"Rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum, RUM PUM PUM PUM," two-year-old Alan Tracy hollered along with the Little Drummer Boy which was currently playing on the radio. Six-year-old Gordon giggled from the other side of the room, where he had made quite a mess out of the Tracys' good roll of wrapping paper and some Christmas bows.
Their oldest brother and part-time caretaker, Scott, came running in at Alan's screams. Upon seeing that the boy was not in danger, his expression turned from worried to annoyed.
"Alan and Gordon Tracy! What have you done?" he scolded, taking in the mess. The boys were supposed to be napping, but clearly they'd escaped their bedroom in favor of performing other antics instead. Scott was almost positive that whatever this was, it was Gordon's doing. The two youngest Tracy children looked up at him and giggled. If Scott didn't know these particular children any better, he would almost be fooled by the innocent act. Almost.
"What've the Terrible Two done now?" John asked as he and Virgil poked their heads into the living room, surveying the mess with wide eyes. "Oh, my…"
All three older Tracy boys took a moment to stop and truly look around the room. What they saw was astonishing. Aside from the mess of torn up wrapping paper that littered the floor and the couch, there was wrapping paper taped in strips to the walls, bows stuck randomly around the room (one such bow was currently stuck to the top of Alan's head), and there was red and green ribbon draped haphazardly across all of the furniture. Alan was gripping a purple marker and was using it to decorate some of the Tracys' Christmas tree ornaments (and just how they'd gotten their hands on those, Scott would never begin to understand).
"Gordon… Alan… what's going on here?" The oldest brother asked, exasperated but determined to remain calm. Gordon grinned in that innocent, wicked way which only little kids can.
"Alan wanted to decorate for Christmas," the redhead articulated, his words running together in his excitement. John and Scott exchanged a confused look.
"Erm… Gordon, is that what all this mess is?" John asked. It was the wrong thing to say. Gordon froze, his smile falling off of his face and morphing into a horrible frown. John winced, Virgil covered his ears, and Scott sighed, preparing for the coming tantrum.
"John…" Scott mumbled. John sighed.
"Oops," John had time to answer, before the screaming began.
"It's not a mess!" Gordon wailed, his words only intelligible to his brothers who knew him so well. Had any stranger heard them, it would have sounded like gibberish. "We wanted to make everyone happy!"
Alan, not understanding what was going on but spurred by his immediate older brother's distress, threw his purple marker down onto the floor and pouted. John, recognizing the telltale signs of an Alan Outburst, attempted to quiet Gordon, but it was too late – Alan threw his head back and wailed, giving his brother a run for his money in the noise-making department. Scott immediately ran to the toddler's side, knowing that nobody was going to get anywhere in negotiating with Gordon if Alan was complicating things by shouting at the top of his voice.
"Allie, baby, it's okay," Scott comforted while Virgil and John looked on, neither brother sure whether to help with Alan or to go to Gordon. "Shhh. You're okay."
"Waz wrong wit Gordy?" the toddler, finally beginning to calm down, asked between hiccups. Scott sighed, passing Alan over to John, knowing that the two blondes had a way of communicating silently with each other. John would know best what to say to Alan to calm him down.
"Gordy's a little bit upset because we need to clean all of this up," John explained gently to the toddler, and Alan's little forehead creased as he attempted to understand why his "decorations" needed to be removed.
"But we jus' put dem dere," he explained quizzically. John sighed, wincing as a particularly loud shriek from Gordon set his ears ringing.
"Yes, but…" How did one explain to a two-year-old that his efforts to decorate the house for Christmas were not appreciated? "Well, it's like this. When you decorate for Christmas, there's a certain amount of organization that has to go into it. We can't just have scribbles and a mess of wrapping paper, because we have guests over all the time and they have nowhere to sit with everything all over the place like this," he said, hoping that his brother would get it and that he wouldn't have to explain again. Alan either understood or lost interest, because he nodded thoughtfully (well, as thoughtfully as a two-year-old can) and reached towards the ground where he'd thrown his marker. John set him down and watched as Alan carefully attempted to cap the marker and began to gather some of the torn up bits of wrapping paper into a messy pile. Gordon watched his little brother with a look of betrayal.
"But… we were doing this for Christmas," the six-year-old, now somewhat calmer, sobbed softly. Scott, John, and Virgil exchanged a look.
"Gordy," Virgil, who was especially good at dealing with the redhead, asked calmly, "What's so special about decorating for Christmas?" The younger boy hiccupped, sniffled, and then sneezed spectacularly.
"Mommy always decorated for Christmas," he said as Scott wiped the snot off his nose. "Mommy isn't here now, but she would do this with us if she was." Virgil's breath hitched, and John and Scott exchanged a look at the certainty in Gordon's voice. They both knew the six-year-old was right; their mother would help them decorate, and in fact she'd insist on it, if she were still alive.
"Right," Scott said firmly, decision made. "If Mom would want us to decorate for Christmas, then decorate for Christmas is exactly what we will do." The four younger Tracy boys looked up at him, the youngest two wearing expressions of hope, and the older two with expressions of doubt.
"Scott," John muttered. "Dad is not going to be happy." Scott's face hardened.
"He'll get used to it," Scott growled. It was no secret amongst John and Virgil that Scott was upset with their father. Then, louder, Scott addressed the room, taking control of the situation.
"Virgil, if you look in the closet in my room, you'll find a bunch of Styrofoam balls. I was saving them to make a model of the solar system, but I think this occasion justifies their use. Gordon and Alan have plenty of markers; they can use those to decorate the Styrofoam balls as Christmas ornaments." Without a word, Virgil disappeared up the stairs. Alan and Gordon ran to collect their markers (rather, Gordon ran, and Alan toddled along behind him, shouting impatiently for him to slow down). "John, you and I are going to go up to the attic and get some of our decorations out. We've got three hours until Dad gets home. Let's get this done before we have to deal with the fallout."
"Right," John agreed.
Ten minutes later, everyone was back in the living room. Gordon and Alan had been set to work scribbling on Styrofoam balls, and Virgil, ever the artistic one, had gotten the idea to salvage some of the ribbon and wrapping paper and bows and he had cut out cool shapes to tape on the walls – animals and Christmas trees and candy canes and snowmen. Some of them weren't technically Christmas decorations, but nonetheless all of the boys spent about five minutes admiring his work. John had located the boys' stockings and was in the process of taping them to the wall (having discovered no better place to put them), while Scott set to work setting up a little ceramic Christmas village set.
The boys soon got into the spirit of decorating, and Scott went to make hot chocolate for everyone while the rest of the boys laughed hysterically together. Everything was going wonderfully until their father came home. He walked in the door, took one look at the living room, and froze in his tracks.
"Boys," he said, his tone dangerously calm, "what exactly is going on here?" Scott stood up from where he was kneeling beside Alan and stood in front of his siblings, attempting to protect them from their father's wrath – even though Jeff Tracy would never hurt one of his boys, he had a sharp tongue and sometimes the little ones got in the way of it.
"Dad," he said, his tone a subtle warning, "Gordon and Alan wanted to decorate for Christmas." Jeff glanced around the room, and he had to admit, objectively, that his sons had done a decent job.
"Don't you boys think you should've asked me first?" he asked, reining in his anger.
"Daddy, Daddy, don't you like it?" Gordon, who had not picked up on their father's angry tone of voice, called out cheerfully. "We're decorating, just like Mommy always told us to do!" The three oldest Tracy sons tensed, waiting for the explosion that would follow Gordon's innocent words. Jeff's breath caught audibly in his throat. Then (and if the boys saw tears fill his eyes, none of them commented), surprising them all, he coughed, cleared his throat, and smiled.
"Would you boys like some help hanging those Styrofoam ornaments from the ceiling?" he asked, and Alan and Gordon nodded enthusiastically. Scott and John exchanged questioning looks. John shrugged, leaving Scott to turn to their father, the same question still written in his eyes.
"I've been away from this for too long," was all Jeff said quietly, but it was answer enough for Scott.
"Would you like a mug of hot chocolate, Dad?" the twelve-year-old asked with a tentative smile, and Jeff returned it fondly.
"That would be great, Scooter," he agreed. "That would be great."
And when one thing turned into another and the living room ended up being almost as messy as it was before Scott, John, and Virgil had intervened, well, no one, not even Jeff Tracy, uttered a single complaint.