"Mum?" Erin asked as she knocked on the open door of her mother's office the first day of Winter Break.
Rose Bailey was sitting at her desk, a large stack of papers on either side of her, one slighting lower than the other. She was nibbling on the cap of a red biro the same way Erin did when she was concentrating on her homework, muttering under her breath as she read whatever essay she was grading. Her dark hair, striped through with grey, was thrown up into a messy bun and she had a slightly frazzled look on her face. She paused, frowned, and noted something down on the paper, shaking her head with a resigned sigh.
"Even highschool students understand Shakespeare better than this." She breathed, ignoring Erin completely.
Erin let out a sigh of her own, leaning against the door jam and crossing her arms across her chest before trying again.
"Mum." She stressed, and her mother finally looked up. Her wire-framed glasses were slipping down her nose. Both of Erin's parents wore glasses, she wondered if she would need to, herself, eventually.
"Yeah, honey?" Rose asked, blinking as if surprised to see her own daughter standing in the doorway.
"Where did you put the Christmas decorations?" Erin asked, and Rose blinked in confusion again.
"Gosh, of course, Christmas!" She said, as if she'd forgotten about the holiday entirely. She paused, pen cap between her teeth once again as she thought. "They should be in the basement somewhere, I think… At least I think that's where I put them… I don't think they'd still be at your Grandparents'…"
Erin hoped they weren't. Knowing her mum she would dither over collecting them and they'd probably end up having no Christmas decorations up until Christmas Eve. She rolled her eyes.
"I'll go look." She said.
"They should be in the red and green bins." Rose reminded her, as if Erin didn't already know that. She had been the one to help her father put them away last year, carefully wrapping all of the fragile ornaments back up in their protective boxes or bubble wrap and winding the strings of lights neatly so that they wouldn't be horribly tangled the next time they hung them up. She'd always been the one to help her dad with the task of boxing up decorations, both of them sharing the same organised mindset and patience. Her mum and Alex were some of the most impatient people Erin had ever known.
Of course, last year Erin had expected - hoped - she'd be decorating the same house she had every year of her life this year, her father singing carols by her side.
Her dad had been diagnosed about a month before Christmas and was weak thanks to the chemo. They had been planning on going to Ireland that year to celebrate the holiday, but had had to cancel. Now Erin had no idea when the next time she'd celebrate Christmas with her extended family would be.
She didn't want to think about it. It hurt too much.
The basement was piled with boxes, but thankfully it wasn't difficult to spot the bright red and green plastic bins amongst the brown and white cardboard boxes.
The only problem was, they were buried under a mountain.
Erin hadn't been expecting to lug heavy objects today. She wondered if maybe she should ask Finn if he had time to help her unearth the bins. She quickly shot him a text - adding Kurt to the message for good measure - before she approached the mountain.
CB'S VINYL RECORDS
The bottom most box - white with a lid, neatly taped down with old and peeling packers tape - read in thick permanent marker. Under it, in thinner permanent marker, was a list of bands and artists.
THE BEATLES, BLONDIE, BUZZCOCKS
As she inspected the rest of the boxes she found her dad's neat block capitals on most. All of the white boxes - of which there had to be about 20 - seemed to be full of vinyls. She recognised a good chunk of the artists listed - Queen, The Sex Pistols, Joni Mitchell - but some she'd never heard of before - Jolie Holland, Mott The Hoople, Ian Dury.
The brown boxes weren't as organised and held her mother's handwriting - sharp chicken scratch - instead of her dad's.
"Ciaran's CDs - misc." most of them read. A few were labeled with artists, but it looked as though her mum had given up at some point, her writing getting even sloppier - almost illegible. There were at least 10.
Erin wondered how long it would take her to upload each and every CD in those boxes to her iTunes. She wondered if all of the songs would fit on her iPod Nano - it had been a gift from her dad, the last gift she'd ever gotten from him, wrapped up all ready for her birthday, but he never got to see her open it… She shook her head to clear the thought from her mind. She was here to get the Christmas decorations and that was it. She didn't need to go down memory lane.
"That is a lot of boxes." Finn's voice came from the foot of the stairs and Erin turned to face him with a grateful smile. Kurt stood behind him, looking ready to help with heavy lifting, while still looking stylish.
"I can see why you needed Finn," He said with a laugh, looking at the boxes towering over Erin's head.
"He does have a good foot on me." Erin said, and she lifted an arm to demonstrate how she was completely unable to reach the top-most boxes. Finn laughed at her plight and reached up, with one hand, to grab onto the bottom of the top box.
"Careful," She said, suddenly nervous that the boxes would all topple over, her dad's precious music collection getting destroyed in the process.
Finn carefully corrected his hold on the box and gingerly lifted it from the pile before looking around.
"Where do you want this?" He asked, and Erin looked around the basement before shrugging and pointing to a relatively clear corner of the room.
Finn took the other slightly too out of reach boxes, placing them in the same area, before Kurt joined in with the unearthing of the Christmas decorations.
"Your dad had a lot of vinyls," Kurt said as they sat by the collection of boxes, taking a break now that the Christmas decorations were finally freed - though Erin couldn't see their fake tree anywhere.
"Looks like it," Erin agreed, there were 25 white boxes in total - now piled neatly in 6 towers of 4, the first box Erin had spotted open in front of Kurt who was carefully flicking through it - and, after opening a couple, there looked to be about 45 or so in each box.
"There's got to be over a thousand," Kurt continued. He huffed out a laugh and carefully pulled out a white vinyl, "Look, The White Album." He inspected it closely and carefully pulled the record itself from the sleeve. Erin didn't stop him, but if Finn started touching the vinyls she'd slap his hands away, she didn't trust him not to get some sort of boy grease all over them.
"This is an original." Kurt said in awe, "The one my mom had was a re-release."
Erin did some quick mental maths, remembering the release date of the album from Mr. Schue's countless tangents as they practiced for sectionals.
"He was about 17 when that came out, I think." Erin remarked, looking at the album, "I can definitely imagine him buying it as soon as it came out. He loved The Beatles."
"It's a shame you don't have something to play these on." Finn said, looking dazedly at a box with JOAN BAEZ, JOHN LENNON, JOURNEY on it.
"There's a HiFi behind the book boxes." Rose Bailey's voice came from the foot of the stairs, "But I thought you were just getting the Christmas decorations out, Catie."
"Do you know where the tree is?" Erin asked her from her spot on the floor, ignoring her mother calling her Catie. It hadn't escaped her notice that her mother hadn't called her Erin since… choosing instead to use her full name, Catherine, or the nickname she'd planned, Catie, instead of the nickname her father had always used and the one she still went by.
"Oh, I don't think I kept it, it was getting a bit threadbare as it was." Rose said, and Erin's heart fell. She had loved that tree, her dad loved that tree. "I was thinking we could get a real one this year, how about that?"
"Okay," Erin said in a slightly dejected voice, beside her Finn started rambling on about how real trees smelt better anyway, and how he knew a great christmas tree farm just on the outskirts of Lima that had the best Hot Chocolate.
They'd had that 6 foot Christmas tree since before she was born. While real, live, trees were beautiful, it didn't feel right to be without the tree she'd had her whole life… even if her mum was correct and it had seen better days - it's plastic leaves mostly gone, it's branches having to be wrapped with green garland every year to make it look fuller. Now she could use that garland to decorate the house, maybe wrap it around the banisters, or put it atop the fireplace.
"I'll help you get those boxes upstairs." Rose said, "And maybe you boys could take Catie to the tree farm tomorrow?"
Rose took one of the red and green bins and made her way back up the stairs with it.
"Who's Catie?" Finn whispered to Erin and she laughed, rolling her eyes at him before grabbing one of the boxes herself and following her mother up the stairs.
"No, seriously, who's Catie?" She heard Finn ask Kurt.
She visited the tree farm with Kurt and Finn, all of them singing along to the Christmas songs as they perused the trees, finally choosing one about Finn's height; tall but not so tall that Erin wouldn't be able to put the star on top of it herself.
And then Erin decorated her new house.
She took a trip to the thrift shop with Kurt for extra things to fill the bigger space, found new places for old decorations, and fought back the memories each and every bauble brought up.
She didn't want to think about the last time she'd seen them. She didn't want to think about how weak her dad…
Instead she blasted Christmas songs at top volume, ignored her brother's glares at said songs, and made the house as full of Christmas cheer as she could.
She even tried to bake biscuits by herself, peppermint swirls, but they came out more like peppermint snaps. They were still edible, though.
Yet there was still something missing. The cheer felt false, and she still felt alone every time she was home.
Alex stayed holed up in his room, or shouting into a headset as he shot people on the TV, and her mum barely spent any time in any of the areas Erin had decorated, as if she wasn't able to handle the memories either.
So Erin spent the rest of the days before Christmas down in the basement.
She had unearthed the sofa that had come with the house - an ugly 70s orange-brown monstority - as she moved the boxes of books into her mother's office one by one, and finally located the box holding the HiFi system that used to be in her parents old room. Next to it were the shelves that Erin remembered being in their old living room.
She moved things around, dragging boxes into corners and placing the vinyls next to the HiFi and the CDs into the shelves.
She was quite proud of herself at the end result. She had a sofa (covered with a few of her numerous throw cushions) and an entertainment unit, and the wifi stretched down into the basement too. She even moved her instruments downstairs which also added space to her room.
Sure, the walls were still wood paneling, and the ground was concrete, but she'd managed to make herself a cosy little den where she could go through her dad's record collection in peace. Maybe she'd go looking for a rug at a thrift store with Kurt in the new year.
Thursday 24th December 2010By Christmas Eve Evening she'd managed to go through a good chunk of the records, and, as she listened to them, it was almost like her dad was there next to her, listening along with her.
"Cate!" She heard her mother shout over the soft guitars of Eric Clapton's Wonderful Tonight. "Dinner!"
"Coming!" She called back, and she carefully turned the record off and put it back into its sleeve, before placing it back in it's correct place.
"What were you doing down there?" Her mum asked, looking frazzled as she set the table, apparently they were eating as a family. "I called you three times."
"Just listening to music." Erin said with a shrug. She didn't want to eat as a family, not if it meant being in the same room as Alex. "Can I eat in my room?"
"Absolutely not," Her mum said, sounding almost appalled, "It's Christmas Eve!"
Erin bit back the retort on the tip of her tongue about her finally realising it was a holiday.
"Now, after we open presents tomorrow we're going to my Parents for dinner with everyone - goose, not turkey - and then I was thinking we could watch It's A Wonderful Life when we get back, how does that sound?"
It sounded like hell, being surrounded by her mother's family again, dressing up all fancy and putting on a mask, but Erin once again bit back her retort as she sat at the table.
"Are we going to Skype Ireland?" Erin asked, hopeful, but also certain her mum had forgotten.
She had forgotten, if the look on her face was anything to go by.
"How about we Skype on Boxing day instead?" Rose asked, "I totally forgot about timezones and I think we're going to be at your Grandparents at the time we'd usually Skype."
"Okay." Erin sighed, disappointed, but unsurprised.
Finally Alex entered the dining room, all smiles and chatter as her mum asked him what he'd been doing.
Erin didn't care and zoned him out as she ate her dinner, not even tasting it.
She just wanted it to be a normal Christmas, but everything was already so different.
Goose instead of turkey, different family, and nothing familiar except some of the decorations in new places. She wouldn't even be able to have her usual Boxing Day lunch of leftover turkey sandwiches while she Skyped her dad's family. Whatever good cheer she had felt listening to music in the basement was completely gone.
"Come on, let's watch Love Actually before we go to bed." Rose said in an obvious desperate attempt to bring some cheer back into the holiday.
"Okay," Erin said, faking a smile. At least that tradition was continuing - even if it would be weird to not have her dad quoting every line, sat in his favourite chair.
Erin yawned as the credits rolled, feeling slightly bittersweet, and bid goodnight to her mother and Alex who tiredly bid her goodnight as well. But as she got into bed after changing into her Christmas pyjamas from last year she remembered one other tradition she could do even in this new house - or, really, two traditions she could merge into one.
She snuck down the stairs, hearing her mother snoring in her room, and began rummaging in the basket of candles for a tea light.
As she stepped into the living room, intent to place the tea light in the window, she found Alex. He was standing in the window, the flickering of his own candle silhouetting him, head bent. He was dressed in a matching set of Pyjamas to Erin's, the trousers a few inches too short, the top slightly too tight. He'd grown in the past year while Erin had stayed the same height she'd been since she was 12, growing outwards rather than upwards.
"I wasn't expecting you to be down here." Erin said softly, but Alex still jumped slightly. He paused for a bit before lifting his head and turning to Erin.
"Hey." He said, matching the softness of Erin's voice, his face softened. At that moment he looked like Xander again. "I was just…" He trailed off, waving a hand.
"I know," Erin smiled, holding her own tea light up. He smiled back at her, and, as they stood there in silence, it was almost like they had a full conversation. She could see, on his unmasked face, the same grief and sadness she knew was on hers.
"I'll, um, I'll let you have a turn." He said, and as he passed by her on the way to the stairs he briefly pulled her into a hug. "Merry Christmas." He whispered softly before pulling away.
"Merry Christmas," She replied.
She walked up to the windowsill.
Every year her dad would have her and Xander take turns lighting a candle and putting it in the window. A Light to guide the Baby Jesus, apparently. Erin may no longer be religious, but she had grown up Roman Catholic, and so had her dad and all of his family, and some habits were hard to break. Usually the light was a taper candle and not a tea light, but that was where the second tradition came in.
Every other year they went to Ireland for Christmas - except last year - and on Christmas Eve the whole family would wake up at the crack of dawn and take a bus into Dublin for an Irish Breakfast and last minute Christmas shopping on Grafton Street. Her dad would always take her and Xander into this tiny little church, tucked away down a side street, and give them each a tea light, and they would pray for every friend or family member who had passed that year. Erin wondered if anyone had done it on his behalf that morning.
She lit her tea light with the dying flame of Xander's and placed it next to his.
She stared at the flickering flame for a few long seconds, unsure what to say, before she began to sing softly, at barely a whisper.
"Greeting cards have all been sent
The Christmas rush is through
But I still have one wish to make
A special one for you
Merry Christmas, darling
We're apart, that's true
But I can dream and in my dreams
I'm Christmasing with you...
...I wish you merry Christmas
Happy New Year too
I've just one wish on this Christmas Eve
I wish I were with you
I wish I were with you."
She felt choked up and teary as she finished. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to center herself.
As she opened her eyes she saw the twin candles flickering, dancing, and felt a sense of peace wash over her for just a second. She felt a shiver run down her spine, probably just a winter draft, but she chose to believe it was a sign that he'd heard her.
"Merry Christmas, daddy." She whispered.
When she looked at the burnt out candles the next morning one more had joined them, and she smiled.
NOTES:
i actually really like this chapter, i struggled trying to write the Christmas episode, but i like the backstory i have in this chapter, i feel like you're really getting to know Erin. I have the next Episode (S2E11) completely done, and I am really happy with it, like i think it's one of my favourites! BUT I have nothing for the Valentine's episode even planned! As such... i think this story is going to be on a little hiatus until I get the outline of that ready, maybe even *fingers crossed* drafted! I always get stuck on the holiday episodes! Think of it as a... winter hiatus - like how there was one before S2E11 when the show was airing - but in the summer! That all being said, I hope you guys liked this chapter! all comments, feedback, ideas even are appreciated! And you can follow me over on tumblr (katyobsesses) if you want, or read some of my other stuff as you wait for the next chapter of this! I'm currently writing a Hevans fic series for the Glee Character This Or That over on my AO3 account if that interests you! (katyobsesses)