Christmas
An icy walk, cold tile floors, a fussy newborn, an adventurous toddler, and Dwight's name in the Christmas draw. A tangled mass of Christmas lights to put up, a never ending to-do list written up by Pam.
Jim had his hands full.
Pam, tired and sore from having just given birth, was all-together too ambitious this Christmas. She vehemently insisted that Christmas tradition was important to her, and to raise her children in a spirited environment mattered more to her than resting. She had lists magnetized to the fridge, long and detailed, with few items crossed off. She had baking to do and tons of shopping. And then there were the everyday things that needed to be done: diapers, appointments, all of the nuances that made up a life.
The weather was freezing. Cece whined to be outside to play, though the minute Jim took her outside, bundled up, she'd look around, touch the snow, and cry to be back inside. She was two years old. What else was expected?
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Pam, perpetually dressed in track pants and a cable-knit sweater of some variety, bustled around the house the best she could, sore from labour. Philip was a tiny baby, red lipped and beautiful. Cece was enamoured with him, always wanting to kiss his downy hair or squeal over his fingernails. She had endless questions about him that neither Jim nor Pam knew the answer to. They did not get know if Philip liked the red Teletubby more than the yellow.
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Jim took on Pam's list. He left early for work, stopping at William Sonoma to pick up a garlic press for Pam's cousin in Seattle, to send in time for it to arrive before Christmas day. On his lunch breaks, he'd dash to the Steamtown Mall and fight the crowds to attempt to cross at least a couple items off the list. He had to get post stamps, wrapping paper, gift bags, tags, tape… all of the ingredients required to wrap and send the gifts he was buying. His Visa was perpetually warm.
Work days were long. With Michael's absence from the office, more and more work was able to be accomplished, though Andy had taken over the time-wasting tradition of conference room meetings on the topic of: nothing. Meetings were held over tie-color choice, Friday afternoon movie-screening choice and the occasional morale booster. Jim put his most concentrated effort into his job; he needed the commission to afford both the holiday as well as sustain his wife and children.
It was stressful.
It was cold, dreary, stressful, and inexplicably wonderful.
The long days, freezing cold steering wheel, dry skin, screaming babies, exhausted wife, endless chores… all of that added together to seem horrible. But the little things: the quiet moments when both kids had fallen asleep after hours of coaxing, when the dishwasher had finally been loaded and the toys partially put away; when a couple more notes on a list had been crossed off. These were the times when the whole season seemed wonderful.
The lights had been untangled and placed on the tree, with Cece's scribbles on star and bell cut-outs had been pinned to the tree. Pam encouraged Cece's involvement in decorating the tree, and breast-fed or held Philip at the table, beaming with patience the whole time.
Pretty incredible. Jim thought so.
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Pam had a Bing Crosby Christmas album on repeat for nearly the entire month of December. In the stillness of the evening, around nine or so, when the kids were simultaneously sleeping for a least a couple of hours until Philip's next feeding, Pam and Jim sat together. Or more accurately, lay together, cocooned in their bed, the evening news often in the background with Bing.
Sex had been a rarity since Philip was born. After Cece, they'd tried right away, only a couple of days after coming home from the hospital. It hurt and Pam was far too tender. She had read you were supposed to wait six weeks, and though Jim was hesitant, they'd given it a shot. It didn't work. It hadn't right after Cece; after Philip was no different. So, after a couple of weeks just laying, trying to catch up on sleep, Jim found that oral sex, for the both of them, could slowly come back on the table.
So for the better part of December, long, draining turned into an hour, at most, of the two of them wrapped up in their sheets at night, mouths all over each other's bodies. No more than a heart-racing, languid hour could ever go by before children's cries filled the house and one of them, or both of them, were up for the majority of the night.
.
And so the days wore on. Days filled with the regular events of the Christmas season, and nights filled with the workings of a new family's traditions trying to be upheld. It was chaotic, dry, cold – filled with screaming newborns and toddlers who cried for attention - and still, to Jim and Pam, seemed somehow really perfect.
It was their life.
It was a life that two people who had worked an office building, holding back a strange, inexplicable love for one another shared. It was all of those uncomfortable arm grabs and inside jokes; all of the discomfort with rival lovers and a desire to be together. It was torture over lunch hours spent together, eating their meals, hoping their breath didn't stink from the tuna in their sandwiches. It was knowing their favorite yogurts, their favorite bands, their favorite outfits. It was knowing one another, so unbelievably thoroughly, with so much love still running through the relationship, that was amazing. Their real romantic relationship after the years of star-crossed love and longing: it was the diamond ring Jim kept in his pocket the week after he and Pam started dating.
They had made it, finally, to a place where the two physical embodiments of their relationship lay nestled together in their bedroom, breathing softly, so symbolic of the gravity of Jim and Pam's relationship. A relationship that had evolved from strangers to a fusion of two lives into one.
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