Grace's First Christmas
"Oh dear."
Bret looked up from the object that had been attracting his attention for the last six months as soon as he realized it was his loving spouse who had uttered the missive. "We completely forgot about it."
"Forgot about what?" he asked.
"Do you want me to spell it out for you?" Ginny inquired.
"Yes, please."
"C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S."
His eyes got big and it suddenly dawned on him just what she meant. Grace Louise Virginia Maverick was almost six months old, and Bret and Ginny Maverick had been virtual recluses in one house or another for the whole six months. Grace was adopted when her biological parents both died within a few days of each other, and immediately after that Ginny found herself unexpectedly pregnant. Grace was their first child; the unborn baby their second, and Bret and Ginny were, frankly, not prepared for either.
They'd been living in Claytonville and owned a house there, but Bret had felt the pull of his hometown for quite some time and wanted to return to Little Bend, Texas. His father and brother both lived there, and any desire to spend the rest of his days elsewhere had long since vanished. Moving the twenty-five miles back to Little Bend required the sale of the Claytonville house and the remodeling and repair of the very place the Maverick brothers had grown up in. And then there was Grace and the impending birth. Both required inordinate amounts of time. And the time of year that was rapidly approaching slipped up on them without ever being noticed.
"When is it?" Bret asked, totally oblivious as to what day of the month it was today.
"Uh . . . the day after tomorrow," Ginny answered in the smallest voice possible.
"Today's the twenty-third of December?" The 'new' daddy looked like he was about to drop the bundle in his arms, which wouldn't have done at all. Especially since the bundle was Grace Louise Virginia Maverick. The baby just looked at her father adoringly, the way she had every day since the first time she'd seen him, and gurgled. "We haven't . . . I mean we didn't . . . oh dear."
There was no Christmas tree, no Christmas gifts, no Christmas anything. And no more time to get it done, no matter how hard everyone wished for it. "What do we do now?" Ginny asked.
He handed the bundle to Ginny and put on his coat. "I'm goin' out to get us a tree," he declared, "and we'll deal with the rest of it when I get back." Easier said than done, he discovered when he left the warmth of the little house for the cold and windy Texas plains. He headed down to the river; that seemed to be where they'd always gotten their trees. And, sure enough, it was at the river that he found
the very thing for the corner of the room where the tree always went.
It was starting to get dark by the time Bret got the tree home, and his nose was nearly frozen. At first he didn't notice the buggy out front, and it took him a few minutes to realize it belonged to Bart. "Hey, I could use some help out here," he yelled, and in just a minute the front door opened and his brother came tumbling out.
"Will I do?" Bart asked, laughing the whole time he helped Bret get the tree inside. "Did you have to cut down the biggest one you could find?"
"Yes, yes I did, and what are you doing out here? Are you alone?"
"Nope, Doralice and the girls are inside. It occurred to us that you probably hadn't had time to do anything for Christmas, with the babies and all, so we brought all Momma's ornaments out with us. Looks like we timed it perfectly."
"Do you have the angel? I haven't seen her in years. Not since . . . "
"We decorated the tree for Pappy? Yep, we've got the angel. Now quit talkin' and get this thing inside. It's cold out here."
Half an hour later the tree was in the house, overwhelming the corner it was designed to sit in, and Doralice and Ginny had begun to carefully unpack Isabelle's Christmas ornaments. They took turns putting everything out on the tree, passing Grace around so that everybody had a chance to participate. The little girl seemed fascinated by it all, and gurgled and cooed every time she saw another ornament. The adults drank coffee except for Doralice, who was just as pregnant with child as Ginny and couldn't stand the taste or smell of it. There was a big pot of venison stew on the stove, and by the time the tree was decorated everyone was ravenous.
After supper Ginny helped the twins pop popcorn and make garlands, which they hung on the tree branches. "There, that's much better," Bret declared.
"You're missin' somethin'," Bart replied, and disappeared into Grace's bedroom. When he emerged a few minutes later he brought a brand new bassinet with him, lined with blue blankets and linens. "We figured you probably hadn't thought of this, either," he declared, as he handed the gift over to his brother.
"What do we do if it's a girl?" Bret laughed.
"Send her back," Ginny proclaimed. "Really, how did you know we didn't have anything for Christmas?"
"I remember the first year, with the twins. We were lucky we had anything at all. There's just so much to do, and you can't get it all done. And then Christmas comes along, and all you wanna do is pull your hair out." Bart was smiling, but everyone knew he meant every word of it.
"We don't have anything for you," Bret stated flatly. "Hell, I didn't even know what day it was."
Bart got a grin on his face. "You already gave us our Christmas present, remember? You moved back to Little Bend. Getting half of my family back is the best present I could think of."
"You always did know how to say just the right thing, little brother," Bret proclaimed.