January 31st 2021

Chapter 31
Our Cheers For a First Christmas

Maya: Paging Dockleberry, stat!

Lucas chuckled, finding the message. He was becoming familiar now with her methods of calling him upstairs in times when she had the baby asleep in her arms – or even awake, really – and she couldn't shout for him. It was Friday evening, and he was just finishing with the dishes, so he dried his hands and went climbing up to the second floor, moving into their room for a second until he saw there was no one inside. He paused and turned before checking the nursery.

Maya stood there, holding Marianne and peering at the floor, where she'd laid out several baby-sized dresses. The way she stared at all of them, she wore her indecision heavily in her brow, which was as good as telling him what she'd called him up for.

"Can't decide?" he asked.

"There should not be so much pressure about this, it's not fair," she 'complained.'

"For the photos, yeah?"

"Yeah…" she looked at him once he stood at her side.

On the floor, the dresses were each one familiar to him, not for having been worn a hundred times or even one, but for how they had come into their possession. This one had been a gift from his mother, and this one from her mother. This one from Abigail, from Angela, and Elizabeth, and Patty, from Riley, and Nadine, and Sophie and Chiara, and Isadora, and even Ree… A multitude of adorable Christmas dresses, and now as they were looking to take some pictures, like some official shoot themed 'Marianne's First Christmas,' it got to feel like it wasn't so much about which one they'd put her in but what would happen when it would be found that they hadn't put her in any of the others.

"She's got one, maybe two outfit changes in her before she just loses it," Lucas nodded.

"Yeah!" Maya replied, like an emphatic 'thank you!' They stood there for a few moments, contemplating the varied selection before them.

"We… could do one every day? Leading up to Christmas?" Lucas finally suggested.

"What, like an advent calendar?" Maya chuckled.

"Yeah, but with dresses," he smiled. "Pick one at random every day, take a picture, send it around. Could be fun."

"Yeah, it could," she agreed, smiling down to where she could feel that small hand rested at her collar. She set a kiss to the baby's forehead. "Doesn't resolve today though," she had to point out.

"You're telling me you don't have any that you got for her?" Lucas turned to his wife, who played very innocent at this.

"Can't be held accountable, she's our kid, and just look at her," she insisted, turning about so he could see Marianne's face. The way his features relaxed into that smile, oh… There were no defenses.

"Alright, let's see what you've got."

The next morning, bright and early, the Friar house on the lane went about its transformation. Maya had not exaggerated when she'd told her grandmother about the number of decorations that they had for this period of the year alone. Pulling all the boxes from the basement was a task in and of itself, along with other items which could only be sat there, like the outdoor decorations. Lucas was joined by his cousin Dora and Sam both to help him with those and of course the multitude of lights, while Maya and Cara worked with their grandmother to transform the interior. Marianne was always kept nearby, from room to room, almost like they meant for her to feel included, despite the fact that she was all of six weeks old.

"Hey, guys, a little help here?" Lucas called down from where he stood on the roof. Down below, Sam and Dora were setting ornaments on the lawn, or they were supposed to be, except instead they were caught up in conversation. Even from here, it felt like the kind of conversation where the participants were ever so slowly drawn together, like magnets, making it so that everything else mattered very little. Lucas finally had to whistle, managing at last to draw their attention and indicate that he needed them.

"Sorry!" Dora called up, even though her voice was loaded with laughter. Sam was more prone to burrowing his way into an awkward blush here, and he more or less did that now as he jogged to grab the next box of lights and carried it up the ladder.

"Had trouble deciding on the placement back there," he explained, casual as possible.

"Right," Lucas just smirked now. "I'd ask how things are going with you two, but I kind of got my answer, huh?" Sam laughed now, though the way his face lit up said plenty more. He and Dora were doing wonderful, and he barely believed his luck in realizing it. Lucas knew exactly what that felt like, even after all these years.

"We're going to Tucson over Christmas," Sam told him.

"Yeah, Maya mentioned your mom and the others were coming for New Year's. Coming back with them then?" Lucas asked, and Sam nodded.

"Wasn't sure at first, didn't want to miss Marianne's first Christmas," he went on.

"You know she won't be two months old by then? You won't hurt her feelings," Lucas promised his brother. He knew this, of course, but then just because Marianne wouldn't remember now, it wouldn't mean he didn't, right? It was one more reminder how much he loved his niece. "You can get on Skype with us on those days so you can talk to her," Lucas offered, and Sam liked this idea very much. It would do.

Inside the house, the other half of their decorating committee had just finished 'splashing some Christmas' around the rest of the house before converging on the living room. They'd done the kitchen, the bathrooms, the banister… Maya would be left to wonder how much she had absorbed from her mother-in-law over the years. Maybe it was half that, and half compensation for those years long ago where she could only imagine what spending Christmas in a house like this would look like. Either way, it was all coming together, and the thought that her daughter would get to remember it all as she grew up… It was no wonder she felt compelled to go above and beyond, even if she was too small now to retain any of it.

"Look at that, huh?" she spoke quietly, presenting the baby with her very own stocking. It had been bought, plain, on the shopping trip with the great grandmothers, after which Maya had set about adding her daughter's name on the front, the better to make it match the others. It was ridiculous how happy she was to have it hanging up there now. She'd come this close to getting Lucas to climb back down off the roof and have a look, but she resisted and let him carry on. He'd see it later, along with the rest.

The stocking wasn't her only project. Never let it be said that she wouldn't use every skill at her disposal when the occasion demanded it. Here, she made a series of small hanging ornaments, for their tree and the grandparents and great grandparents' trees, to mark Marianne's first Christmas. The others were either distributed or shipped out to their recipients, while their own would be hung, last of all, once Lucas and the others came back inside.

Decorating the tree, beyond that final touch, was something like a game of swaps, with any two of them moving along with ornaments to hang, while the third stood back like a spotter, finding empty spaces in need of filling, usually using the opportunity for a couple minutes of holding the baby and entertaining her. When the time would come for someone else to have their turn, Marianne would find her way into a new pair of arms, and they would continue. When there really was space for no more additions – save for the very last, with its spot guarded from the start by a placeholder now removed – the trio sat, Maya and Cara on either side of their grandmother, as she held the baby. They may have been tired now, but to be here, all together… It made things better, didn't it?

"What do you think? We did good, right?" Cara beamed, leaning her head to her grandmother's shoulder. Maya could just see how she smiled now, and it warmed her heart… and it made her realize something.

"We did very good," Elizabeth promised her, even as she was drawn to look to where Maya had gotten up all of a sudden, groaning at the post-decorating ache just as she moved toward the stairs. "Where are you going?" her grandmother asked.

"Back in a minute," Maya called back. It was not so long as that, just long enough to get hold of her laptop, back in her room. She came back now, and she resumed her spot at the woman's side. "I've been meaning to show you these for a long time, I just… I never got the chance whenever we were together before, and I wanted to be there with you at the time, and then since you got here, well… we've been distracted," she turned a look to the baby, now asleep and clinging to her great grandmother's shirt with that fierce six-week strength.

"What is it?" Elizabeth asked, clueless, as Maya pulled up the folder where she'd copied the files – one of several places, just to be safe. She went and found one marked 20021225_080423. When she started the video, the screen soon held the face of a nineteen-year-old Kermit Hart, as he'd just started the camera. It made his mother and second born daughter react at once as they looked on, twenty-seven years later.

"Ho ho ho-kay, we are live, folks!" he intoned, passing a smirk to somewhere out of frame, which they'd realize was the spot where Katy had been standing, with Maya perched in her arms.

"You really love that joke, don't you?" Katy snorted as she came into view, hair suggesting she hadn't been up for very long before the 'summons' to the camera. Little Maya, meanwhile, looked like she'd been awake for a good while already, and was intrigued with everything she saw. Then she saw her father, and she was a wriggling, squealing beast until he reached out and snatched her up. Maya remembered the first time she'd watched this one video, how much it had meant to see her little self be so utterly in love with her dad, as much as he was with her. It was by no means the only example of this, there among the videos, but it was one of her favorites, no doubt.

"Hey, if it makes her laugh, it's good enough for me, ho-ho-ho-kay?" he intoned toward the almost one-year-old girl in his arms. She immediately burst out in giggles. He repeated a couple times, receiving the same response, and he could have gone on like this for so long, but then he remembered himself. "Alright, here we go, time to see what Santa brought you, baby girl," he flew her off toward the tree, as they found when an amused young Katy reached out to turn the camera around.

Their tree wasn't the biggest, and from what her mother had told her in time, it had been 'saved' from the tree lot where Kermit had found a job for the holidays, before it could be fed to the chipper. But it was well tended in their apartment, and it was decorated in what ornaments they'd been able to get a hold of. Here, Elizabeth Hart would see how she wasn't the only one to embrace more of Christmas upon leaving the home ruled by Charles Hart. Kermit and Katy's offerings may have reflected on what they were able to afford at the time, which was precious little, but then it was right there in the description, wasn't it? It was little, but it was very precious. It was their first Christmas with their daughter, and they made it special by the intent of it. One look at the small girl in that video, and they'd know she certainly loved every single part of it.

"Thank you, Maya," Elizabeth told her granddaughter when the video ended. Maya reached for a tissue and passed it to her. "This was just the right time."

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners