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"Lurch, has the mail come yet?" Morticia inquired, one sharp fingernail tapping nervously against the arm of her wicker chair.
"No, Mrs. Addams," the butler replied, adjusting the angel at the top of their Christmas tree so its hundreds of eyes caught the light. He understood her concern. The mail was always on time, accompanied by the shrill alarm she had in place, but close to an hour later, there were still no letters. Thing was keeping watch inside of the mailbox, checking and double checking, and couldn’t find a single bill or catalogue.
On any other day, the matriarch of the family wouldn't place so much importance upon an empty mailbox. Perhaps the mailman was caught up in an elaborate game of chase with Kitty, or maybe a loose stick of Pugsley’s dynamite had rolled into the mail truck’s path. But today of all days, the mail had to be delivered, it had to. Two weeks ago, Gomez proposed the grand idea of an enormous party on Christmas Eve. Their usual festivities were wonderful, but he figured it was about time to invite some extended family over; cousins, aunts, uncles, an Addams from every corner of the world! With the help of Lurch and Thing, Morticia had hand-written all of the invitations, and instructed the guests to RSVP no later than the 23rd of December. On the 21st, the family received a letter from Cousin Melancholia apologizing for being unable to attend; she was having her thirteenth divorce this Christmas. The 22nd yielded one letter from Ophelia and one letter from Pancho, both of whom were unable to come. Gomez was secretly relieved. Today, there was nothing. Not a single letter in sight. And everyone had been sure there would be so many.
Morticia’s face fell. "Could it be that nobody can make it after all?"
Lurch let out a low, thoughtful groan.
“No, you’re absolutely right, Lurch. Even Ophelia remembered to write to us during all that’s been going on with Horatio. Something must be wrong with the mailman.”
"Not more bad news, I hope?”
Gomez had overheard Morticia’s distress from the next room over, and was by his wife's side in an instant.
"There's not a single letter," she replied, taking his hand in hers. “I’m afraid the mailman has had some sort of accident.”
“An accident?” Gomez echoed, brows raised in mild concern. “He won’t sue, will he?”
“Darling, don’t worry, he can’t sue the children,” Morticia assured him. “We’ll just have to get in touch with the family some other way.”
"Call them?" Lurch suggested, gesturing towards the phone.
Gomez grinned. “That’ll do it! Capital idea, Lurch. You think of everything.”
"Why don't we start with Cousin Crimp?" Morticia prompted gently.
Lurch nodded, his massive fingers handling the rotary phone with incredible care as he dialed the number. Despite his efforts, when he lifted the receiver to his ear, he feared he had broken something anyway. There was no dial tone at all, only static.
"Has he answered?"
Lurch shook his head. "Dead."
"Cousin Crimp?" Morticia didn't look nearly as startled as she ought to.
"The phone." Lurch handed it to the pair of them, and they both frowned at the unwelcome sound coming from the receiver.
"What's the matter? Who's on the phone?" Fester entered the living room in his usual boisterous manner. His black coat was mysteriously charred, and moments later Wednesday and Pugsley followed close behind in burnt little aprons.
"That's just the trouble-- nobody!" Gomez exclaimed. He paused. "Wait a minute. Fester, I thought I told you to take the children outside to play."
"Oh! Well, see, we were playing!" Fester assured him. "I was teaching them how to set grease fires in the kitchen. Pugsley set a great big one, and it just finished burning. I figured something nice and warm would be best for today, I didn't want to take 'em outside on account of the blizzard!"
Morticia, Gomez, and Lurch all stared at Fester with wide eyes.
"Blizzard?!"
The blinds and curtains had been shut all morning to keep out any unfortunate sunlight, but as soon as the word was uttered, Lurch made his way over to the window and peeked outside. Sure enough, he was greeted by a violent snowstorm. The branches of the large tree in the front yard whipped from side to side in the merciless wind, and the front gate was slamming open and shut so rapidly that he feared it might fall off its hinges. It was beautiful, honestly. Something the entire family would normally have loved… if only it had timed itself better.
"Fester, why didn't you tell us there was a blizzard?!" Gomez cried, throwing his arms up in exasperation.
"What, you mean you didn't know?!" Fester replied. "It was big news, it's supposed to keep storming 'til Christmas!"
"Until Christmas…!" Morticia fumbled slightly as she hung up the phone. She glanced at her husband, concern written over her usually calm face.
After processing this new information, little Wednesday spoke up. "Does this mean we can't have the big Christmas party?"
Gomez grimaced. “Well, it… it seems that way… but we can’t lose all hope! Children, go to your rooms, please. Your mother and I are going to see what we can do.”
Wednesday and Pugsley nodded, reluctantly handing their little aprons over to Fester before heading towards the stairs.
Once he was sure they were out of earshot, Gomez turned to his wife in a panic. “Querida, what can we do?!”
Morticia shook her head. “I’m afraid we’re out of luck, darling… even if we could get the phones working again, no one will be able to travel in a storm this severe!”
“That’s not true!” Fester piped up. “Great Aunt Torment walked five miles in a blizzard once!”
Lurch groaned in disapproval.
“No, you’re right,” Fester muttered. “She froze to death.”
“You mean we’ll have to call the whole thing off?” Gomez looked devastated.
“I’m afraid so,” Morticia said with a soft sigh. “What awful timing. I suppose there’s always next year...”
“What are we going to tell the children, Tish?” Gomez asked, leaning on the arm of Morticia’s wicker chair. “They’ll be so disappointed.”
“We’ll have to break the news to them at dinner.” She gently stroked her husband’s cheek in an attempt to soothe him, and by extension, herself. “Lurch, you can keep decorating in the meantime, but there’s no rush. It’ll be just us this year.”
“Yes, Mrs. Addams.”
Fester frowned. “Oh, don’t be too disappointed, Morticia. Here-- I can show you the gifts I got for Wednesday and Pugsley! That’ll smooth things over a little, right?” Fester began to lead the concerned couple towards the conservatory. “Cleopatra is guarding them, but don’t tell the children!” he whispered.
The living room fell silent aside from the whipping winds outside and the slow creak of the floorboards as Lurch moved to hang tinsel on the tree. He felt awful for the family; he knew exactly how much planning had gone into this party. To have it all ruined by the weather- and such exciting weather, too- must have felt like such a slap to the face. And slowly, his own heart sank as he realized what the blizzard meant for him. He had been expecting a very important call this Christmas Eve, an expensive, international call from someone very dear to him, and with all the phones down, there was little hope of that happening. He allowed himself one deep sigh before he pushed aside his own self pity. His family needed him. Thankfully, he knew the children were resilient. They would be disappointed, surely, but not as disappointed as Gomez and Morticia. He secured the end of the tinsel to the tree, and stepped back to admire his handiwork… only to stumble over little Wednesday, who had snuck up behind him.
“Lurch! You have to be careful or you’ll fall over and break your legs!” she insisted, placing a tiny palm on his knee to steady him.
Lurch gave her a gentle half-smile. “Thought you were upstairs.”
“No. I was hiding,” Wednesday admitted. “I don’t like it when I can’t hear what’s going on.”
Lurch nodded slowly. Wednesday had been caught eavesdropping before. He was surprised that he didn’t expect it this time.
“I know that nobody can come to the party.”
Lurch’s face fell. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m going to fix it.”
“Fix it?” Lurch echoed, raising an eyebrow.
Wednesday nodded, her little braids bobbing up and down. “I’m going to have my own party to cheer up Mother and Father, but you’re not allowed to tell. It’s a surprise. Okay?”
Lurch beamed at her. He should have known Wednesday wouldn’t let a little blizzard get her down. He nodded, grunting softly in affirmation.
“I've thrown plenty of tea parties for my dolls before, so this'll be easy, as long as I skip the part where all the guests get poisoned and die. It’ll be just us planning it, and also Pugsley. But you have to swear you won’t tell, Lurch! Swear! Cross your heart and hope to die!”
Lurch knelt down to her level, crossing his heart with a fond smile.
Wednesday flashed him a gap-toothed grin. “Thank you Lurch! Oh! I almost forgot to tell Pugsley! He doesn’t know he’s helping yet.” She tugged on the butler’s hand impatiently. “Come on, we can have our first party planning meeting in his room!”
“Why didn’t we use your room, Wednesday?”
The three of them were gathered on Pugsley’s floor with their heads bent together at Wednesday’s request. If they were to have a secret meeting, it had to look like they were conspiring something- just not where anybody else could see.
“Because yours has more explosives in it!” Wednesday told her brother. “If any of the grown ups can hear us, we’ll blow up some dynamite. Then things will be extra secret.”
“Oh yeah. I guess that makes sense.” He paused, glancing at the tall man hunched over beside him. “Lurch is a grown up. Did you make him do a blood pact so he wouldn’t tell?”
Wednesday pouted. “I made him cross his heart, and that’s good enough! I don’t have any time for blood pacts, we have to start planning right away!”
“Okay, fine. What do we do first?”
“Guests?” Lurch suggested.
“Guests!” Wednesday echoed with a nod. “We need to write a guest list, and it needs to be big, but it can only be people who are already here. Pugsley, do you have some paper?”
Pugsley quickly scrambled off on all fours into his closet. There was a violent crash, and after a moment he emerged with a pad of paper and a worn down pencil. “Got it!”
“The three of us are invited, of course,” Wednesday began. “And Mother and Father-- but we’ll let them know last so it’ll be a surprise!”
Pugsley nodded, and began to scribble down names.
“And then I’ll invite Marie Antoinette, she comes to all my tea parties. And I’ll invite Homer, even though she doesn’t really like tea and almost drowned in it.”
“What about Aristotle, and Tristan and Isolde? We can just pour the tea straight into their tanks!” Pugsley suggested.
“That sounds good!” Wednesday said with an enthusiastic nod. “How many guests is that, Pugsley?”
Pugsley stopped writing, and his brow furrowed. He turned the pad of paper around to reveal the most atrocious, unreadable handwriting known to man. “I think I wrote too fast.”
Lurch extended his hand. “May I?”
“Sure!” Pugsley ripped the old page off, handing the pad and pencil to Lurch.
The child sized objects were dwarfed by his long fingers, but Lurch handled them as carefully as he could, and his neat cursive handwriting was far more readable. After another minute of adding to the list, the group agreed to invite Grandmama, Fester, Cousin Itt, Kitty, and Thing.
“Fifteen guests,” Lurch announced. "Including ourselves."
“Fifteen! I could only count that high if I had three hands,” Wednesday stated. “I think that’s enough.”“Me too,” Pugsley agreed. “Besides, that’s all the people and animals and dolls and things I can think of that are inside the house already.”
“Good! Now we can make a list of decorations, and teas, and write everyone's invitations!” Wednesday declared. “Oh, except for Mother and Father. I don’t want them to know ‘til the very last second!”
“Is this going to be a Christmas party, a tea party, or a surprise party?” Pugsley inquired.
“All of the above,” Lurch replied gently.
“Oh. Okay. Like a Franken-party! A… Chris-surprise-tea-mas… Christ-tea… eh, I’ll think of a word eventually.”
“Children?”
Wednesday gasped, head whipping around towards the door. “It’s Mother! Pugsley, get your dynamite! We can’t let her hear our secret meeting!”
As Morticia approached Pugsley’s room, she was greeted by several consecutive explosions. Smoke billowed out from underneath the door, and she smiled. At least the children could still have fun despite the storm. Perhaps they would bounce back from the inevitable heartbreak about the party. “Children, if you’re playing with your dynamite, do let some smoke into Uncle Fester’s room before you come down to dinner! It does wonderful things for his sinuses.”
Dinner went quite smoothly considering all of the bad news, but the worst news of all was the cleaning Lurch had to do beforehand. Those grease fires had left quite a mark on the counters and stove top. The children were very apologetic, but Fester seemed to have forgotten about the whole thing, and went straight down to put his head in his favorite vice until dinner was served. At least I'm paid well , Lurch had thought to himself.
After the children had feigned disappointment, and the fricassee of toad had been eaten, Pugsley and Wednesday began to get ready for bed. Lurch was sure that the sound of the blizzard would lull them both to sleep even before their parents read them their bedtime stories, and he decided to turn in early for the night himself. No sooner had he gotten under the covers than the door to his room creaked open. Little Wednesday shuffled in, fully dressed in her nightclothes, and stood at the end of his bed like an adorable sleep paralysis demon.
"Lurch?" she whispered. "Are you awake?" He often slept with his eyes open, so she had learned to double-check.
Lurch nodded, sitting up slightly.
"Oh, good." She hopped up onto the bed, struggling to get both legs onto the tall mattress. "I just wanted to talk, that's all."
"About the party?"
She nodded. "I can't sleep. I'm thinking of seating charts."
Lurch raised an eyebrow at her.
"Everything has to be perfect to make up for the bigger party that we lost, so I drew a seating chart," Wednesday explained. "Except there's a problem. Look." She pulled out a little diagram scrawled in black crayon. "I have to sit next to Marie Antoinette, obviously. And Homer is so small that she'd get smushed unless she shares a chair with Marie. Thing will sit across from them both because he's the only one who can catch Homer if she runs away. And then Pugsley will want to sit across from me so we can play the game where we kick each other's shins under the table, and Aristotle will be in a tank next to him , and Tristan and Isolde will be in their tank across from Aristotle so all the fish have someone to talk to. Fester will be across from Grandmama because they like to play the shin kicking game too, even if they pretend like they're too old for it. Itt and Kitty can sit next to each other because they can groom each other's hair so they don't shed in their teacups. Mother and Father have to go right next to each other, or Father will go crazy and Mother won't get enough kisses and will probably die."
Lurch looked over the diagram and nodded. She had certainly thought this through. "Seems fine."
"But it isn't!" Wednesday insisted, pulling out her crayon to prod at the page. "Look-- that's only twelve chairs! Everyone's sitting across from someone else, and I tried to put you next to Thing because you're friends, but you're the thirteenth chair and the only one without someone to sit across from!"
Lurch looked over the page again. Sure enough, she was right. He was the odd one out, but ironically, he hadn't even pictured himself at the table in the first place. The Addamses were nothing but kind to him, but at the end of the day, he felt that he was still just an employee. After a moment's hesitation, he gingerly took the crayon and drew a seperate square labeled 'harpsichord'.
"Fixed."
Wednesday frowned. "But what about when you're drinking your tea? You have to sit at the table then! And you have to have a buddy! You have to!"
Lurch groaned softly. He wished that little Wednesday wasn’t so concerned about this. He really didn’t mind being the one on the sidelines during a party, it was what he was used to.
“You have to be included!” Wednesday insisted, pouting at him.
“I don’t do small talk,” Lurch muttered. “I’ll provide the music.”
Wednesday was silent for a moment, feet swinging over the edge of the mattress and brows furrowed together. “I wish I could invite the girl you write your letters to. You talk to her all the time!”
Lurch’s eyes widened. Wednesday could hardly read, how the hell did she know about that?! He let out a long groan of embarrassment, placing his head in his hands.
“Oh, I didn’t open any!” she said quickly. “Honest! But I see you take one to the mailbox every single week, and her name is so easy to spell! It’s a girl, isn’t it?”
Lurch groaned again.
“It’s got to be! Or at least partly a girl!” She pried his fingers open so just one of his eyes was visible. “Either way, you must like talking to them! If you tell me what they look like, and how many heads they’ve got, I can make a paper doll to sit across from you!”
Lurch sighed, dropping his hands from his face. It was sweet of Wednesday to care so much. He thought of his impossible Christmas Eve phone call, and his heart ached. But such a small child certainly didn’t need to be concerned with any of this, and it was definitely past her bedtime.
"Go to sleep," he murmured, ruffling her hair underneath her nightcap. With that, he let his body collapse onto his mattress, and pulled the covers back over his head.
Wednesday stared at him for a moment, and eventually realized he wasn’t going to budge. She let out a dramatic sigh, hopping off of the bed. "Fiiiiine. Goodnight, Lurch. Sleep tight. Let all the bedbugs bite."
The next morning, Wednesday was all business. She intended to get everything done with plenty of time to spare before the evening, and she wanted it to be perfect.
“Do you have all the invitations, Lurch?” she asked, leading him and her brother down the hall.
The butler nodded slowly, adjusting the stack of envelopes in his hands. These were far simpler to write than the one hundred invitations to the canceled Christmas party, and his aching joints were very grateful for it.
“Good! You can deliver them, and Pugsley and I will start to get the decorations!”
“We will?”
Wednesday rolled her eyes at him. “Honestly, Pugsley, don’t you know anything about party planning?”
“I know plenty! I just thought I could at least deliver the invitation addressed to Aristotle! And don’t you wanna deliver the ones addressed to Marie Antoinette and Homer?”
Wednesday thought this over for a moment. “I suppose you're right. You can deliver the rest, right Lurch?”
Lurch nodded, handing Wednesday one doll-sized envelope and one miniscule spider-sized envelope that looked more like a postage stamp. After a moment of shuffling pages, he also handed Pugsley a laminated invitation for Aristotle's tank.
“Thank you, Lurch! You’re the best!” With that, Wednesday scurried right back down the hall, and Pugsley hopped down the stairs to pay a visit to his octopus.
As Lurch had expected, delivering the remaining few invitations was, for the most part, very simple. There was just one hang-up: he couldn't let Gomez or Morticia see what he was doing. It felt like they needed him far more often than usual today, and each time the gong rang, he had to scramble to hide all of the envelopes in the pocket of his black slacks. Thankfully, he managed to narrowly avoid being discovered each and every time. Thing accepted his invitation first with a cheerful thumbs up, and promised to help pour the tea before retreating into his box. The piranhas, Tristan and Isolde, quickly ate theirs, as did Kitty. Lurch assumed this was just proof of their enthusiasm. Cousin Itt was very eager to attend, which made up for the five times Lurch bumped his head on the tiny fellow's ceiling while attempting to invite him.
Grandmama's invitation was possibly the most rewarding to deliver. In exchange, she promptly offered Lurch a vast collection of tea leaves, all sorted into various jars with labels written in cursive.
"They're normally for fortune telling," she admitted. "I've kept them hidden since I got arrested. But that's besides the point-- the flavors are like nothing you've ever had in your life! The children will love them!"
Finally, he was down to the very last invitation. Fester. Lurch let out a deep groan. The man had absolutely no concept of secrets unless they were his own. He was currently the biggest threat to the surprise. If Fester didn't keep his mouth shut, Lurch would need to resort to drastic measures.
“Seriously, Lurch, what’s the big idea?!”
Fester’s speech was heavily muffled by the large burlap sack Lurch had forced him into. None of his thrashing and squirming was any match for the butler’s strength, but even so, he seemed determined to break free.
“Keeping you quiet,” Lurch replied stiffly. As soon as the bald man had finished reading the invitation, he had yelled for Gomez and Morticia so loudly that Lurch was sure the entire neighborhood heard him.
“Lurch! Lurch, that’s not fair! Let me out!” Fester whined. "I wasn't gonna blab, I was joking!"
Lurch ignored him, securing the top of the sack with a thick length of rope. "Should've cleaned the kitchen to gain my trust." He began lugging Fester across the hardwood floor just as Gomez stepped into the room.
“Fester? Ah, Lurch! Have you seen Fester? I could’ve sworn I heard him yell something about the children.”
“Playing hide-and-seek,” Lurch lied, tossing Fester into his wardrobe and ignoring his yelps as he slammed the door.
“Oh.” Gomez stepped up to the mahogany wardrobe. “In that case, you’re not doing a very good job of hiding, old man. I can still hear you screaming in there!”
Fester started to babble something almost coherent, and Lurch began to panic. If Gomez learned about the surprise, he would be breaking his promise to little Wednesday, and she would be absolutely heartbroken. In a last ditch attempt to save things, he began to jostle the wardrobe, shaking up its contents in a way that any average man would find violent. Thankfully, Fester was something else entirely, and as soon as everything went still, all that could be heard was the whistling of his nostrils as he snored. The jostling of the wardrobe and the dark, warm sack had somehow lulled him to sleep like a swaddled baby.
"Good thinking, Lurch, the children will never find him now! Oh, but if they start to get too frustrated, give them a hint, will you? They've had a lot of let-downs lately, what with the canceled party and all. I wouldn't want this to be another.” He gave the butler a sad little smile before exiting the room again. “It was nothing, cara mia!” he called out to his wife. “The children are playing a game!”
Lunch that day went by without a hitch, and Lurch made sure to clear the table as quickly as he could. Pugsley had been kind enough to volunteer himself as a distraction, and while he was showing his parents how he could build, set, and dismantle a pipe bomb, Wednesday and Lurch were hard at work.
Wednesday had gathered all of the decorations earlier that day; black and silver tinsel, barren wreaths with scarlet bows, branches of poisonous holly berries, boxes and boxes packed to the brim that would have otherwise been condemned to the basement. Morticia and Gomez had sadly instructed Lurch to be minimal with decor this year, but Wednesday had every intention to put it all to good use. She was also very insistent upon hanging half of it herself. Lurch only realized how serious she was when he felt a tug on the tinsel he was hanging by the table. His eye followed it, running neatly along the wall until it made a rather fatal looking drop down to where Wednesday was working busily at the same piece. It was hanging, all right, and it was precious, but from his perspective it was barely above the floor.
Wednesday locked eyes with him, pouting slightly. "That's not fair!" She stood on her tip-toes in an attempt to match his side, but it was no use. "You've hung the other side way too high!" After a few moments of leaping with the tinsel and failing to attach it to the wall, she turned back to Lurch, slightly out of breath. "Maybe… I can do it… if you lift me?"
She spent the rest of the time sitting on his shoulders, happily directing him around the room. “A little to the left, Lurch! …no, that’s too far! …oh, I meant to the right! There! Perfect!” She smiled, affixing the last wreath below a black paper chain. “Thank you, Lurch.” Wednesday gave the butler a little pat on the head, and he chuckled.
“I think that’s everything!” she stated proudly. “Except the mistletoe, but if I hang any of that then Father will never even make it to the table.”
Lurch nodded in agreement.
“Maaaybe when the blizzard lets up you can send your pen pal some mistletoe?” Wednesday suggested innocently.
Lurch let out a long, embarrassed groan. It seems she hadn’t forgotten about the letters after all. He lifted her off of his shoulders, placing her on the floor.
“Is she not that kind of pen pal? I think she is. Does this person live far away?” Wednesday pressed, turning around and following him as he shuffled to the kitchen. “What do they look like? You still haven’t told me how many heads to add to the paper doll!”
“I won’t need one,” Lurch muttered, shaking his head.
“But Luuuurch!”
Lurch ignored her, pulling out Grandmama’s stash of tea leaves that he had hidden in the cabinet beneath the sink. “Here. Take your pick.”
Wednesday gasped, suddenly distracted from her incessant badgering. “How did you get so many kinds?!”
“Grandmama’s collection,” he replied, smiling as he placed each jar on the counter. “For divination.” It was only now that he had the opportunity to truly read the labels, and she was right, they were like no teas he had ever seen before. There were the standard flavors, of course: henbane tea and black tea with cyanide, but even by glancing at the rest of the jars, he could tell they were all much harder to come by.
“Read them to me!” Wednesday chirped, bouncing on her tip-toes to see over the counter. “I have to know about every single one.”
At her request, Lurch began to examine the labels more closely. “Blue butterfly pea-flower tea. May cause nausea. Ishizuchi dark tea. Fermenting since 1927. Panda dung tea, very expensive, do not discard. English breakfast tea with lemon.”
Wednesday gagged, and Lurch let out a groan of disgust. This one was a bit strange, even for him. He pushed the jar of English breakfast tea out of reach, and continued to read.
“Tomato mint tea. Serve with vodka, cures and causes hangovers. Rosehip tea with holly and…” He squinted. “...gravel. From 1949.” He could only hope the gravel hadn’t lost its crunch in all those years; shame on Grandmama for not replacing it.
“Can we just taste them all?” Wednesday asked hopefully.
Lurch smiled down at her, nodding slowly. Why not? It would be good to know what they were serving, after all.
Soon enough, the pair of them had brewed themselves little samples of every variety of tea available to them– save the English breakfast, of course. Wednesday sat at the head of the table, the large chair dwarfing her tiny body, and held one of the cups in both hands. She had decided to try the blue butterfly pea-flower tea, despite her disappointment when she realized it contained no real butterflies. At least the nausea might be nice. Lurch sat beside her in a much smaller chair with his own little porcelain teacup. He had opted to sample the Ishizuchi dark tea first, and he was quite excited to discover what approximately forty years of fermentation could do for the flavor. He looked up at Wednesday, who was blowing at the steaming cup to cool it before raising it to her lips.
“Wait,” Lurch said.
She stared quizzically at him, holding her cup still. “But it’ll get cold!”
He held up a finger to silence her. Then, with his pinky angled upwards, he reached across the table to playfully clink their teacups together. Lurch had seen Wednesday do the same with her dolls before spilling the imaginary tea down their severed throats. He thought it was absolutely precious. Wednesday’s face broke into a huge, gap-toothed grin. “Oh!”
“Go ahead,” he said, smiling back at her. He lifted his cup to his lips, and she did the same. As soon as the hot liquid hit his tongue, he realized just how cold he had been. Wednesday was a genius, a Christmas tea party would be perfect for a blizzard. This particular tea was richer than any he had ever had, and was surprisingly savory, like a hearty broth. The sour aftertaste was, by far, the best part. He let out a satisfied sigh. Bacteria certainly worked wonders.
“That was good!” Wednesday stated, placing her cup on her saucer. “But I only feel a little bit nauseous.” She paused, peering into her cup, then smiled. “The leaves look like Homer!”
Lurch leaned over to look. Sure enough, the tea leaves had arranged themselves into something akin to the shape of a tiny spider. When he looked up, Wednesday had swiped his cup, and was staring intently at the pattern inside.
“It’s a heart!” she declared.
“What?” Lurch leaned over to see for himself, then shook his head. “It’s not.”
“Is too!” Wednesday insisted. “It’s even got all the parts, see?” She began to point to sections of the shape. “Look, here’s an artery, and another artery, and the aorta, and both ventricles! It’s definitely a heart!” She gave him a smug smile. “Which means I was right! Luuurch is in loooove!”
Lurch groaned, burying his head in his hands.
“You have to tell me all about it, you have to!” she insisted, tugging at his sleeve.
Lurch moved his arm away from her and reached towards the panda dung tea.
“Luuurch!”
“It’s getting cold,” he insisted, taking a sip. It tasted of bamboo, and was surprisingly nutty. He lifted his head to find Wednesday inches away from his face, peering into his cup. “Stop that.”
“This one looks like a telephone!”
Lurch blinked. “Telephone?”
“Or a candy cane,” Wednesday replied. “I’m not sure.”
Lurch’s face fell. “Oh.”
Wednesday sat back in her chair, giving the butler a long, hard look. “What’s the matter with you, Lurch?” He didn’t answer. “Were you going to call her?”
Lurch let out a soft sigh. There was no hiding anything from Wednesday Addams. He nodded.
“Are you sure you don’t want a paper doll to keep you company?”
“Wouldn’t help,” Lurch admitted. “But thank you.”
Wednesday’s little face scrunched up in frustration, and she was silent for a moment. The only thing that could be heard was the howling of the wind outside. “I wish I could stop the blizzard,” she mumbled. “It’s making everyone so upset. I just want us to have a good Christmas like always.”
Lurch’s heart ached for the poor child. Here she was, only six years old, and trying to single-handedly save Christmas for her entire family. Even during all of the previous party planning, the gravity of the situation for her never quite hit him. She wanted to control everything she possibly could, even the seating, to ensure that everybody had a good time. To chase away any potential disappointment. It wasn’t just fun for her, it was an obligation to her beloved family. A child her age shouldn’t have to worry about a thing on Christmas Eve besides how much yak she would be eating at dinner. He needed to be honest with her, but he refused to let her little heart break this way.
“I miss her. But I’ll call another time,” he assured Wednesday. He reached over the table to cup her tiny face in his hand. “Everything will be fine.”
Wednesday looked up at him with big, watery eyes. “You promise?”
“Cross my heart,” Lurch replied.
“You really won’t be lonely sitting at the end of the table?”
Lurch shook his head. “You’ll still talk to me. Won’t you?”
Wednesday smiled. “Of course!”
Lurch smiled right back, giving her a little pat on the cheek. He reached for two more teacups, and handed one to her. All she really wanted to do was play, and he would make sure every last minute of this party, planning or otherwise, would be the most fun she ever had. “Cheers,” he said, putting on the silliest high-pitched voice he could muster as he clinked their cups together.
Wednesday giggled. “Cheers!”
Finally, it was time. Lurch had prepared Christmas Eve dinner, and placed the glazed yak, toadstool casserole, and broiled eye of newt in the oven to keep warm. The first course would be tea served with headless gingerbread men; Wednesday insisted upon the benefits of eating dessert first. It had been quite a lot of work to prepare, but the look on Wednesday’s face when she smelled it all was worth it. One by one, each member of the family began to gather in front of the table, and soon enough, it was time for Pugsley to bring down the guests of honor.
“No peeking ‘til you’re all the way down the stairs!”
As soon as Lurch heard Pugsley’s voice, he quickly shushed the other guests. Mr. and Mrs. Addams couldn’t suspect a thing until the big reveal.
“Almost there! …Father, you’re walking the wrong way!”
“Hmm? So I am!”
“Gomez, darling, come hold onto my arm. We must be nearly there. Right, Pugsley?”
“Almost, almost… just a few more steps! …gosh, you walk slow.”
“Young man, your mother walks at a perfectly wonderful pace!”
“Actually, I was talking about you, Father. You look like you’re in slow motion. Oh, we’re here! You can look now!”
Gomez and Morticia removed their blindfolds, and their jaws dropped at the sight before them. The dining room was decked wall to wall with just about every Christmas decoration they owned. Everything was lit by little red lights strung about the ceiling, and two gorgeous candles dripping crimson wax. Though they only had a few people in the house, the room was packed with smiling faces- and a few fish tanks, too! The table held trays full of fresh gingerbread cookies, decorative sprigs of holly, and just about every tea kettle in the house, piping hot and full of brews beyond their wildest dreams. It was the most wonderful party they had ever seen.
“Surprise!” Wednesday cried, leaping in front of her parents and tossing black confetti. “Merry Christmas Eve!”
Morticia placed a hand over her heart. “Oh, how sweet! Wednesday, was this your idea?”
She nodded. “I wanted to make sure we’d have a Christmas party no matter what!”
“It’s A Christmas Surprise Par-tea!” Pugsley stated proudly. He frowned. “That doesn’t work as well out loud as it did in my head.”
Gomez grinned, and he scooped little Wednesday up into a big hug. “This is the best surprise anyone could ever ask for! Everyone’s here, even the piranhas!”
Morticia scanned the table once more. “But where is Uncle Fester?”
Lurch’s eyes widened, and he groaned. Everything had gone according to plan, but he had completely forgotten to let the poor man out! He turned sharply, heading up the stairs, and the rest of the family followed close behind.
The butler ran to the wardrobe and threw the doors open the moment he set foot inside of Fester’s room. Still fully swaddled in the burlap sack, Fester toppled out, grunting as he hit the floor. Lurch set him free as quickly as possible, and he wriggled out like a round little caterpillar, blinking the sleep from his eyes.
“Gee, that was a good nap!” He paused, glancing up at the crowd of family surrounding him. “Huh. How long was I out? What’s today, Gomez?”
“Why, Christmas Eve!” Gomez replied.
“Christmas Eve!” Fester sat up, scratching his head. He counted the hours on his fingers, and soon ran out of fingers to count. “Well, no wonder! I’m starving! Hey, did you hear about the party? I meant to tell you this morning!”
The dining room was soon filled with the sounds of happy chatter. Each person was sitting exactly according to Wednesday’s chart, sipping tea, and thoroughly enjoying each other’s company.
“This was a lovely idea, Wednesday,” Morticia told her daughter with a fond smile. “Thank you so much for planning such a wonderful evening.”
“Pugsley helped!” she replied. “But I really couldn’t have done it without Lurch.”
Morticia turned to Lurch, beaming. “Thank you, Lurch. You’ve made this Christmas so much more meaningful already.”
Lurch grunted in thanks, giving Morticia a tiny, crooked smile.
“Does everyone like their tea?” Grandmama asked, puffing out her chest proudly. “It’s all from my personal collection.”
“Oh? You have a tea collection?” Morticia asked.
“It’s from her fortune telling supplies, querida, and she’s finally given it up!” Gomez cried happily. “Guess that means all the days of coming home to that tent are behind us!”
“I can always buy more,” Grandmama muttered into her teacup.
Gomez turned his head. “What?”
“Nothing!”
“Thing!” Wednesday called from across the table. “Homer crawled too far into her cup again!”
Thing removed his pinky finger from where it was soaking in his teacup, reaching across the table to lift the tiny spider away from certain death.
“Thank you, Thing. That’s the third time tonight.” She held Homer in both hands. “I wish I didn’t see a spider in my tea leaves earlier. Then you might stay out of trouble!”
Cousin Itt piped up from the other end of the table, squeaking something about how tea leaves were a load of baloney, and spiders just get into trouble by nature. Or at least, that’s what it sounded like. It was hard to tell with Kitty licking him every five seconds.
“Oh no, all of this tea is specifically for fortune telling! Anything you see in those tea leaves is the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” Grandmama insisted.
“Well, my teacup must be broken,” Fester stated with his arms crossed. “There’s not a leaf to be seen!”
“It doesn’t work if you drink them all, Uncle Fester!” Pugsley informed him, dumping another cup of tea into Aristotle’s tank.
Gomez idly swirled his teacup. “Mine seems to be working fine!” He placed it on the saucer, grinning. “Look, Tish, doesn’t that look like two people sharing a tender Christmas Eve kiss?”
Morticia peered into the teacup. “That’s very sweet, Gomez, but all I see is a lovely vase.”
“A vase?” Gomez squinted at the teacup. “Querida, where on Earth are you seeing a vase?”
“Just there, in the middle. You see?”
Gomez leaned in further. “Not… quite…”
“Oh, but what’s this? The vase seems to have something inside of it.” She gave her husband a sly smile. “Is that mistletoe I see growing there?”
Gomez grinned. “Mistletoe? Suddenly I see the vase completely!”
Lurch groaned softly as Morticia held out her arm for Gomez to kiss. Tonight he was particularly sore about their public displays of affection. Just as he was about to feel sorry for himself, he heard something akin to a miracle.
The ringing of a telephone.
The hairs on the back of his neck rose as Morticia reached with her free hand to answer it. “Would you look at that, the phones are working again! How wonderful! The blizzard must be letting up!” She lifted the receiver to her ear. “Hello, Addams residence. …oh? Yes, he is. All the way from Spain, is that right? Oh, of course!”
Gomez stopped kissing, and his brow furrowed. “Spain? It’s not Pancho, is it?”
“No, darling, don’t worry.” She extended the phone to Lurch, and his heart skipped a beat. “It’s for you.”
“Who is it, Mother?” Pugsley asked.
“I know who it is!” Wednesday cried. “It’s Lurch’s pen pal, I know it!”
Lurch took the phone gingerly in his hands, raising it to his ear. “...Anna?”
Sure enough, their sweet, happy voice drifted through the receiver. “Lurch! Oh, I’m so glad! I called earlier and nothing went through, I was so worried! I was on the line with the operator for thirty minutes, and still nothing! Are you okay?”
Lurch beamed. Hearing her voice again was all he could ever ask for. He was so over the moon that he had nearly forgotten to answer their question. “I’m fine. There was a blizzard.”
“A blizzard!” Anna echoed. “That’s terrifying, I’m glad you’re alright!”
“Nothing serious,” he assured her. “Standard blizzard.”
Anna giggled. “Okay, standard blizzard it is! No worries here.” There was a soft meow on the other line. “Taki! Taki, ¿quieres hablar con Lurch?” Another meow. “¿Sí? ¿Quieres?”
Lurch let out a deep, resonant laugh. “Hello, Taki.”
“Oh, is Kitty with you?”
“She is.” Lurch held the phone over towards the lion.
“Aww, I can hear her sweet little purrs, she’s so cuuute…”
Lurch pulled the phone back to his ear, smiling far more than he ever normally did. “She’s grooming Itt.”
“It? Oh, Itt! Your cousin? Oh– is the rest of your family with you? How are they?”
His family. He had never truly heard any outsider call them that. Morticia and Gomez always did say he was more than a butler to them, but most people couldn’t see past his job. But Anna knew. She could tell how well he fit in with them from every letter he wrote. Lurch watched as each member of the family paused their conversations to steal glances at him on the phone. He could hear them whispering praise about him, celebrating his joy. Perhaps he was more than an employee after all. He glanced at Wednesday, who was staring straight at him with an enormous smile on her face. She almost seemed happier than he was. He knew she would be overjoyed to accept Anna as one of the family too.
“They’re doing very well.”
“I’m so glad!”
The sunshine in her voice seemed to melt away any ill effects of the blizzard. It was the only hint of light he would allow in his life. “Would you like to hear me play my harpsichord?” he asked.
“I’d love to.”
After a bit of prompting, the entire family had gathered around Lurch and his harpsichord. Thing held the receiver close to the instrument so that Anna could hear him play. The blizzard seemed to have finally slowed outside, and the gentle patter of sleet against the windowsill was the perfect percussion to accompany Lurch’s haunting rendition of Carol of the Bells.