Work Text:
***
November 27th:
When Marvyn leaves to pick Emma up from the airport after her visit to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving, Holly doesn’t expect them to come home with a six-foot Christmas tree in tow.
“Wow,” is all she can say when Marvyn wrestles the tree through the front door.
“Isn’t it great?” He’s beaming at her.
“Where are you going to put it?”
He looks around the bungalow, face falling when he realizes there isn’t an obvious spot. Holly gives Emma a hug and takes pity on him.
“If we move the chair and the bench, it’ll probably fit up against the stairs.”
His face brightens again. He holds the tree upright while she and Emma move the furniture out of the way.
“Okay, Emma, you bring the tree stand and Holly, come help me hold it steady.”
But in the ten minutes or so since they’ve been home, the smell of pine has become overwhelming, and Holly decides she needs to be elsewhere.
“I actually have a headache; I’m going to go lie down for a bit. And I haven’t set up a Christmas tree in years, so I wouldn’t be any help anyway.”
Marvyn gives her a worried look as she leaves, but she’ll make it up to him.
Upstairs, Holly lays down, closes her eyes.
When she was married, Mark only ever wanted a fake tree; he said real ones were too much of a hassle. And they didn’t do much with the fake tree, anyway. Or for the holidays in general. She got used to it. Started believing she preferred it, even, that it was better not to make a fuss.
And after the divorce, alone, the holidays felt less bleak when she didn’t do much to commemorate the time of year, besides participate in the Westbrook Secret Santa gift exchange.
While it lasted. Before the events of 2018.
She can hear them downstairs, Marvyn cursing and Emma laughing as he does. She hears what she thinks is the tree falling over at least twice.
After the cursing and laughing sounds die down, Marvyn comes up to find her.
“Head feeling better?” He sits down on the bed beside her, runs a hand through her hair. It gets stuck. He tugs at it, once, twice. Holly winces.
“Oops. Pinesap.”
“Marvyn!”
“Hold still, I think I can get it, hang on.” He tries for another few seconds, then calls out towards the hall.
“Emma, can you bring me some scissors, please?”
“Marvyn. No.”
“Never mind, Emma.”
Holly sits patiently as he peels strands of her hair off of his pinesap coated hand, resigned to the fact that she will have clumpy, pinesap scented hair for at least the next week. But better that than a strangely missing chunk. She sighs. It’s not even December and Christmas is already going great.
As he works, Marvyn starts to talk.
“Even before the divorce, I wasn’t home very much around the holidays. Our season started in November, so if I wasn’t on the road with the team I was at practice or watching game tape –”
“No after work,” Holly observes.
“Exactly. And I’d come home late and see the Christmas cookies she and Caren baked, or a new ornament on the tree that the kids made at school that day, but I didn’t really participate in any of it.”
“And after the divorce I threw myself even further into work, ignored everything else. Emma and I would usually spend Christmas Eve or Christmas Day together, depending on the year, and if I was in town. But that was all we ever did.”
“Once she moved here full time, I realized that even if I regret missing those years, we could do more now, make new holiday memories and traditions.”
“But Emma spent Christmas with her mom last year, in Wisconsin. Where she’s spent probably every Christmas she can remember. Where there’s snow, and ice skating and a parade, a whole big celebration.”
Holly rubs circles on his knee as he continues trying to extricate his hand from her hair.
“So, I just sat at home and drank whiskey all day, didn’t do anything to mark the holiday.”
“Since she’s here this year, and because it’s our first Christmas with you, I want to make the season special. And make sure she’s not missing that Wisconsin Christmas magic.”
Holly sighs. “I didn’t do anything last year either, haven’t done anything in years, really. Swap wine for whiskey and mine looked a lot like yours.”
Marvyn has finally managed to remove his hand from her hair. He reaches to take her hand with his, but Holly is able to grab his wrist before he can.
“Go wash your hands. Multiple times.”
He grins at her, rueful, and goes into the bathroom.
Over the sound of running water and scrubbing, he calls back into the bedroom.
“I thought we could make some new holiday traditions this year, the three of us.”
Holly feels a little jolt of foreboding at that. “What kind of … traditions? Because I haven’t been to church in twenty years.”
“No, no, nothing like that. Just family fun.”
Holly tries to feign enthusiasm as best she can, but she’s not sure she succeeds. “Sure. That sounds great.”
“Very convincing.”
“I’m just not sure I know how to have fun at the holidays anymore,” she admits.
Marvyn comes back into the bedroom, drying his hands, and smiles at her. “Let’s try. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I think you’ll like it if you let yourself. Even if it is eighty degrees outside, which is so wrong.”
November 28th:
They decorate the tree. Holly shouldn’t be surprised that despite not having had a Christmas tree in years, Marvyn has a very strict aesthetic for tree decoration.
And if she thinks white lights with gold and silver balls is a little lacking in personality, she isn’t going to tell Marvyn that. But apparently her face does because he’s immediately defensive.
“It’s elegant, timeless. It’s a classic. You can’t go wrong with a classic.”
Emma eyes the elegant, timeless tree. Holly would be worried about the gleam in her eye if her dad’s aesthetic weren’t clearly the target.
Holly pulls out what few decorations she still has, a family heirloom gold star tree-topper, a few holiday-scented candles and a small collection of decorative bottle brush and metallic trees.
Marvyn is enamored by the star and adds it to the top of the tree.
The candles don’t seem to interest him at all. Holly likes the way the peppermint one looks and puts it on the kitchen counter near the stove. The mulled wine one goes on the side table.
Marvyn stares at her decorative trees skeptically.
“Little trees, really?”
“What? They’re festive.”
“How are they festive, Holly? They’re little trees.”
“They’re Christmas trees, Marvyn. And some of them are sparkly.”
After they set up her little trees, despite Marvyn’s protests, he puts on Frank Sinatra’s Christmas album over the speakers, and they cuddle in front of the fireplace. Though only after Holly has made him prove to her three separate times that there is no pinesap on his hands.
When Christmas Memories comes on, Marvyn stands and holds his hands out for her. Holly takes them, confused, until he pulls her into his arms and waltzes her around the living room while the song plays in the background.
Holly still feels apprehensive about changing the whole way she has approached the holiday season for decades, but the lights from the tree are making Marvyn’ eyes gleam as he smiles at her, the smell of pine has become less overwhelming the more she gets used to it, and there suddenly doesn’t seem to be any real reason to resist.
***
Later, before they go to sleep, Marvyn brings it up again. “Are you sure you’re okay with all this holiday cheer? I don’t want to force it on you.”
Holly gives him a pointed look but softens it with a hand on his cheek. “But you’ll impose your large Christmas tree aesthetic on me and make fun of my mini-Christmas trees.”
“Yeah, now you’re getting it. But I want you to be having fun, not just doing it for me.”
She smiles at him. “I think it’s going to be great.”
November 29th:
To prove that she really is a willing participant in Marvyn’s “Special Christmas” plan, Holly goes out to buy them stockings. She’s tempted by a stocking covered in basketballs for Marvyn and one with a palm tree for Emma, but then she thinks of Marvyn’s “elegant, classic” tree and chooses simple gold stockings with each of their first initials stitched in dark green instead.
She adds some more bottle-brush trees to her basket, though, because she can. Neon pink and blue and yellow ones that Marvyn is going to hate, that will clash with his elegant white and gold tree. She loves them already. Then she spots the Elf. Its face is the creepiest thing she’s seen in weeks. ‘Elf on the Shelf’ is printed on the tag. She adds it to her basket.
When she gets home, she hangs the stockings on the stair railing, near the tree, arranges the mini trees together on either side of the fireplace, and Googles ‘Elf on the Shelf.’
December 1st:
Newly focused on making this season magical, Marvyn thinks Westbrook could probably do a little more to lean into the holiday spirit, too. In a secular, inclusive way. Although, on reflection, he realizes they might already do that, just no one bothered to tell him about it in years past.
He brings it up with Sherilyn after he and Holly finish going over the upcoming game schedules with her.
“Does the faculty usually have a Secret Santa or a White Elephant exchange or anything?”
Sherilyn and Holly both flinch at Marvyn’s question. Marvyn’s innocent, perfectly innocuous question. Or what he thought was an innocuous question anyway, in December.
Holly opens her mouth, then glances at Sherilyn. Who is staring her down.
“Holly.”
Marvyn doesn’t think that he’s ever heard Sherilyn sound more menacing. And he’s heard her sound plenty menacing before. The time she called them out about kissing after the charity game comes to mind. Or when she read him the riot act when he thought he might be going to UCSB. Two examples of many.
Holly looks at her, then back at Marvyn, closes her mouth. Opens it again.
“Holly Barrett.”
And it turns out Sherilyn could up the menacing quotient even more. Who knew. It’s terrifying.
Holly looks at Marvyn and rushes the words out, probably so Sherilyn can’t object in time. “I swore an oath never to discuss the events of the 2018 Westbrook Secret Santa. We all did.”
“The oath also included not revealing the existence of the oath, Holly.”
Marvyn decides he’s legitimately scared of Sherilyn. And that he has to find out what happened at this Secret Santa in 2018.
***
Marvyn is aware that he’s not good at picking out gifts, that he needs backup.
Emma has barely walked in the front door before he’s spinning her around and back out. “C’mon, Santa’s helper, I need you. We’re on a mission.”
Holly is right behind her and just gives Emma a baffled look as Marvyn drags her out the door.
They go to four different jewelry stores before he spots the perfect present for Holly. He’s a little surprised Emma isn’t complaining, but she seems very invested in helping Marvyn choose the right gift. When he finally finds it, when Emma suggests a way of customizing it to make it more meaningful and the store confirms they can complete it by the 20th, Marvyn thinks it’s a sign that this is going to be a perfect Christmas.
December 3rd:
There is a creepy doll in his bonsai tree. It’s peering out from between two stems, wearing a hat and looking at him with vacant eyes that track his every movement. It’s smiling. A bone chilling smile that implies it knows when he’s going to die.
“Holly!” He definitely doesn’t scream in panic like a child. He screams in panic like a man.
“What, what’s wrong?” She rushes in from her office.
“What is that thing and why is it in my office?”
Holly is silent. Marvyn is staring so hard at the awful doll that it takes him a minute to look at her and realize she’s turning red from trying not to laugh. And that she may have just taken a photo of him with her phone.
“Did you do this?”
“It’s an Elf on the Shelf, Marvyn.” She bursts into giggles.
He has no idea what that means. He Googles it. Scrolls through an explanation and lots of photos. It is deeply troubling.
“It’s not even on a shelf. It’s in my plant. And it’s meant to be for kids! Why aren’t you tormenting Emma with that thing?”
“How do you know I’m not?”
Marvyn grabs his phone.
Marvyn: Did Holly hide a demonic looking elf in your room???
Emma: What?
Emma: No
Emma: Is everything okay dad?
Emma: You seem more deranged than usual
Holly can’t stop laughing. From inside the bonsai, the Elf’s eyes follow Marvyn wherever he goes.
“Funny.”
“I think so,” Holly says, kissing his frown away.
December 5th:
Marvyn hangs a sprig of mistletoe in the doorway between his and Holly’s offices. He catches her under it three times that morning alone. He’s forced to rethink it when George comes by to complain that Marvyn missed one of their scheduled sessions and ends up underneath the dangling plant.
Thankfully Marvyn is on the other side of his office at the time, but it’s a pointed illustration of the danger.
He takes the opportunity to grill George about Secret Santa 2018 but gets nowhere. He hasn’t even got the question out before George is backing out of his office.
Later, Marvyn takes the mistletoe down from the doorway and puts it up in their bedroom instead.
***
After dinner, Marvyn sets out red paper and silver glitter pens and suggests that Emma write a letter to Santa.
Holly expects some typical teenage sarcasm and an eyeroll, along with a flat refusal, so she’s surprised when Emma sits at the kitchen table and accepts the assignment. Holly opens a bottle of wine, pours herself and Marvyn a glass, all while Emma diligently writes on her festive paper.
“Really? A letter to Santa? She’s seventeen, Marvyn.”
“I have to admit, I expected more of a protest. I didn’t think she’d actually do it.”
“Are all of your holiday plans designed to tease your daughter?”
“Only some of them.”
Holly can tell when curiosity gets the best of Marvyn, because he starts drifting closer to Emma, trying to read over her shoulder as she writes.
“Emma, you’re supposed to write a letter to Santa, not Satan.”
Emma blinks up at him.
“I assumed for the purposes of this exercise that we were pretending that I was five years old. I’m not good at spelling yet, because I’m five.” Emma’s voice is the innocent tone that means she’s messing with you. She catches Holly’s eye and winks.
Marvyn gets closer.
His voice gets louder. “If you’re pretending to be five, why are you asking Santa for eye of newt and a demon-summoning spell and an eldritch cottage in the woods?”
Holly thinks she might be giving herself a hernia trying not to laugh out loud.
“And what is the lost scepter of Beelzebub, Emma?”
Emma is shaking with silent laughter.
Holly grabs her wine glass and Emma’s hand, and they sprint for the stairs, barely making it to the top before they collapse into peals of laughter, sprawled on the second-floor landing, where Marvyn can absolutely still hear them. Holly is crying with laughter before she can compose herself.
When Holly goes back downstairs, because her wine glass is empty and she’s laughed herself almost sick, Marvyn is pretending that he isn’t pouting. Holly sits in his lap and says, “I’ve been a good girl this year, Satan, can I have a present?” to cheer him up.
***
December 8th:
Marvyn is walking into the locker room to diagram plays on his whiteboard when he spots the Elf, perched on top of the lockers. It’s covering its mouth with its hand like it’s laughing at him.
“Gah!” He doesn’t yelp. He is a grown man. He just makes a startled noise. Definitely not a yelp.
When he’d looked up this Elf on a Shelf thing, it seemed like it was something parents did every night. He thinks Holly’s ambush tactic is so much worse. He can’t even brace himself to see it in a new spot every day.
He can hear Holly laughing from her office. So, she and the Elf are both laughing at him. Perfect. Everything’s funny.
“Holly!”
“What, Marvyn? I’m finding the joy in Christmas. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Marvyn realizes he may have created a monster.
***
Holly and Emma get home from school to find Marvyn in the kitchen, wearing an apron with Santa’s face on it, pulling a tray of sugar cookies out of the oven. There are two more trays already on the kitchen counter, and an array of frosting tubes and jars of sprinkles spread around them.
“Good, you’re home. It’s holiday cookie decorating time.” He grins at them.
“Marvyn, I’ve got final exams to write.” Holly takes a cookie, though.
“And I need to study for mine,” Emma adds, grabbing two tubes of frosting.
Holly takes one of them away from her. “Sugar-addled studying is not going to be productive.”
“But you’re letting her keep one.”
“It’s Christmas, Marvyn.”
Once she’s done with half of her exams, Holly caves and joins Marvyn in the kitchen, wrapping her arms around him from behind, head resting against his shoulder while he decorates cookies, humming “All I Want for Christmas is You.”
December 12th:
When Marvyn walks into his office after lunch and spots the Elf clinging to his framed Wisconsin jersey, he snaps and storms next door.
“Holly, no more Elf on the Shelf. I mean it. Please.”
Holly just smirks. Marvyn realizes appealing to her better nature is not going to work when this entertains her so much. He needs to try a different approach.
“Okay, well, maybe I’ll just get you back. Find some way to torture you with a Christmas themed prank, too.”
Holly just rolls her eyes.
“How would you like three French hens or seven swans or a partridge in a pear tree? Or some calling birds or turtle doves? Cause I could do that, you know. Just fill your whole office up with birds like in a weird old song.”
Marvyn realizes he sounds defensive, but he can’t help it. He finds this Elf situation very stressful.
“Am I your true love, then?” She stands and winds an arm around his neck, smiling gently and looking up at him through her eyelashes, and he softens, like the sap for her that he is.
“Obviously. But if you keep tormenting me with this Elf on a Shelf, I may reconsider.”
She grins up at him then, clearly unrepentant.
“Worth it.”
“Well, what if I organize the girls to give you a series of weird Secret Santa gifts? That could be entertaining for me.”
All the blood drains from Holly’s face when he says the words ‘Secret Santa.’
She takes a step back.
Marvyn considers. Thinks back to the strange conversation earlier this month in Sherilyn’s office, how fast George ran out of his office when he brought it up a few days ago.
“Seriously, what happened in 2018? You have to tell me. Sherilyn’s not even here right now.”
Holly walks out of their office and doesn’t come back for the rest of the day. And Emma isn’t answering his texts. So Marvyn has to make the paper chains and popcorn garlands for the office all by himself.
***
Holly and Emma leave school early, because Emma has study hall last period and Holly doesn’t have practice and wants to avoid any further questioning about Secret Santa 2018, to go Christmas shopping for Marvyn.
Holly takes her to the Shops at La Jolla Village, and they drink hot chocolate as they browse, occasionally drawing the other’s eye to something they think Marvyn might like.
In a little boutique, they inspect and reject a glass decanter, a set of coasters, various and sundry metal objects that don’t seem to have a purpose, and a number of attractive coffee table books.
Finally, Emma spots a beautiful snow globe in a golden motif, showing the whole of downtown La Jolla with a striking silhouette of the mountains in the background.
“It’s perfect,” Emma says.
“He’s going to love it,” Holly agrees.
“Now we just need to find something for you to give him.”
“Oh, I got his gift months ago,” Holly says, smiling.
“What is it?”
“It’s a surprise.”
Emma buys the snow globe, excited. Though when she takes the bag, she sags under its weight. Holly takes it from her and nearly sags herself.
“Your dad is going to love this, sweetie, good job.”
“He’d better, with how overboard he’s been going about Christmas. When I was a kid, he was never around doing anything like this. I was lucky if he was there on Christmas morning to open presents.”
Holly puts an arm around her, though it does make her rather lopsided to be carrying the snow globe’s bag in only one hand. “Your dad cares a lot about making this Christmas special for you.”
“Why this one?”
“Because it’s the first you’re spending here, in California, not in Wisconsin.”
“That’s dumb.”
“He means well, honey. He just wants you to have a good time and not wish you were somewhere else. And I think he regrets missing those Christmases when you were a kid. That’s why he’s been going overboard with activities.”
Emma looks thoughtful. She hands her cup of hot chocolate to Holly.
“Can you hold that for a sec? I just remembered I need to get one more thing.”
She dashes off.
December 14th:
“Not to brag –” Marvyn begins.
“For once?”
“Not to brag,” he repeats himself, eyeing her, “but you are going to love your present. It’s perfect.”
Holly takes a sip of her wine. “I’m sure I will. La Jolla Joe’s has good coffee and nice pastries.”
Emma laughs.
Marvyn rolls his eyes at her.
***
It isn’t until they are sitting down to dinner that Holly realizes Marvyn’s elegant, impersonal Christmas tree now sports ornaments that aren’t just glass balls. She sees what looks like an alien, Darth Vader, at least four dinosaurs, a dragon, a zombie, some sort of upsetting octopus thing with tentacles, a variety of other weird creatures, and three different types of spaceship.
She assumes this is why Emma has received multiple packages a day for the past two weeks that she refused to explain or discuss.
Holly likes it.
When he finally notices, Marvyn does not. He fusses around the tree, muttering, taking everything off that isn’t a gold or silver ball, handing them to Holly and Emma to hold as he goes.
“What is this?” Marvyn shakes the green figure at Emma, making Holly queasy at the way it causes its tentacles to jiggle.
“It’s Cthulhu.”
“And what is a ‘Cthulhu?’” Marvyn demands, stumbling over the pronunciation.
“An Eldritch god, duh.”
“Where do you even get a … Cthulhu ornament?”
Emma shrugs. “Target.”
“I don’t even – okay, what’s this one?” He brandishes one of the spaceships.
“A Cylon fighter.”
“Cylon – ” Marvyn looks at Holly. “Are you following any of this?”
“Battlestar Galactica. And that other spaceship is Serenity if I’m not mistaken.”
Holly collects Emma’s discarded ornaments and puts them on the coffee table, arranging them into a manger scene, appreciating the breadth of Emma’s attempt to undermine her dad’s rigid tree aesthetic. She thinks baby Yoda makes a very nice Jesus to Darth Vader’s Joseph and the Grey Alien’s Mary. An axolotl, anglerfish, hammerhead shark, and a pelican trying to eat a capybara keep watch over the manger.
Cthulhu is a little off-putting as a Wise Man, but his gift of a lightsaber will probably be appreciated. The zombie Wise Man’s gift of a shrimp ornament, maybe less so. The dragon and his pickle are a toss-up.
Dinosaurs guard their flock of Cylon fighters, Serenity, and X-Wings by night, while a Weeping Angel prepares to tell them of the birth of baby Yoda. Or snap their necks. Or send them back in time. Holly is so pleased with the effect that she can’t stop smiling.
It takes up the entire coffee table.
“You realize this is way weirder than just having some geeky ornaments on your Christmas tree, right?” Emma asks.
Holly’s smile widens. “I like it. And your dad has very strong opinions about elegant tree aesthetics. It’s a compromise.”
Marvyn takes a deep breath. “The tree design a is a timeless, classic – ”
“We know,” Holly and Emma say at the same time.
Because Holly’s manger scene takes up the entire coffee table, they can’t rest their feet there later that night when they’re watching SportsCenter before bed, so they have to lay stretched out along the couch, spooning. Holly adds that to the “Pros” column of the manger scene, right after “annoys Marvyn while maintaining his precious tree design” and “validates Emma’s attempt to annoy her father while maintaining his precious tree design.”
The list has yet to have any “Cons.”
Holly thinks she’s really getting into the Christmas spirit.
December 18th:
Marvyn bounds downstairs, where Emma is sitting on the couch on her phone and Holly is pulling things out of the fridge for dinner.
“What do you guys say to a Christmas movie marathon? Let’s start with ‘Love, Actually.’ It’s a classic. Emma, you’re gonna love it.”
“Veto.” Emma’s voice is bored but final. Marvyn notices she doesn’t even look up from her phone.
Marvyn turns to look at Holly. She’s nodding at Emma’s statement.
“I’ll send you the Jezebel article, Marvyn.” He doesn’t know what that means, but he rolls with it.
“How about Die Hard?”
“Nope.” Emma’s voice is still bored, still final.
Marvyn cuts out the middleman and just turns to Holly.
“Holly Gennaro literally drops the symbol of her professional success so that her ex-husband can rescue her. The sexism can’t even be bothered to be subtle.”
“What about A Christmas Story?”
“Child abuse, misogyny –”
“Racism and toxic masculinity.” Holly finishes for her.
“Okay, I give up.”
They watch all of the Christmas episodes of Community instead of a movie. Maryvn ends up with his head in Holly’s lap and thinks that this isn’t so bad. But the next time Holly and Emma are out of the house, he’s watching Die Hard.
December 20th:
Holly and Emma abstain from making a gingerbread house, leaving Marvyn on his own to sit at the kitchen table, painstakingly assembling graham crackers and then sticking gumdrops to them while they read in the living room.
But Holly eventually feels guilty for abandoning him, so she joins him at the table, carefully arranging candy cane trees around the house while he finishes the crenellation.
She supposes she shouldn’t be surprised when he brings up Secret Santa again. Marvyn can be like a dog with a bone sometimes.
“Did someone bring a really inappropriate gift to the Secret Santa, is that the thing no one will talk about? Like a vibrator or naked pictures of themselves?”
“Marvyn, I’ve already told you I can’t divulge that information.”
“Oh, did someone get wasted and hit on Sherilyn? Or dance on a table? I bet it was George.”
“Marvyn, there was an oath.”
“Were there spiders? A swarm of spiders?”
She doesn’t say anything.
“I’m going to get it out of you.”
Holly just shakes her head and sticks one of the candy canes in her mouth instead of in the yard.
December 21st:
The Elf is on top of the gym’s scoreboard. Marvyn has no idea how Holly could have gotten it up there. It must be thirty feet off of the ground.
If he’d asked, Holly would have told him she found a tall ladder and asked her tallest player to help her, that it wasn’t very difficult, Marvyn just lacks imagination.
***
Marvyn is in the staff room getting coffee when Maggie and Felix come in. He takes what might be his last opportunity to ask about Secret Santa, since Winter Break starts tomorrow.
“Hey guys, why didn’t the faculty do some kind of holiday party with a gift exchange this year or last year?”
They’re silent for a beat, exchanging a look.
Finally, Felix speaks, voice flat. “We don’t do Secret Santa or Yankee Swap or any other variation at Westbrook.”
“Not since 2018,” Maggie adds.
They refuse to elaborate.
With this confrontation, he has now cornered four different members of the faculty, not including Holly, or Sherilyn, without any success. He should have known Carol was going to be a vault, but he really should have been able to crack George.
But everyone just keeps making the same panicked face, refusing to answer, and backing away. Well, except Carol. She stared him down until he was the one that backed away.
He makes another attempt with Holly. “How bad was it? Just give me a hint. I’m starting to worry that someone was murdered because you’re all so twitchy. And everyone keeps leaving the faculty lounge whenever I walk in now.”
Holly doesn’t answer.
“Okay.”
He scrubs his hand over his face.
“At least I don’t have to see that Elf again, since I don’t think you can get it down from the scoreboard. If I do, I may lose it, Holly, I’m serious.”
***
That night they make eggnog from scratch. Holly finds it surprisingly fun.
December 24th:
Marvyn insists that they watch It’s a Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve, but twenty minutes into the movie Emma revolts, calling it a cringy depression-fest.
She turns on a marathon of Doctor Who Christmas Specials instead, though they skip the mediocre ones. Holly is asleep on Marvyn’s shoulder by the time Jodie defeats the Daleks and he announces that it’s time for bed.
Emma protests. “But I wanted to watch ‘How the Ghosts Stole Christmas.”
“Mulder and Scully will still be there tomorrow. Bedtime now. Or Santa won’t visit.”
Emma smirks. “Don’t you mean Satan? I really hope he brings me the ritual blood-letting knives I asked for.”
“Bed, daughter.”
Holly just curls into him more when Marvyn tries to wake her for bed, so finally he carries her up the stairs.
December 25th:
They open gifts early, though not too early; Emma is a teenager after all.
Emma hands Holly a flat box. Inside are two photo ornaments, one navy with Bloodhounds 2022-2023 written along the bottom of this year’s team portrait and a matching purple one with a picture of this year’s Sirens.
“Oh, Emma thank you, I love them,” Holly says.
“I know they violate the elegant tree aesthetic – “
Marvyn takes them carefully from Holly and stands up to hang both ornaments on the tree.
“Exceptions can be made. But still no Cthulhus. Or Cylons. Lifetime ban.”
“Obviously, because they have to stay in my manger scene,” Holly adds.
Holly watches, delighted, as Marvyn opens his snow globe from Emma and is enchanted with it. He starts walking around the room, putting it in different spots, assessing to see where it’s the most visible and eye-catching.
Emma opens a box set of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare from Marvyn, a mini digital photo printer from her mom, and something from the girls that she explains is a gag gift but that she refuses to give any context for.
It turns out, Marvyn was right that Holly would love his gift. It’s a beautiful gold necklace, the pendant a delicate, stylized coach’s whistle on a short, thin chain.
Her eyes well up at the sight of it, but then she catches a detail.
There are a series of tiny numbers etched along the back that look like dates. She runs a finger over them, considering, then looks up at Marvyn.
“The day we met. Our first kiss. Letting the universe decide. And today?”
“Our first Christmas.”
She kisses him.
“Softy.”
“I had some help.”
Emma smiles. “I figured we could improve on a coffee shop gift card at this point.”
Marvyn beams, clearly proud of himself, and helps Holly put the necklace on.
“Really bummed I didn’t get those ritual blood knives I asked Satan for,” Emma says, snuggling into the blanket scarf Holly gave her.
“Maybe next year,” Holly says.
Marvyn looks under the tree, where there are no more presents, and turns wounded eyes on Holly. She laughs as she stands and pulls him up from his seated position on the floor, tugging him over to the coat closet. Emma trails behind them.
Holly’s gift for Marvyn might have technically fit under the tree, but after lugging it inside the house when it was delivered on the 23rd, she refused to try and lift it again, instead tucking it in here with a bow on top, knowing Marvyn wouldn’t need to go into the coat closet before Christmas because it’s 75 degrees outside.
Marvyn looks down at the small oak cask, then back at her, confused.
Holly hopes she can do this explanation justice, hopes that Marvyn understands the significance of both aspects of her gift.
“Right after the Mission Valley fire last spring, this local distillery held a fundraiser to raise money for people who were displaced. They sold shares of single barrel batches of a commemorative whiskey, before they started making it. Then they collected wood from Pasadena oak trees that burned to the right amount of char in the fire to use as liners for the barrels, so the whiskey would be imbued with that specific smoke as it ages.”
“It's meant to be a memorial to what was lost but also proof that there’s meaning in creating something new from loss.”
“I happened to walk by the distillery the day they started selling the shares. And when I heard the description,” her voice hitches, “I thought about drinking your championship scotch in my classroom and holding your hand while the world burned down, talking about fear. How even though I was terrified, and nothing was okay, I didn’t want to be anywhere but there, with you. So, I knew I had to get it for you.”
“They could only find enough wood to make 132 barrels. Each one is numbered and has a verified ID.” She hands him the leaflet that came with the cask, which says that his is #42 and that it was distilled on November 12, 2022.
Marvyn’s eyes are glassy as he looks at her, stunned.
“Holly.”
He has to clear his throat.
“Thank you.”
Holly continues, “In twenty years, the distillery plans to host a memorial of the fire and bottle the whiskey from all the barrels. We can take your barrel to the memorial and have something beautiful that came out of all of that destruction.”
He pauses.
“We, huh? You won’t have gotten sick of me by then?”
“I guess we’ll have to wait and see,” Holly replies, smiling.
He glances at the leaflet briefly, then looks back at it more closely when something catches his eye.
“This says that you bought it on May 5th. We weren’t – Emma and I were still at the motel then. We hadn’t even kissed yet.”
Holly swallows. “I thought – hoped – we might be moving in this direction. Even if that idea still terrified me if I let myself think about it too much. But I figured, with a twenty-year lead time, I could afford to make that bet.”
“And even if we hadn’t ended up together, I still would have wanted to give it to you. Because you’re my best friend and you made a truly awful time better just by being there with me. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind last spring that you would still be in my life in some capacity in twenty years.”
Holly wraps her arms around his neck.
“And I liked the idea of marking that time, but with something that will get better as every year goes by.”
Marvyn swallows. “Hol. Thank you. I love it. Even though I already have something even better, even more beautiful that came out of all of that destruction.”
She smiles. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“You know what.”
Holly laughs. “I don’t think the fire is ultimately what caused us to get together, though I guess it might have been an accelerant?”
Marvyn groans at her terrible joke, then kisses her for long enough that Emma starts clanging pots and pans in the kitchen, making a noisy show of cooking breakfast so that they get the hint to stop. Eventually.
After breakfast, they go to the beach.
Marvyn holds Holly’s hand as they stroll, his other arm around Emma’s shoulders.
“So, what do you think, daughter? Christmas in California, not so bad, right? Even if there’s no snow, and only indoor-ice skating?”
“Dad, it’s four degrees in Wisconsin right now. The lack of snow here is a feature, not a bug.”
“Huh. I hadn’t thought about it like that.”
***
When they get home from the beach, Marvyn starts cooking Christmas dinner. He wants to eat at 3:00, leaving plenty of time for a food-coma nap and then a pleasant evening together. He should know by now that his plans rarely work out as he intends.
The doorbell rings around 1:30. Holly opens the door to find the girls on the doorstep.
“Merry Christmas! We’re here to get Emma,” Mouse says.
“I’ll be down in a second,” Emma calls from upstairs. Holly ushers the girls inside.
“Wait, what’s going on?” Marvyn comes out into the living room, still in his Santa apron.
“We’re going to the mall,” Destiny explains.
Before Emma can get downstairs, the girls have some opinions on the Barrett-Korn household’s holiday décor.
“Wow, Coach, your tree is super basic.”
Holly laughs at Louise’s comment but snaps her mouth closed when Marvyn whirls, ready to defend his aesthetic.
“Incredibly basic,” agrees Samantha.
Destiny, Mouse, and Ava are staring at Holly’s manger scene on the coffee table, either fascinated or horrified, Holly can’t tell.
“What in God’s name is going on here?” Okay, Destiny sounds horrified.
“I can’t even begin to comment on how weird I find this,” Ava says.
“It’s a lot,” Mouse adds. “Is that a Weeping Angel? They give me nightmares.”
“I told you so, Holly,” Emma says, walking down the stairs.
“Emma Korn, you picked out every ornament that is a part of it.”
Emma shrugs. “Still.”
Holly can hear Marvyn talking earnestly to Samantha and Louise behind her, laying out his seven-pronged argument for classic elegance at the holidays. Louise is ignoring him to admire Holly’s bottle brush tree collection next to the fireplace before she turns back to Marvyn. “I really like these trees, Coach, the neon is super 2010s retro, which is very hip. Surprising. I don’t think of you as hip.”
Holly laughs outwardly at the comment and internally tries not to die that 2010 is considered retro. Marvyn groans.
Marvyn turns to Emma. “Emma, I thought we were having Christmas dinner this afternoon?”
“I’ll be home in time for normal dinner.”
“Marvyn.” Holly puts her hand on his arm. “Let her go have fun with her friends. We can eat a little later.”
As Emma is on her way out the door, she calls back: “I have one more gift for you both. It’s under the tree.”
The door closes behind all the girls.
They unwrap Emma’s gift together, to discover a beautiful scrapbook with Our First Christmas inscribed on the cover.
It begins with a series of pictures of Marvyn trying to put the tree up, including one where it has fallen on top of him, concluding with the final, decorated tree. Then a picture of their stockings on the stairs and the mini, neon Christmas trees next to the fireplace.
There’s a series that Holly took of Marvyn’s various reactions to finding the Elf on the Shelf all over the office and the gym. She’s glad now that she shared them with Emma every time she managed to get one.
Emma’s detailed letter to Satan is there. There’s a picture of Destiny, Samantha and Holly holding the Elf on the Shelf and smiling, and a selfie Emma took of her, Holly and Marvyn on the couch, stockings in the background.
And pictures of Holly’s manger from a few different angles, pictures of Marvyn’s gingerbread house in multiple stages of progress, including one of Holly and Marvyn with heads bent together over it that Holly wants to print another copy of and frame, and then the finished gingerbread house.
The last few pages even have a series of 2x3 pictures from that morning, some of the three of them together under the tree opening presents, and some from the beach, including one of Holly and Marvyn walking along the shore, away from the camera with arms wrapped around each other’s waists. Emma must have printed them on her new photo printer when they got back from the beach.
It’s a perfect encapsulation of the past month, of their first Christmas together.
As he turns the last page, Marvyn clears his throat. “Okay, we have a choice right now. Either I’m going to start crying about this scrapbook, or we’re going upstairs to take advantage of Emma’s absence.”
Holly is pulling him up from the couch and towards the stairs before he can even finish voicing the options.
***
When Emma gets home from the mall, Marvyn is pulling the roast out of the oven to rest as Holly sets the table.
She comes in, smiling. “How did you guys like the scrapbook?”
Holly stops what she’s doing to give her a long hug. “It was beautiful, honey. We loved it. It made your dad cry.”
“Only a little bit,” Marvyn says defensively.
As Marvyn puts the finishing touches on dinner, Holly and Emma sit on the couch together, looking through the scrapbook again. Marvyn watches them, heads bent together, smiling and laughing as they turn the pages.
***
After dinner, Holly and Marvyn sit in front of the fireplace, drinking the last of the eggnog.
Holly turns to Marvyn. “I have one more present for you. One that you can actually enjoy this year.” She hands him an envelope. When Marvyn opens it, the only thing inside is a slip of paper that says ‘2018.’
“Really?” His eyes are wide.
She nods. “At the 2018 Secret Santa party, the entire Westbrook faculty accidentally took mushrooms. Really, really strong mushrooms.”
Marvyn gapes at her. His mind starts going a mile a minute.
Holly puts a hand on his chest. “And if you ever tell anyone I told you, I’ll deny it. Convincingly. And make you suffer.”
Marvyn ignores her. “I have so many follow up questions.”
He starts to list them: “1) What do you mean ‘accidentally?’; 2) What did everyone hallucinate; 3) What did everyone do in response to the hallucinations, and that one has Sherilyn and Ms. Grint subcategories; 4) How was the oath of secrecy administered –”
Holly cuts him off. “Answers to follow-up questions are not included in the gift.”
“Holly. You can’t do that to me.”
“I just did.” She kisses him.
“Merry Christmas, Marvyn.”
December 26th:
When Marvyn stumbles bleary-eyed into the bathroom at 2:00 AM the day after Christmas, cursing eggnog, the Elf is looking at him from its perch wrapped around the light fixture.
Marvyn immediately snaps the light back off.
“Holly! What did I say about the Elf.”
As much as he can’t stand this Elf – and he can’t stand it, he’s going to burn it in the fireplace tomorrow morning – he loves the sound of her sleepy giggle.
***
They go outside to watch the sunrise. Marvyn tugs Holly back against his chest and wraps his arms around her as they look up at the sky.
He flattens one hand against her breastbone, can feel the whistle that he gave her yesterday under his palm, feel the steady beat of her heart in her chest.
“Our first Christmas in the books. It didn’t go quite as planned. Your Elf-based behavior was very upsetting.” He can now also feel her shaking with silent laughter against him.
“No one liked my activities or elegant tree décor much. I have to wait twenty years to enjoy my gift from you. But it still turned out pretty special, huh?”
Holly smiles, craning her neck back so he can see her face. “It was perfect. And now we have some traditions for next year.”
Marvyn smiles, thinking about how he’s burning that Elf on the Shelf the next time Holly leaves the house. But Holly’s manger scene and her little trees and his tree aesthetic, those can be traditions. He’ll still bake cookies to decorate, but he’ll wait until after exams next year. He’ll even let Emma write annual letters to ‘Satan’ because it so clearly entertained her and Holly. Even if it was at his expense.
They can count down the years until the Mission Valley Fire whiskey is ready to drink.
Then he has a brilliant idea.
“I think every year you should answer one 2018 mushroom-related follow up question. That would be a good tradition.”
She eyes him. “Only if my Elf lives to see next Christmas and all subsequent Christmases and you never tell a soul I told you about Secret Santa 2018.”
Marvyn sighs. He’ll learn how to cope with the Elf if he can eventually hear all the details about Sherilyn and the rest of the faculty on psychotropic mushrooms. Even if it takes years. He suspects it will. They will probably have drunk all his Mission Valley Fire whiskey before they’ve even scratched the surface.
“Deal.”
Marvyn knows he shouldn’t keep the evidence, but later, he can’t resist slipping the piece of paper that says 2018 into Emma’s Our First Christmas scrapbook.
End.