Every Christmas Eve, our family had a tradition.

Along with the presents under the tree, everyone got a single scratch-off lottery ticket.

Whoever bought them would tuck them into the Christmas tree, and after dinner, everyone would pick one.

Nobody expected to get rich. It was just a little bit of fun to end the evening.

This particular Christmas, sometime in the early to mid-2000s, things were a little different.

Money was incredibly tight. We weren't destitute, but we were definitely feeling it.

To make matters worse, we were having electrical problems. While trying to cook our version of the Feast of the Seven Fishes, which in our house was more like the Feast of the Two or Three Fishes, the breakers kept tripping, turning Christmas Eve dinner into an exercise in patience.

Now, if you've ever scratched off a lottery ticket, you know the hardest part isn't scratching it.

It's figuring out whether you've actually won.

Every ticket has different rules.

Do I need three cherries? Two bells and a gold mine? Three matching dollar amounts? What in the world does that symbol mean?

By the time you've read the instructions three times, you've convinced yourself you're either a millionaire... or you just don't know how to read.

And that's exactly what happened that Christmas Eve.

I scratched off mine first.

It was pretty obvious it was a loser.

Imagine that.

My brother was next.

After spending ten minutes reading and rereading the instructions, he finally came to the same conclusion.

His was a loser too.

Now it was my mother's turn.

Well...

It looked like she had just won $2,500.

I looked.

She looked.

My brother looked.

Even the cats looked.

As far as any of us could tell, she had a winning ticket.

There was just one problem.

It was Christmas Eve.

Where in the world were we going to cash it?

None of us cared.

We were too busy celebrating.

After the kind of year we'd been having, we couldn't believe our luck had finally changed.

Then I had an idea.

It wasn't a particularly good one, but at the time it seemed brilliant.

My ex owned a convenience store back in Pittsburgh.

He sold lottery tickets.

Surely he'd know if we'd actually won.

So I picked up the phone and gave him a call.

As soon as he answered, I excitedly told him we'd won.

I told him how much.

I told him which game it was.

Then I asked if there was any chance his store had enough cash on hand to pay out a $2,500 winning ticket.

So we made a plan.

I'd drive to Pittsburgh.

He'd go in and open the store so he could cash the ticket.

It would take a couple of hours and a lot of driving, but it was possible.

We were actually going to do it.

He told me to give him a few minutes so he could drive over to the store and make sure he had enough cash on hand.

That seemed reasonable.

If we were about to drive a couple of hours on Christmas Eve, it made sense to know the money would actually be there waiting for us.

About fifteen minutes later, the phone rang.

"All right," he said. "I have enough money to pay it out."

We couldn't believe it.

"Before you leave, though," he said, "read me the validation number at the bottom of the ticket."

So I scratched off the little box at the bottom and started reading him the validation number.

You know, that ridiculously long number they hide under the little scratch-off box on every lottery ticket. It always felt like it was about 528 digits long.

There was a pause.

Then he said,

"Okay... read it again."

So I read the numbers again...

Of course, I stumbled over what looked like a code straight out of The Da Vinci Code.

Silence.

"Read me the number one more time."

So I did.

Slowly.

Digit by digit.

Another pause.

"Um... sorry to ruin your Christmas..."

"Yeah... it's not a winner."

I looked over at my mother.

She was staring at me with wide eyes, waiting for me to tell her we were heading to Pittsburgh.

Instead, I had to break the news.

It wasn't a winner.

For a split second, she looked disappointed.

Then she laughed her ass off.

Before long, we were all laughing.

I mean... of course we didn't win anything.

That was just our luck.

We didn't win $2,500.

But we still had our Christmas Eve feast.

Honestly, that's what we'd been looking forward to all along.