February 1st 2021

Chapter 32
Our Cheers For Family

"How about it, Pumpkin? One wardrobe change for us?" Maya spoke quietly as she carried the baby into the nursery. "You did so good, huh? Yeah, all the grandparents loved the pictures, but now it's time for the real thing, and I have just the thing. Very North Pole chic, it's fabulous, the elves will demand more, more, more," she intoned, like she might have been raving for the latest fashion trend. Her audience being a week short of two months old, the most she could expect – reaction wise – was more or less what she got. Marianne just lay there on the changing table, moving about with little attention to what was being said. "Alright, here goes."

She bore the change of dress well enough, taking her from the final of the 'calendar dresses,' which ended up being the one sent by Abigail thanks to the random draw, to one of the ones Maya herself had bought. It was Christmas Eve, her daughter's first, and if anyone took issue with her going with one of her own choices, well that was not her problem at all, was it? Anyway, the moment they'd see Marianne in the dress, they would forget there were ever any others.

"It is going to be a busy day, but don't worry, you'll be in good hands… a lot of them… and if you want to just go off snoozing through a lot of it, that is fine, too, you do what you gotta do. Believe me, the rest of us will be happy just to have you around, okay?" she smiled, finishing up with the outfit change and feeling a merry jolt for it. "This cuteness is going to be the end of my resolve someday," she hummed, picking up the girl before moving out to find the others downstairs. The dogs – who had been parked at her feet the whole time – trailed behind her like a procession.

There had been a lot of talk about how they would do this Christmas, the eve and the day. They had so much to factor in, with Marianne's first, of course, but then also with Katy and Shawn being down in Austin. They were spending a few weeks in town, the longest they'd been here since summer, and the little Hunters were not the only ones to be thrilled about it. It would be very easy to say that they would get the two families together, the Hunters and the Friars, and just make a big thing of it. Certainly, everyone would have been up to the task. But instead, they chose to split things, the better for everyone to get their due. Today, the twenty-fourth, they would spend morning at the Hunter house, and after lunch they would make their way to the Friar house. Tomorrow… Tomorrow, they would spend Christmas morning quietly at home with their girl, before being visited here and there by their friends in the midst of their own Christmas circuits with loved ones.

They were leaving early, maybe not enough to get there before the kids woke up, but they'd give it a shot. The plan, since they'd all be together today rather than tomorrow, was to open the gifts a day early. The kids didn't know yet, especially Haley, the lone believer remaining to the quartet. MJ had been the one to get the idea of a note from Santa, saying that he'd made a special exception and brought their presents ahead of time, so that they could open them all together. Maya had prepared said note, breaking out her best Santa-like lettering before getting the thing out to her grandparents. It would be found on each of the kids' pillows near them, when they woke up, the better for the surprise to be complete. Maya and Lucas both kind of hoped they'd get there in time to witness the discovery.

The early start had meant getting that last advent picture taken about as soon as they got up, but with the hours the baby kept, it was hardly a change in their routine, was it?

"Look at you," Lucas lit up as he saw Marianne now, all set in her outfit for the day. Maya held her out to him, and he gladly picked her up, straightening up her skirt as he held her near. "You are going to make all your grandparents cry, aren't you? That'll be fun," he commented, which made Maya snort.

"Won't be a single one left standing," she agreed.

Soon, they were on their way to the Hunter Hart house. There was a sort of inescapable smile among the passengers of the car now, ever since they'd started calling these moments 'family rides.' If it never stopped bringing them joy to think about getting to do things, mother, father, and daughter together, well… that'd be absolutely great.

"Your dad just texted to say the kids are still sleeping, but it won't be long now," Lucas reported from the passenger seat.

"Can't go any faster, we're nearly there anyway," Maya smiled as she turned the car on to the street. As often as she'd be here to see her family, it did feel sometimes like her reaction to the street, to the years of memories it brought, was stronger. Christmas Eve made it feel that way, for sure.

Going off the noise that greeted them as they let themselves in, it soon became clear that they had arrived more or less at the perfect time. There were excited young voices coming from upstairs, one of them distinctly heard as Haley's shouting 'It says 'Santa!' What is it?' She didn't know how to read yet, but certain words she could recognize. Her name, her parents' names, her sisters' and brother's… Santa's…

In those very brief seconds that they'd have before the stampede, Maya's parents and grandparents came into view while she herself hurried to bring their own load of presents and lay them out under the tree, aided by her grandfather. She just managed fold up the bag and swiftly hide it, while Tanner ever so casually sat on the couch and picked up his newspaper, before Nellie, Gracie, MJ, and Haley all came hurrying down the stairs, each with their own note in hand.

It was probably just as well that Haley couldn't read, or she would have spotted the special instructions in the others' notes, the better to maintain the illusion for her sake. Still, the presence of Maya, Lucas, and baby Marianne, that was enough to make any reaction feel very real. The kids announced to their big sister how Santa had brought the presents a day early, and she told them how she'd seen that for herself, inciting them to finally peer under the tree and discover what awaited them all. With how many people there were in attendance, recipients all, it made for nothing short of a mountain of colorful packages.

As they soon learned, the kids were not the only ones to be surprised today. They were still in the middle of the mad rush of flying paper when the doorbell rang. They weren't expecting anyone, but then it was Christmas Eve, so they figured someone was dropping by to say hello… kind of early. All that mattered for now was that there was someone at the door, and in no time the kids were off to see who it was before anyone else had the reflex to move. Then the door was opened, and there was a new cacophony of voices, which pulled a small wail out of Marianne, presently in her grandmother's arms. Katy lost no time in working to calm her down, though it came just as everyone else discovered who was at the door.

"Merry almost Christmas, everyone!" Charlie Olsen beamed, her face ever an echo of her older sister, Katy. She had her two-year-old son perched at her hip, little Harry looking like he'd been sleeping through the car ride and was still waking up. For now, his mother's shoulder felt much more interesting than anything else. Meanwhile, his older sister, six-year-old Caitlin, still held to her father David's hand, though she'd gone and spotted her grandparents, and her aunt and uncle, even as her cousins were crowding around for her coat, and now she crouched to get her boots off so she could move about.

Angela stood to welcome them at once, and it wasn't long that everyone was standing, greetings underway, hug upon hug. Maya had taken Marianne back, the better for her mother to get her chance at one of those, and now Charlie came toward her niece, a blooming smile to her as she got to meet the baby girl in person for the first time. Oh, they had seen each other through a screen plenty of times in the last several weeks, but this was so much better.

"Hello, sweetie girl…" Charlie smiled on, when she was passed the baby.

It had been nearly three years now since they'd even known that she existed, that Tanner and Angela had welcomed a second daughter in the wake of the first's disappearance. They might not have gotten to see one another very often, but the connection simply meant so much, to all involved. With her grandparents living out here now to look after the little Hunters, Maya did inwardly hope for this to give additional cause for her relatives over in Arkansas to journey out here. They would come, sometimes, when any of them would go visit her great grandmother at her home in Dallas, so they had that. Still, they had others who lived elsewhere, like the cousins in Memphis, like Betsy and her family out in New York, and her great aunt and uncle out in Australia, more dots on this map of her ever expanding family.

A sort of Christmas present Maya had constructed, for herself and Lucas, for Marianne, was a great sprawling family tree, both of their families as they now knew them, all of it converging upon the two of them and on to their daughter, to whoever would come to join her in years to come. When Maya had done it, all Lucas could think about was that assignment, years back, when they'd been made to draw trees of their own. How different hers had looked, how much it had affected her to see it, in comparison to the others' especially…

They weren't just branches, were they? Oh, no doubt, some of those branches had little life in them, the people associated to them bearing little to no influence on their lives that mattered. But they were the exception to the rule, always. And they would get lost in verdant life, in the middle of all those relatives who mattered so much to them now, regardless of how soon or how late they'd come to bloom. They were a gift passed on to Marianne, so many people who looked forward to seeing her grow and to being a part of her life.

"I talked to you last night, I had no idea…" Maya laughed, giving an exaggerated gasp as Caitlin appeared at her side and she lifted her up into her arms. "Always getting taller, Caity girl," she also exaggerated on the strain in her voice. Her young cousin hugged her and laughed, kissed her cheek, and Maya returned the favor.

"I considered telling you, I did," Charlie explained. "Figured if anyone could keep the secret from Mom, Dad, and Katy, it would be you, but then I told myself you deserved to be surprised as much as they did. You know, they want to have a day for you two back home?" she went on, nodding to Maya and over to Katy, who now had nephew Harry sitting in her lap as he exercised his growing vocabulary on his aunt.

"A day…" Maya didn't follow.

"The mayor says how it's the biggest thing to happen to our town in ages. Katy with her show, you with your music… We don't exactly have a lot of 'famous people' out there."

"You're kidding, right?" Maya laughed.

"I mean, it hasn't passed yet. Mostly I think they just hope it'll get more people passing through. They definitely want to get it on the sign coming into town."

"Okay, I can't decide if I should find this hilarious or feel the tiniest bit freaked out…" Maya let out a breath, brought back to reality a moment later by her cousin laughing and breathing back at her. "They should put your name on there, Caity girl, you're a bigger star than me," she decided. Caitlin gave a big gap-toothed smile and nodded approvingly.

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners