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Chrissy is new to Christmas.
Not the holiday itself; she knows about the twinkly lights and the decorations and the gifts exchanged. She knows about the candlelight service at church and the roast dinner her mom spends hours making that is most certainly not for Chrissy.
She knows it's the time when family comes over, and Chrissy is paraded about as the perfect daughter in front of her aunts and uncles and cousins who never actually ask her how she's really doing, just pinch her cheek too hard or give her a cool once-over.
Turns out that the cold, fakely joyous, plastic-covered furniture, sugar-free Christmases she’d experienced her entire life were not the only kind of Christmases one could have.
When a certain wild-eyed, hell-raising, tender-hearted boy swept into her life, she learned that Christmas is about much more than the trappings.
And now…
Now, Chrissy has so much holiday spirit, she doesn't even know what to do with it.
All that spirit has to go somewhere, and she puts it into handmade Christmas cards—to everyone but her mother, thank you very much—and decorating every inch of the apartment she and Eddie share, and signing up herself, Eddie, and all of his band mates to sing carols at the local nursing home, even though she can barely carry a tune.
The cat shelter down the street from her work is doing special profiles in the newspaper for each of the residents, hoping to find homes for them all as it gets colder in Chicago, and Chrissy would be down there in a second, collar with a snowflake -shaped tag in hand, but their apartment doesn't allow pets. Every time she passes the shelter, the pictures in the windows make her eyes misty.
Someday, when they're not living in a tiny one bedroom and barely making ends meet, she'll adopt 5 cats. Eddie won't mind. He collects guitars, and that's basically the same thing, right?
Next on the list of must-do holiday activities is cookie baking, which is why she is currently covered in flour from fingertips to elbows, bangs all askew as she tries to huff them out of her eyes without using her hands while Elvis croons about a blue Christmas from the radio.
When Eddie finds her after getting home, she's looking like a disheveled snow fairy in their cramped kitchen, brows furrowed as she tries to beat something that resembles dough into submission.
“Let ‘em have it, Cunningham!”
The smile she throws at him is beaming, and goddamn, she's so pretty. There's something like relief etched on her features, which is a little confusing, but he's going to roll with it.
“Eddie!”
“Whatcha got there, sweetheart?”
With one flour-covered finger, she points to a ripped-out magazine page sitting on the counter, not spared from the flour frenzy.
“I found this recipe in Good Housekeeping, but something’s not working. Look at the last batch.”
On a tray on top of the microwave, a puddle of cookie sludge sits. They look awful, and he doesn't lie to Chrissy, ever, but she's been so excited about Christmas this year, and he can see she's teetering on the edge between holiday cheer and complete despair.
“Oh, well, hey, they just look a little deflated that's all. I'm sure they taste great.”
When she gives him The Look, he knows she's seen the crack in his forced positivity.
“They’re awful. I don't know what I'm doing wrong,” she says, bottom lip poking out just the slightest bit in the sweetest pout he's ever seen.
“Help, please?”
Eddie is certainly not a baking whiz, but he is an expert at faking it ‘til he makes it, so he employs that strategy now, shuffling next to her in the narrow kitchen.
“Lemme see.”
Scanning the recipe, he notices it calls for baking soda but only sees baking powder on the counter.
“Okay, I know what happened here.”
Spinning her around until her back is against the counter, he cups her hips in his hands, thumbs smoothing over the adorable Snoopy-themed Christmas sweater she's wearing. Best to give the bad news while touching her so she'll be distracted from the urge to berate herself for a little mistake.
“I did the same thing, just in reverse, when I tried to bake Wayne a cake for his 50th. It's really easy to get them mixed up, but baking soda is for cookies, and baking powder is for cakes. I think the last batch couldn't rise ‘cause it didn't have the soda.”
The corners of her rose-petal mouth turn down.
“So I wasted a whole batch because I can't read?”
Pressing a kiss to her flour-dusted nose, he says, “Nah, it wasn't a waste. Without it, I couldn't have swept in as the dashing hero, so really, you did me a favor.”
The little crinkles on the bridge of her nose when she smiles distract him from her rolling eyes.
“You're a freak, Munson.”
“Whose freak?”
He trails kisses over the delicate line of her jaw, down her throat, suppressing the urge to fist pump when she whispers, “Mine.”
“That's right, sugar. All yours.”
With an arm under her ass, he hoists her up to wrap her legs around his hips, delighting in her squealed, “Eddie!”
“Mmm?” he hums, distracted now by the sweetness of her mouth against his as he uses muscle memory to navigate to their bedroom.
“The cookies…”
He's sure she meant to be firm, but her words lose the effect when they trail off into a sigh.
“They'll keep. Santa wants to fill your stocking, baby.”
“Oh my god, Eddie.”
“Careful. You don't want coal, do you?”
“No cookies for you, Santa.”
“Hey!”
Her laugh is music to his ears as he lays her down.
On Christmas Eve, Chrissy has the day off from her office job, and she spends it cleaning the entire apartment from ceiling to floor, stacking now-perfected cookies in a neat pyramid on the decorative platter Joyce gifted her, and wrapping up the amp she’d saved six months of paychecks for, putting a bouncy, red bow on top.
She's just finished placing it next to the itty bitty tree Eddie had salvaged for them from the dumpster behind the auto repair shop where he works—barely a foot and a half tall but absolutely perfect to her—when Eddie tumbles in the door, snow blowing in behind him.
“Merry Christmas, baby!”
The responding greeting is on the tip of her tongue, but she notices that he's moving a bit strangely and looking a little lumpy around the middle.
“Are you okay?”
“Right as rain, sunshine. But, uh, I'm gonna need you to close your eyes.”
She's not the biggest fan of surprises, doesn't like being caught off guard, but he smiles a crooked grin and says, “Nothing scary. I promise,” and she trusts him with her life, so her eyes flutter shut.
“Chrissy, meet Mr. Beans.”
When she opens her eyes, for a second all she sees is Eddie standing with his arms spread wide, but then movement on the floor catches her eye.
A black cat with a chunk taken out of one ear sits on their threadbare carpet, pawing at a beautiful silver bow.
“Eddie—What? I—What?”
“He's 8 years old, blind in one eye, and according to the girl at the shelter, an excellent cuddler.”
Her vision goes a little blurry around the edges as tears pool in her eyes.
“How did you—”
“The super isn't home. Probably didn't want to spend Christmas in this dump,” he says with a grin.
At some point she falls to her knees, and she sticks her hand out slowly, something going warm and gooey behind her breastbone when the cat nudges her fingers.
“But what if we get caught?”
Dropping into a crouch next to the cat, he says with a wink, “Take a walk on the wild side just this once, Cunningham. As long as we keep this fella on the down low, we should be fine.”
“Hi, Mr. Beans,” she whispers, running her fingers through the soft black hair along his back. He looks like he's been through a lot, and the affinity she feels for him is immediate.
She knows a thing or two about living as something that others feel threatened by just for existing.
Mr. Beans abandons the bow and butts his head against her knee until she collapses cross-legged so he can crawl into her lap, and the tears are really coming now.
“Eddie, he's perfect.”
Her ridiculous, sweet boyfriend wraps his arm around her shoulders and drops a kiss on the crown of her head.
“Welcome to the family, Mr. Beans,” he says.
Family.
That's what Eddie has given her all along, isn't it? Even before the cat.
A family all her own; the only thing she's ever truly wanted for Christmas.