Chapter Text
11 months together (Christmas, Year 2)
I’m one of those people who never outgrew the magic of Christmas as I grew out of childhood. There were a few years, in college, when the season didn’t really feel like Christmas to me anymore, when the back and forth between South Carolina and Kentucky and not being surrounded by the same people I’d been surrounded by while growing up had taken some of the wonderful nostalgia out of the holiday, but I never stopped loving it. Even the years that I worked in retail, while I complained about the nearly three months of Christmas music and the decorations and the often terrible customers, I loved the feeling I got as the holiday grew closer and closer. I loved the way most people just seemed nicer, the way friends felt more like family and family got a little more warm and loving than usual, the way everything from the food to the lights and the decorations seemed to be centered on bringing happiness and joy and love. That childlike wonder, that warm feeling, hadn’t subsided when I got married and became a “real adult;” if anything, it had only grown. That was probably because my husband had been much the same way, becoming silly and giddy around the holiday in a way that he rarely did otherwise, his reserved, stoic nature taking over most of the time. I was the dreamer and the idealist in the relationship, he was the voice of reason. I don’t know that I completely subscribe to the idea that opposites attract, but in that one sense at least, it worked for us. There was balance.
Some part of that idealist, that dreamer, had died when my husband did. Even worse was that the nugget of anxiety that had always sat right next to that idealism seemed to have grown, expanding to fill the space that was left behind. More than once since I’d met Chris, and even still since we’d started our relationship - become partners, he liked to say - that anxiety had made itself frustratingly, even painfully, known. But those instances were growing fewer and farther between. And better still, it seemed that the idealism I’d thought was dead was coming back in their place.
I’d spent the last Christmas before my husband died, while he was deployed, alone in Virginia, expecting him to be home within the next month or so and trying to pretend that it wasn’t actually Christmas yet. The first Christmas after he died I spent in Kentucky with my family, the first time I’d done that since college. Some years my husband and I hadn’t had the option of going back there for the holidays, but most of the time we’d just chosen not to. He hadn’t really been close with his family, and my relationship with most of the members of mine was complicated in the good moments, toxic in the bad ones, so in order to preserve the joy of the holiday, we’d chosen to spend them just with one another. There had been moments of that first family Christmas after so many years that I’d been able to make the most of, even enjoy, like getting to watch my niece’s face light up when she opened her gifts or see how happy my grandparents were to have me home, but I couldn’t help but long for the next time I’d have a truly joyful Christmas again, one without the anxiety and ‘on-edge’ sensation that always came with being with my family.
As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait long. Less than a month after that first Christmas as a widow, after several months of friendship, Chris and I started dating officially. Almost a year later, we were spending our first Christmas together. He’d first pitched the idea of me going to Boston for the holiday in October, and he’d done it so sheepishly, with such quiet hopefulness, as if he was afraid he was asking too much by wanting to pull me away from whatever I might have been missing in Kentucky or Virginia, that I probably fell a little more in love with him in that moment. In all honesty, there was nothing that sounded better to me than spending Christmas with him and his family. All my friends in Virginia had their own families to spend time with, and I certainly wasn’t looking forward to going back to Kentucky, but more than that, I would take any opportunity to spend time with him. I didn’t need him to be a kid-at-heart-Christmas-fanatic like I was to make Christmas with him special. That being said, I’d talked to him on the phone the previous Christmas, when we were still “just friends” (I knew then that label had no chance of lasting much longer; my fear of rushing into a relationship had all but disappeared, when it came to him at least), and I knew how excited he’d been at the prospect of playing Santa for his niece and nephews, how much he enjoyed anything that revolved around family, and most of all, how he was able to take joy from nearly anything, so I had a feeling that Christmas with him would go a long way toward bringing back the magic that had been missing the past couple Christmases.
Even before Christmas day arrived, Chris had managed to, well, make my heart grow three sizes, all of it full of him (with a small section being shared by his incredible family). He’d insisted that I fly up the same evening that school finished for the holiday break, eight days before Christmas, and he’d hurried me out of the airport the second my checked bag dropped onto the carousel. We’d picked up Chinese on the way to his house, and when we walked in the front door, even the entryway glowed with the light from the tree in the living room. Four stockings - one for Dodger, one for Millie, who would have to wait until I went back home after New Year’s for hers, one for me, and one for him (“ You don’t have to fill mine, really, I just thought we should both have one.” ) - hung on his mantle and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation was already cued up on the television. I’d narrowed my eyes a little when I smirked up at him over my shoulder regarding his particular choice of movies, and he only grinned back and jerked his eyebrows up once toward his hairline before taking my hand and pulling me with him to the couch, dragging the coffee table closer for us to eat off of.
Then on Sunday, after we’d come back to his house from spending the day at his mom’s with the whole family, baking, watching movies and playing games, and decorating the family tree, he’d sat me down and pulled a large gift from the back of the neat stack under the tree and told me to open it, right now . When I’d pushed him on why he wanted me to open it six days early, he only crossed his arms, leaned back against the arm of the couch, and smirked, lips a little puckered and eyes squinted playfully. While I was still fawning over the beautiful camel-colored jacket he’d tucked inside the box and running my fingers over the buttery soft cashmere, he pulled two colorful slips of paper, just smaller than dollar bills, from his back pocket and dropped them on top of the jacket. “Christopher!” I gasped.
“Uh oh,” he grinned and leaned forward to rest his forearms on his thighs, “the long name. Am I in trouble?”
“What did you do?” I fanned the tickets between my thumb and forefinger and stared down at them, taking in one detail at a time. Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Tuesday. December 21st. 7 pm.
“Well,” he drawled, still smirking like the cat that ate the canary, “it looks like I got you a jacket to wear when we go see Waitress down in New York in a coupla days.” He reached out to flick the tickets with his index finger then lifted his hand to tug at my hair where it hung over my shoulder. “Full disclosure though, it’s not just us. It’s all the kids.” He must have seen the way my eyes grew, because he laughed and went on quickly, “Not the grandkids though, don’t worry. Just the grown-ups. And Scott.” He winked.
“This is …” I trailed off for a second, my thumb rubbing over the title of the show over and over. “Really?” I didn’t actually doubt him, it’s not like the jacket or the tickets or the hotel he’d probably already booked were going to put him in any kind of financial bind (for all I knew he could’ve bought all eight of our tickets without a problem, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had), but I hadn’t yet become accustomed to his particular brand of surprises - far more financially extravagant than anything I’d yet been used to in my life, yes, but also unique, and special, and completely tailored to me. Truthfully? I didn’t want to become accustomed to them, to get to a point where I might take them for granted.
“Yeah, really.” He just laughed. I think he liked how blown away I always was when he managed to surprise me. (He complained often that I was ‘too hard’ to surprise; and while my tendency to overanalyze things makes it difficult for me to not pull at threads that are often left loose when someone tries to pull off a surprise, I blamed it more on the fact that our long distance relationship meant that everything we did had to be so pre-planned.) “You like it?”
I’d reached out then with the hand still holding the tickets and punched him, not hard, but not that light, on the side of his thigh. “You ridiculous man. What do you think?” Still laughing, he plucked the tickets from my fingers and dropped them into the gift box still on my lap before pulling it off my legs to set it on the floor and pull me onto his lap.
Christmas break in Boston with the Evanses had absolutely been the joy-inducing, magic-redeeming, family experience I’d needed. The two and a half days I’d gotten to spend in New York with Chris, his siblings, and the men in each of their respective lives, just a few days before Christmas, was fun, beautiful, and an absolute Christmas overload. In addition to the show, we’d done the touristy things like Central Park and the tree at Rockefeller Center, and we’d even made fools of ourselves, some of us, attempting to skate. Scott was frustratingly good at it, and their older sister was quite good as well, but the rest of us were certainly not paragons of grace on our skates. Honestly, I’d expected Chris to be better than he was, because he’s so athletic in general, but while he was steadier on his feet than I was, he was no expert. And when I’d lost my balance and he’d tried valiantly to keep me upright, we’d both landed on the ice. (I made a mental note to look for a bruise on his backside that night or the next morning - he’d gone down butt-first with me right on top of him and I couldn’t imagine that his lovely ass had made it out of that unscathed.)
As fun as that mini trip-within-a-trip had been, and as much as it had absolutely felt like Christmas because of the decorations across the city and in our hotel, and the music, and the store windows all over the city that announced loudly and clearly that it was the holiday season, the moments back in Boston were, for the most part, better, at least when it came to soothing my soul and restoring the magic of Christmas in my heart. We’d spent Christmas Eve at Mrs. Evans’s house, the whole family. All throughout the afternoon and evening, the (rarely used, I was told) table in the formal dining room had remained covered with finger foods and the cookies we’d made earlier in the week. Family friends and co-workers had dropped in, some bringing more food, others bringing wine or beer, and some even bearing small gifts for Mrs. Evans or the kids. Chris’s dad and step-mom, who the kids and grandkids would be celebrating with more formally after I’d headed back to Virginia, had even dropped in for a while on their way out of town to spend Christmas with the second Mrs. Evans’s family, handing out gifts to everyone, including Chris’s mom. (Considering it was only the second time I was meeting them, the beautiful, soft-as-a-cloud scarf, hat, and glove set they’d given me was actually perfectly my style.) While each guest had visited for anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour or more, the constants were the core members of the Evans clan - Chris and his siblings, the significant others, and, of course, the kids - and at 8 pm almost on the dot, the front door closed and the twelve of us collapsed in various positions - on furniture, on the floor, on one another - in the living room. Chris and I ended up on the rug in front of the couch where Scott and Zach sat with the youngest Evans daughter. His back rested against the couch and his legs stretched in front of him with my head on his thigh and his niece’s head resting on my side where she lay on her back. I guessed we must have looked like a portion of a human crossword puzzle.
After no more than two minutes of recovery time, the younger of Chris’s two nephews was back on his feet. “Grandma! Christmas Eve presents!” Mrs. Evans had laughed, and the boy’s mom had just closed her eyes and shook her head.
“Absolutely, sweetheart,” Mrs. Evans told him, “why don’t you pass them out?”
The sweet boy ran to the tree and started grabbing boxes. I hadn’t noticed until then that every box under the tree was the exact same size and shape and that there were four distinct wrapping paper designs. I pushed myself to sit up at Chris’s side as his nephew recruited his sister and brother to help him pass out the gifts, and when they were finished, every couple or small family had a matching set of packages (Chris’s and mine were rustic and old-fashioned looking, a tan background adorned with primitive little snowmen) and none remained under the tree. I must have looked confused, or at least surprised, because Chris leaned over and spoke quietly into my ear, “Don’t be fooled, she’s got stacks of gifts in her bedroom. She’ll put the rest out after everyone leaves or goes to bed. She’s afraid if she puts them all out, someone ,” he cut his eyes over to Scott, “will ‘accidentally’ open Christmas morning gifts on Christmas Eve.” I giggled and nodded my understanding.
“Okay!” The little boy called, “Ready, set, go!”
I looked around in wonder as everyone, regardless of age, tore into his or her gift with excitement and vigor. When I continued to just sit there, watching, Chris nudged me with his elbow and nodded at my own gift when I looked over at him. Right. My gift. I was the last to get my gift completely open, and my heart jumped into my throat when I looked around the room and saw the coordinating pajamas in every box, or, by that point, spread across laps. All “the girls” had been given full sets of flannel pjs, button-down tops and all, covered in different holiday or winter figures. I grinned at the reindeer, my favorite, on mine, and looked around at the penguins, snowmen, and nutcrackers on Chris’s niece’s and sisters’. ‘The boys’ had gotten plaid flannel pants with coordinating solid-colored t-shirts, and we all received socks to match the gifted pajamas. There were no two gifts, even among the guys’ plaid, that were exactly the same. But they all clearly went together, with all of them having the same artistic style to the designs and sharing a color scheme (red and green, of course, but more than that, the colors matched in tone, and the pjs used same accent colors as well). It was easy to look around at the room full of Christmas pajamas and guess that you were in the home of a theatre family - it was like the gifts had been chosen by a costume designer, perfectly coordinated to show the unity within the family, but also just different enough as to not be “matchy.”
I’d looked at Chris a little funny when he stood from where we’d been lounging and reached down to pull me up. “C’mon Dopey, we gotta go change.”
“Oh. Now?”
He laughed at me. “Yes, now. That’s the whole point. We open our Christmas Eve gifts, always pjs, we change into our pjs, Ma takes a family picture, and then we watch Christmas movies and drink cocoa until everyone passes out or goes home.”
“You know you guys are disgustingly perfect, right?” He dropped his head back and laughed then brought it forward again to kiss the top of my head, wrapping an arm around my shoulders to pull me with him upstairs to an unoccupied guest room.
“Hey,” he closed the door behind him and turned to lean back against it. I looked over my shoulder at him from where I was laying my new pajamas out on the bed to get ready to change, and he crooked an index finger at me, motioning for me to come to him. When I stood in front of him he reached for my hips and pulled me forward until I rested along the length of his body, opening his legs a little to make room for me to stand between them. “Do you know how awesome you are?” I lowered my eyebrows and looked up at him skeptically. “I mean it,” he dug his fingers into my hips a little. “This day is a lot. It’s hectic and crazy and non-stop. It overwhelms me sometimes, and it’s my life, my family, my friends. I know there had to be a lot going on up here,” he tapped the top of my head with one finger then instantly brought his hand back to my waist, “but it never showed. You were smart, and funny, and gracious, and even though it would have been absolutely understandable for you to back off and take a breather now and then, you just kept going, that beautiful smile on your face the whole time.” I couldn’t help but smile then, and he saw it before I managed to get my head down, a little embarrassed under all his praise. He reached up to tilt my head back up with a finger under my chin. “Yeah, that one,” he grinned then leaned in to kiss me, short, but so sweet. “And,” he added, chuckling a little, “you did it all with a seven-year-old attached to your hip.”
I laughed then too. His niece had stayed right by my side for most of the day, sometimes standing by quietly while I carried on a conversation, other times pulling me across the room to introduce me to someone she thought I should meet while Chris was otherwise occupied. Honestly, I didn’t think that I’d done anything impressive that day, but if I had, she probably deserved some of the credit. Knowing that she was right there the whole time had kept me on my game, partially because Chris and his sister had both made it very clear that the little girl adored me (the feeling was very, very mutual) and I didn’t want to let her down by not being all the things Chris had just said I was, but also because her energy and joy were contagious.
“I love this,” I told him, wrapping my own arms around his waist so that he had to pull away from the door a little. “It feels like everything Christmas is supposed to be.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” he leaned in for another kiss, just pressing his lips against mine and holding them there for a moment. “Everyone is.”
“Me too.” I rubbed my thumbs over his back where my hands rested along his spine then wrapped my arms fully around him when he pulled me in, squeezing his arms around my back and holding me tight for a second before reaching down to pat me on the butt.
“Okay, now change, before we get yelled at for holding up the movie. God only knows what Scott will try to convince Mom we’re doing in here.”
The rest of the night had been perfect, as far as I was concerned - The Santa Clause and cocoa (made “grown-up” for the adults with Bailey’s and creme de menthe) with the whole family, all while sprawled on the floor with Chris and the kids, sharing a makeshift ‘bed’ constructed of pillows from the couch and guest rooms and spare blankets from all over the house, then reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas together to the kids, funny voices and all. We hadn’t left to head back to Chris’s house until the kids had passed out and I was leaning against him, my blinks getting longer and longer until finally he insisted he needed to get ‘Sleepy’ home and tucked in before Santa skipped us over. (His mom had offered several days earlier for us to stay the night, but he’d gotten a little cagey and insisted he wanted us to wake up at home.)