They had decided to put the decorations up that weekend, though Cassandra had to work a half day at the library. So they decided to get the tree on Sunday after church and Saturday would be the rest of the decorations. Jake and the kids had been up with her in the morning and he told her he was going out to buy a few more decorations while she was at work.
When Cassandra pulled up at one, she noticed that several Christmas lawn decorations were already up on their lawn including an entire herd of reindeer, a snowman and a giant candy cane. Jake's truck was in the driveway and there were several boxes and a sleigh in it.
An excited looking Maggie and a slightly bored looking Matt came to greet her in the garage.
"Where's your daddy?" she asked them, grabbing her bag out of the backseat.
"He's putting the ladder up round back," Matt said.
"He's back," Maggie said, looking excited and rushing over to the truck.
"What on Earth is going on?" Cassandra asked as she followed Maggie to the truck, Matt trailing along behind. Cassandra's eyes widened when she saw just how many boxes were still in the truck. "I thought you were getting a couple of things. Do they even allow this much stuff in the neighborhood?"
At that question, both twins laughed.
Jake grinned. "It's a tradition. We have a neighborhood decorating contest, kinda a 50-50 thing, entry is $20 and the winner gets half the pot and the other half goes to Make A Wish. But it's the braggin' rights we all go for. And the Hendersons . . . ." Jake made a face as he looked down the street to the first house in the subdivision. "They win every year. But this year, this year is mine!"
Cassandra couldn't quite argue with his enthusiasm even if it was a totally different side to her boyfriend. "Well, alright then."
"I wanna help!" Maggie said.
"Okay, why don't you start with the tree I set up on the porch? It's already lit, so all you have to do is use the box of big plastic ornaments that's over there. Then you can put the birdseed balls out on the evergreen."
"Yes!" Maggie said, rushing off to the porch.
Jake turned to his son. "Matt . . . ." then trailed off as he realized that while his daughter was as eager as he was, his son looked less than thrilled. "Oh."
"I was going to start to make my Christmas cookies," Cassandra said to Matt. "Would you like to help with that?"
Matt's eyes lit up. "Yes!"
"Okay, go on in and wash up and put an apron on. I'll be right there."
Jake chuckled as Matt ran into the house. "Okay, so maybe I am a little much."
Cassandra kissed his cheek. "You're competitive. I get it. And in that respect, Maggie is more like you than Matt is."
"Matt's a Stone," Jake said kissing her on the lips in response. "Steady like a rock my daddy used to say. The competitive streak, that's the Baird in me. And Maggie too, though she's just more into decorating."
"Well, Matt is very much your son," Cassandra said, "Though I'm not sure how he'll be able to be a world class baker and run," and she made air quotes, "the biggest ranch in Oklahoma, at the same time like he told me last week."
Jake laughed and reached for a box. "If anyone can do it, it's be one of my kids."
"Yeah, I better get in the house before he starts baking without me. I don't want to run out of flour again. Be careful out here."
"Yes, dear." Jake said with a playful tone and she rolled her eyes at him and grinned.
Cassandra and Matt were decorating cookies and trying to ignore the sounds of banging and sometimes crashing that came from outside. These were punctuated by the occasional muffled curse word, sometimes Matt would giggle when he'd figure out what the word was, though most of the time it went over his head.
That was until a very loud crash and a very loud, very bad word drifted into the kitchen. Matt's eyes went really wide and Cassandra turned red.
"Okay, that's not an okay word for you to use, you understand?" she asked Matt and he nodded, still wide eyed.
Cassandra sighed and looked worried now that she'd said that. "I hope your daddy is okay. He doesn't often use that word."
"Daddy got hurt!" Maggie said running in and looking a little frantic. "And he used a very bad word."
"That's not okay for you to use." Cassandra repeated and then looked at the twins. "Maggie, why don't you wash your hands and help Matt? I'm gonna go check on your dad."
What Cassandra found on the front lawn could be described as reindeer carnage. The entire herd of reindeer was all over the ground and a giant Santa had landed on two of them. Jake was kneeling on the ground, looking upset and wincing at his hand which was bleeding.
"What happened?"
"I put the Santa in the sleigh and went around to straighten the lights on the side of the house. And then Maggie shrieked, I came running around and she's pointing at the sleigh. And the Santa is toppling over and before I could get near it, it crushed two reindeer and knocked all the others down."
Cassandra bit her lip to keep from laughing because Jake's tone was so distraught. "And your hand?"
"Rudolph. . .his nose broke. Cut my hand on the glass."
"Ouch," Cassandra knelt and took his hand in hers. It was bleeding but the cut was shallow, easy to bandage. "This is just gonna sting a bit, it's not too bad."
"This is such a disaster, Cassandra. I'm hoping the ones under Santa are okay. But Rudolph, he's . . . ruined."
Cassandra did laugh. He sounded exactly like his six year olds.
"Well, we can clean up the glass and he can just be a reindeer."
"He can't be just a reindeer! He's Rudolph! You need the red nose. Just a reindeer ain't gonna beat the Hendersons, Cassie!"
Cassandra started shaking her head. "Okay, then we just buy a new one."
"That was the last one they had," Jake whined. "I don't know what I'm gonna do now."
"Oh my God, Clark Griswold, come into the house and clean up that cut. And I'll call the store and see if any of their other locations have it in stock."
He grinned at her and Cassandra softened just a little in her exasperation. "Thank you, sweetheart."
"Oh and Jacob? About that word you used?"
"Oh, right." And Jake had the grace to turn red. "They heard that, didn't they?"
"Maggie was right there, Jake. And you were so loud that Matt and I heard it inside. I talked to them about it, but you're their dad."
"Yeah, we'll have a talk."
They went inside and Jake called the twins into the guest bath to talk to them while he bandaged his hand. And Cassandra got her phone out with a shake of her head.
A new Rudolph was obtained from a store in a nearby town. And Cassandra had to keep her giggles down when Jake came home with yet another bit of lawn decoration as well. She tried not to think about how much this was all going to cost them, but he had mentioned that many of them he'd bought years ago and reused.
After dinner, armed with mugs of hot chocolate and a cookie each for dessert, they all trooped out to the sidewalk in front of the house for the unveiling of the lights.
And Cassandra had to admit despite her initial misgivings that suddenly their yard looked just like a Christmas amusement park. Both kids were delighted and their father was absolutely beaming.
He put an arm around Cassandra, looking very proud of himself.
"So is this your year?" She asked teasingly.
But the look he gave her back was loving and serious. "It certainly is."
She smiled back, almost shyly and then leaned over and kissed him. He tasted like cocoa and cookies but the kiss didn't last too long as the twins interrupted them. Matt with sounds of disgust and his sister with cooing sounds of delight.
"C'mon into the house with you, elves," Jake chuckled breaking away from his girlfriend. And she heard her mutter something about them never letting him have any fun as he herded the kids inside.
The next afternoon, the perfect tree (as determined by a whole lot of negotiation and opinion at the tree lot) was standing in the den, the lights having been put on it, waiting for the rest of its decorations.
Their first stop that afternoon had been to Hallmark to buy four ornaments for the tree. As part of Jake and Cassandra's attempts to create their own memories, Cassandra had come up with the idea of buying each one of them choosing new ornaments every year. Jake and the twins had liked it and they'd all had fun choosing just the right one that suited their personalities. Maggie had chosen Belle from Beauty and the Beast with her horse. Matt had wanted Star Wars and finally picked Darth Vader wearing a Christmas sweater. Cassandra couldn't resist one of a kitten trying to get into a bird feeder. Cassandra had jokingly shown Jake a Clark Griswold ornament but he ended up choosing a Western Tanager. It was gorgeous and like a mini work of art, so Cassandra knew why he'd chosen it.
Cassandra had taken the kids to the truck while Jake paid so he presented her with one more ornament as they went to hang them on the tree.
It was a snowflake that said "Our Christmas Together 2015." And Cassandra, teary eyed, threw her arms around Jake's neck in thank you. The kids, this time, decided not to interrupt.
Cassandra had asked that all the special ornaments be hung up first and then they'd fill in the rest of the tree with other ornaments. Their new ones got put up first, with Jake hanging the snowflake in the center of the tree near the top.
Then an assortment of ornaments that the kids had made in school or had been given as gifts were put up. Jake was a little wistful when he unwrapped two "Baby's First Christmas" ornaments that May had bought. Cassandra put a hand on his arm when he'd handed the ornaments off to the twins to put on the tree.
"It's okay," he said softly. "I can't believe sometimes how old they are. It seems only yesterday that she bought those. They were only 5 months old that Christmas, but at least she got another one with them where they were old enough to enjoy it."
Cassandra smiled softly and ran her finger over another ornament she'd lifted from the box. Jake looked at her when he'd realized what it was. It was an old ornament, from his first married Christmas with Mabel.
"If you don't . . . ."
Cassandra shook her head firmly. "Nope, we're putting this on the tree. This is Mabel's home too and I want her to be comfortable."
Now it was Jake's turn to give Cassandra a teary eyed hug. How he got so lucky to meet two such women and have the second one so understand everything, he really didn't know. "Thank you," he whispered against her neck.
They continued to hang up ornaments, telling stories about each one. There were ornaments from vacations including a few from a trip to Europe that May and Jake had taken before the kids were born.
"We think she got pregnant on that trip," Jake whispered to Cassandra out of ear shot of the kids. "So keep that in mind if we ever go." And then he winked at her.
Her giggle was interrupted by Maggie calling her name.
"What was that, Maggie?" Cassandra asked coming back over to the boxes.
"I wondered what these were. They look old."
"Oh!" Cassandra exclaimed. "These three are mine. My mother was always very particular about the tree in our house, so my dad used to let me decorate the tree at his work. We'd plan out the themes every year. These are my three favorites: that's a swan from the Twelve Days of Christmas, that's a nutcracker from the year we did all nutcrackers and that one is obviously a cat from the cat themed tree I did when I was 10."
The kids smiled, liking the story about Cassandra's dad that she continued to tell as she hung those ornaments on the tree, talking about the different themes they'd had. The days they'd sit in his office with a piece of paper brainstorming. She left out how her mother had often scoffed at them both and how it was a much needed escape for both of them. But Jake read between the lines and trailed a hand across her back when she passed by him. Her returning smile was a little sad but grateful.
"Okay is that all the special ornaments?" Cassandra asked.
"Yeah, I think so." Jake said looking through the boxes. "Aside from . . . ."
"Mama's angel!" exclaimed Matt. "We need to put that up."
"But last." Maggie said, nodding.
"It's the topper," Jake said. "It's a Collins family heirloom."
Cassandra smiled. "Well, we'll make sure that goes up last then." She eyed the tree critically. "Another box or two of balls, I think. Jake do you want to pick the color?" She looked at the twins and back at him, her eyes widening and he laughed. The two adults had spent the entire day negotiating between the twins' varying opinions and they'd both had enough.
"Yeah, I think it's best if I pick. I'm thinking red this year."
Soon the rest of the tree was decorated and the angel placed on top with all due ceremony.
Cassandra looked over the tree with delight. Her mother would have hated the mismatch of store bought, heirloom and homemade ornaments only loosely tied together with the red balls. But they all told a story: Baird-Stone-Collins and now Cillian. And it was them. Their Christmas tree, their memories.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Jake said coming to put his arm around her waist as the kids circled the tree to look at it.
"You wanted to make our own memories. But this tree? It combines your memories and mine. And that's what makes it ours. And I love it."
Jake didn't say anything he just turned and pressed a kiss to her forehead and pulled her closer. And she leaned on his shoulder and they both went back to admiring their tree.