrellas.”
Cindereffie?
In a referential comparison to her situation, Effie reveals that her understanding of the fairy tale of Cinderella is informed by an ironic misapprehension. Her mother teasingly asks—in response to her clueless assumption of bad rich kids have it compared to poor kids—if she would rather be hungry and cold and ragged all the time. Effie demonstrates her utter misunderstanding of the fairy tale by replying “Cinderella did, and had a nice time in the end.”
The Beginning and the End
The story opens with Effie making the wish that there would never be another Christmas. In the end, Effie actually does get a wish granted, but it is the exact opposite. The story ends on the image of a smile on Effie’s face as she falls asleep with a newfound ironic desire to make her whole year revolve around the holiday.
