Stiles Family Holiday Special

Sloan Stiles was sitting on her knees at the dining table, carefully lining up Skittles from her fun size bag. Red, purple, orange, green, yellow. Red, purple, orange, green, yellow. She had a single neat row that stretched across the table by the time her bag was empty. She was left with four Skittles that didn't fit with her pattern, so she sat them aside to eat one by one.

While enjoying her candy, she quietly spelled the name of each color, in the sing-song way she learned in school. Then she ate the last five from her row—one of each color—before counting what she had left.

"That's all I want," she said, looking up at her father, who was sitting adjacent to her at the head of the table.

"Okay, you want to save the rest?" Jason asked.

She nodded.

He went over to the cabinet to take out a clear plastic container that already had some Skittles at the bottom. "How many are we adding?"

"Thirteen."

Jennifer walked in then, still in her nightgown and robe. She placed her empty coffee cup in the sink before she took a seat next to her daughter.

"Look who finally woke up," Sloan said.

Jenny frowned at her. "I was awake. I was just sitting in bed reading the paper and answering some e-mails. I got to sleep in today since there was no one here to wake me up early." Then she asked, "Did you have fun at Grandpa and Grandma's?"

"Mm-hmm," Sloan said with a nod. "Grandma found leftover candy from Halloween and gave me some."

"Just what we needed." Jenny looked at the line of Skittles and picked up the empty bag. "Did you eat any?"

"I had nine." Sloan held up her fingers to demonstrate.

"That's impressive self-control."

As Jason and Sloan filled the container with the candy, he counted to himself, double checking her accuracy. Jenny sat the bag down and helped herself to a red Skittle from the row on the table.

"Mommy, no," Sloan said, grabbing Jennifer's wrist. "I'm saving those."

"For what?"

"For later, in case I want them."

"But why did you open a new bag if you could have had the ones you saved from before?"

"I want to keep those in there so they can have babies."

Jennifer stared. She rested the side of her face in her hand and raised her brows. "What?"

Sloan explained, "If I put some away, they'll have babies. I'll have more and more and more. So I shouldn't eat them all at once."

"Really?"

Sloan nodded matter-of-factly and smiled cheekily. "Yes. Grandpa told me."

Jason gave his wife a look.

Jennifer bit on her lips for a second. "I think I understand." She thought about it for a moment, then got up and went to the pantry. She took out a bag of M&M's that was twisted half way down.

Sloan gasped. "Where did you get those?"

"I was hiding them in the back so no one else could find them. They're my favorite."

"I like M&M's a lot."

"Not these, they're dark chocolate," Jennifer said. "Do you think if I put them with your Skittles, they'll have babies too?"

The little girl looked up at her father and back to her mother. "I think they will, if we just leave them alone."

Jenny nodded. "That makes sense. How about I give them to you for safe keeping, and then I'll ask you when I want to eat some. You and Daddy can even decide how many you think I should get back."

Sloan's eyes grew wider and her lips formed an 'ooh.' She looked at Jason again, excited. "Okay. We can keep them for you." She took the bag and tossed it in with her Skittles. "Daddy," she said eagerly. "I want to go ask Ezavier if he has any candy he wants us to hold for him."

"Okay," he said hesitantly. "But we should probably only let family in on this. And be sure to knock," he added. "He might be sleeping still."

"I know," she said. "Or he might be thinking about girls."

As their daughter ran out of the room and up the stairs, Jason asked, "Thinking about girls? Did you tell her that? It's disturbingly specific."

"No," Jenny said, covering her mouth with her hand. "I said Xavier's getting older and might not want to hang out with us very much, so we shouldn't bother him. And also that he might start to like girls. She's the one who combined the two."

"That still sounds a lot less uncomfortable than the talk I had to have with Xavier."

"Well, he's 13, it was time. Didn't Floyd talk to you when you were that age?"

"What do you think?" he asked rhetorically. "The closest Floyd came was when I was seventeen and my old bunkmate from camp was supposed to go work for him. He warned me not to get a girl into trouble."

"Oh, to have been a fly on the wall when you talked to Xavier."

Jason shook his head. "He's not even going to get a girl for at least five more years."

She smiled and held in a laugh. "Five?"

"Fine, six. Happy?"

This time she did chuckle. "You don't know, Xavier might be very suave with the ladies. My brothers had a fair amount of experience by the time they were 16."

"How nice for them," Jason said dryly. "He can barely look at me now that he knows I've been defiling you."

Jenny just smiled and then pointed at the container. "Speaking of the birds and the bees, can we talk about how Sloan thinks her candy can reproduce?"

He sighed. "Dad talked her into setting some of her Skittles from Halloween aside for later. Then he added two more when she wasn't looking so he could show her what happened since she was patient," Jason said. "Of course, she asked me how that happened. I couldn't say who really did it, and it wasn't exactly the tooth fairy. So I said the mommy Skittles and daddy Skittles have babies when you leave them alone."

"That's quite the rabbit hole you're going down."

He nodded. "I panicked after I said it. But she was so happy with the return on her investment she didn't care where babies come from."

"You really dodged a bullet there."

"I would have sent her to you." He took out a big bag of Skittles from a high cabinet and poured a few into his hand. He added them to the container and put the bag back into hiding. "You didn't have to add your M&M's. Now I'm going to have to buy more of those too."

She laughed a little. "It's never too early to diversity her portfolio. And she thought it was a great idea—setting aside some resources, just in case I need it later. It's brilliant, someone should use that as a business model."

Looking at the container, he said, "I'm a little worried someone from her class will get something really cool for Christmas and trade her for a crap load of Skittles. I'll be waiting for a call from an angry parent."

Jenny shook her head. "She's obviously just going to save up until she has enough to fill the pool and then swim in it like Scrooge McDuck."

He grinned and nodded. "She practiced spelling her colors and counted them all and we added the new ones. We can do multiplication next. She'll be ahead of her class. So it's all good, and under control. For now."

Sloan returned then, but with a cellphone rather than more candy. She handed it to Jenny. "Your phone was ringing when I went by your room."

"Oh, thank you," Jenny said, glancing at the missed call. "He didn't leave a message. He'll call back if it's important."

Sloan went over to one of the kitchen drawers and opened it. "Where's my coloring book and crayons?"

"Where did you have it last?" her mother asked.

The girl frowned and tapped her finger to her lips a few times. "Oh." She ran out of the room. Jason took the opportunity to put the candy away, hoping it was forgotten for the time being.

Jennifer stood up and went to lean back against the corner of the counter. "What's for lunch?"

"I know what I want," Jason said. He moved over to block her in. "I was watching a holiday special the other night, so I have a lot of ideas for what I want to get you for Christmas."

"Ah," she said with a single nod. "The Victoria's Secret fashion show?"

"It's my time honored Christmas tradition to watch it," he said. "Even the commercials are good."

"I don't think they sell those wings to the general public."

He shook his head. "Not the wings—although I'm still going to look into it. I'm having trouble narrowing down what to get you."

She smiled and slid her hands up around his neck. "Don't go to too much trouble. Whatever you get, you know you're just going to want to take it off once I put it on."

Their son decided to emerge then, in time to hear her. Jason glanced over and stepped away from the boy's mother.

Jennifer wrapped her robe around herself, covering her nightgown as she went to sit back down. "Good morning."

Xavier mumbled a greeting as he avoided eye contact with both of his parents. Sloan rejoined them with her coloring book and box of crayons. Brightly, she sat them on the table and went to wrap her arms around his waist. She tilted her head up to sing, "Do you want to build a snowman?"

He looked down at her. "No." Xavier wouldn't be interested in snow even if there was any to play in. While he'd lived in Connecticut for nearly half his life now, he still preferred the rain. With a jacket on and a baseball cap to keep his face dry, he'd walk through the neighborhood, perfectly content with the dreariness.

"Ezavier," she complained.

"It's Xavier. I keep telling you."

"I know, that's what I said, Ezavier."

"You know the alphabet. Say X."

"X."

"Now put it together. Xavier."

"Ezavier."

He shook his head her.

Jason told him, "That's closer than how you used to say it."

Sloan let go of her brother and crawled back onto her chair. She started flipping through the pages, looking for one that still needed to be colored. Xavier sat down across from her and watched her turn pages.

"I need a new coloring book," she said. "I'm almost done with this one."

"Ask Santa for one."

She hesitated for a moment, and then asked, "Will you ask him for me?"

"Nope. You have to do it. You're the one who wants it."

Sloan went back to flipping through the book in silence. She wasn't buddies with Santa Clause. She didn't cry on his lap anymore, but she didn't ask him for anything, either, while perched at the edge of his lap in mild trepidation. She wouldn't even go near the Easter bunny, but no one could really blame her for that one.

Xavier said, "You wouldn't be finished with that one if you didn't skip all the Ana pages."

"I just like Elsa. I need a book that only has Elsa."

"What about Olaf?"

She thought about it and nodded. "I like Olaf too. But Elsa is best. She's my favorite."

"Really?" Xavier said. "We had no idea." He was becoming somewhat surly now that he was entering his teenage years.

"Yes you did, I told you before." She found a page she hadn't colored yet and pulled out a blue crayon to start on the dress.

Jennifer told him, "She doesn't understand sarcasm." Addressing her daughter, she said, "We all know you like Elsa."

"She's barely in the movie," Xavier said. "It's mostly about Ana. She's the one who saves the day, and she gets a boyfriend."

"Elsa doesn't need a man," Jennifer said. "She's busy running the kingdom. Just like Sloan is busy running a lucrative candy emporium. They have other things to do."

"Yeah," Sloan agreed, carefully coloring inside the lines. "I have things to do."

"Mom does stuff and she got married," Xavier said.

"She had to marry Daddy," Sloan said.

"No she didn't."

"Yes she did. So they could have kids."

When Xavier opened his mouth to argue, Jason gave him a pained look and waved a hand to stop him.

When a song thankfully erupted from Jennifer's phone, Sloan head bobbed with the music and she softly sang, "I'm so fancy, you already know."

Jennifer got up to answer in the next room. Before long, she was arguing, "I was planning to go, I already cleared my schedule and my secretary booked a flight. I know what I want to talk about with them." She listened for second, then, "Okay, but Mi—." She must have gotten cut off, because she stopped and cast her eyes upward.

At the table, the Elsa versus Ana debate resumed. Jason wondered how many times D.W. and Arthur could have the same argument. "Ana is the little sister, like you," Xavier said. "So that makes you Ana." He said it calmly, knowing exactly how much he was annoying his sister.

Sloan tugged on her hair. "Ana has brown hair, but I don't. And I have blue eyes. So I can't be like Ana."

"I think you are."

"No I'm not." In a huff, she put her crayon down and left the room.

"You know what you have to do?" Jason asked his son.

"What?"

"Let it go. Just, let it go."

"That's not funny."

He wasn't wrong, the whole family was suffering Frozen fatigue. Jason actually bonded over this with clients on occasion, when they, too, had young daughters. Before he had kids, he never knew having a family was so good for business. "And yet, so true," he said. "I seem to remember someone listening to 'Everything is Awesome' about a hundred times after we saw The Lego Movie."

"But we've all heard 'Let It Go' eight thousand times," Xavier said. "She doesn't even like when Dani Lovato sings it. At least I listen to four different versions of 'Everything is Awesome.'"

"Well you know that isn't Elsa, it's just an imposter."

"It's the same song. Why is it okay when Dani Lovato sings 'Warrior'?"

"Because Sloan's name means warrior," Jason said. "So she can make an exception, it's her prerogative."

Xavier sighed heavily and shook his head. "Girls."

"I hear you."

He got up from the table to sit at the island, closer to where Jason was standing. Before long, he was going to be as tall as Jenny. "I'm going to give Grandma and Grandpa the Frozen Karaoke for Christmas."

"Grandma and Grandpa Stiles, or Dugray?"

He shrugged. "Either. Then Sloan has to go to one of their houses to play with it."

Jason considered it. "You might be the smartest of us all. There's the sing-a-long, too. Just give one to each set of grandparents and it'll be win-win-win for all of us."

Xavier nodded. "That will be good."

"Do you want breakfast, or can you wait? I think we're going to have lunch soon."

"What are we going to have?"

"I think we're—." His attention went to Sloan, who returned, now in a blue dress—including the cape and shoes—and carrying a doll that was wearing the same. "This escalated quickly," he said, though not completely surprised. She wore that dress more than just the previous two Halloweens. Last winter she wanted to wear it out in the snow and it took convincing before she put on something warmer instead.

Sloan put the doll on the table and turned her nose away from her brother as she went to their father and handed him a hair tie. "Can you braid my hair please?"

"I sure can," he said, separating her blond hair into three sections.

Xavier said, "I'm going to get you a big picture of Ana for Christmas and put it on your wall."

"No, don't." She jerked her head toward him. "Daddy, ow," she said, putting her hand to her head.

"Well stand still."

"Don't let him get me a picture of Ana."

"He won't," Jason said firmly, eyes on his son. "That would ruin Christmas for everyone. And he knows military school is a tradition in this family, not a threat." He finished Sloan's hair. "There you go, you're done."

"Thank you." She ran her hand down the back of her head to feel the braid before returning to her coloring book at the table.

Jennifer, finished with her conversation, came back into the kitchen and thrust her phone on the little table where they sat the mail. She took a seat at the island and sighed heavily. She did a double take when she noticed Sloan's wardrobe change. "Now that's how you win an argument. Best hundred dollars we ever spent." After a heavy sigh, she said, "I get to go to your Christmas program next week."

"No Omaha?" Jason asked. "I take it you didn't win your argument."

"I did not," she said, turning back to him. "You know, when a person takes a planned step back and another person takes a step forward, then that first person should actually take a step back. Otherwise, they're just stepping on each other's toes."

"And knocking heads," Jason added. "Which is a lot like doing the cha-cha. At least it is when I do it." He picked up his cellphone and touched the screen a few times. "I think I know what everyone needs to do." He pressed play and sat the phone down to amplify the music.

Jennifer and Sloan smiled and got up to shake it off in the middle of the dining room. They sang and giggled for the next three and a half minutes, Sloan pointedly looking at her brother when she sang the line, 'Haters gonna hate, hate, hate.'

When the song was over, both girls were in better spirits. "Let's listen to 'We never go out of Stiles' next," Sloan said brightly. "It has our name."

"It's actually a different Style," Jason said, picking up his phone to find the requested song. "But I got you."

Xavier perked up a bit when the song started. "I saw Taylor Swift sing this on TV the other night."

"Oh yeah, I saw that too," Jason said, of the aforementioned fashion show.

Jennifer looked from her son to his father. "The Christmas tradition lives on."

Fin