The Mitchell family visits Santa Clause
"MAMA. For serious. Are you ready yet?" Anna shouted impatiently by the foyer.
"Yeah. Let's go!" piped up Brittany, her ginger curls bouncing up and down as she nodded in agreement with her big sister.
"I'm here, calm down, geeze," Beca said, picking up Brittany and holding Anna's hand as she walked up behind her daughters. "Chlo, you good?" she called towards the office.
"Yep, I'm just grabbing the girls' lists. Which they should have gotten themselves," Chloe added, with a pointed look at the kids as she joined her family clutching 2 sticker and glitter covered envelopes addressed to the North Pole in her hand. The other day Anna and Brittany sat down and wrote out their Christmas wish lists for Santa, and today the Mitchell family was going to the Grove to see the big man himself.
Brittany's Christmas list was fairly simple; mostly comprised of wishes for baby dolls and dress up clothes. Anna's list on the other hand, was originally 4 pages long, but Chloe managed to get it down to 1 and a half. Anna had many toys on her list, as well as an entire page dedicated to books and craft supplies.
As much as Beca and Chloe tried not to spoil their kids, they knew their kids had more than most, so instead they made an effort to at least make the things the girls had were either educational or useful. When the girls didn't play with something for a while or started to run out of space in their play room, they went through a toy purge and donated all the ones in good condition to various programs in the community that helped the less fortunate.
Obviously, they had some toys that were just for fun, and they did keep many toys simply for sentimental reasons, but most of them served a purpose. Chloe was adamant that her kids would not grow up in front of a screen, and instead would use their imaginations and actually learn to interact with others. Case in point, whenever the girls would get in trouble, they would be sent to sit on the couch and think about why they were there instead of simply going to their room or the playroom, where their books, games, toys and puzzles were. Not many 6 year olds get grounded from reading.
Both Brittany and Anna were quite interested in how things worked and making their own inventions, which Chloe and Beca strongly encouraged. The girls were currently in obsessed with building all sorts of different creations but didn't ask for any of that type of stuff for Christmas, because they already had quite literally hundreds of Legos, building blocks and various kits from their Aunt Stacie.
Since Stacie majored in engineering, she was the go-to aunt when it came to science, math, technology and other creative things. Uncle Benji was also a go-to guy when it came to imagination and nerdy stuff. Aunt Emily helped the kids with the fine arts, like music and dance and writing. Aunt Aubrey provided books out the wazoo for her goddaughters, determined to make them well rounded, but also as an attempt to balance out Jesse's movie education efforts.
The other original Bellas and the newly extended family members also were wonderful influences on the Bechloe kids, and it made Beca realize that it really DOES take a village to raise a child, let alone 2. Beca and Chloe were very fortunate to have so many friends with such diverse talents to help them raise their kids, and even more fortunate to still have many of their friends living so close to them.
One of Beca's favorite and least favorite things about moving from Georgia to Los Angeles was the people. LA was just so much bigger. Both in size and the amount of activity. They say that New York is the 'city that never sleeps' but Beca was pretty sure LA would be a close second. The biggest thing Beca hated about LA though, was the traffic, and having to interact with the general public.
"Okay Banana, go get in the car please," said Chloe as she opened the garage door. "I'll be there in a second."
Anna dashed over to the car and clambered into her seat, with Beca and Brittany close behind. Chloe on the other hand, locked up the house and set the alarm before joining her family. Once Brittany was strapped into her car seat and everyone else was settled, Chloe drove them to the Grove.
The nice thing about Beca's job, was that it allowed for a lot of flexibility and she was able to attend many things with Anna and Brittany. As for Chloe, as the co-founder of the Mitchell Music Foundation, she didn't really have to work at all if she didn't want to since Beca's job more than provided for their whole family. They had established their foundation enough to hire full time staff and volunteers to run the program, but Chloe would frequently pop by her old home where the foundation was located, to see how everything was going just for fun. However, to maintain the social interactions that Chloe craved, and to keep herself occupied, Chloe still taught part time at the private school that Anna now attended.
The Mitchell family decided to go visit Santa because as creepy as Beca found the whole idea "He watches people like a stalker, and breaks into their houses and eats their food, Chloe. How in the hell is that socially acceptable?" she knew her girls would love it. It was actually Beca's idea to go, because she was determined to make her daughters' childhoods full of the happy memories and positive experiences she never had as a child.
When the Mitchell's arrived, there was a line, which was to be expected, but Beca was seemingly more upset about it than the kids. Beca was a fairly impatient person when it came to waiting, and being 5'2", she didn't particularly like large crowds of people that were taller than her (or people in general) –especially around the holidays. So, obviously, if you combine waiting in line with a large crowd of people doing their Christmas shopping and visiting Santa, you don't get a very happy Beca. On the other hand, Anna and Brittany were very fascinated with all of hustle and bustle that was happening at the Grove. The lights and sounds were simply mesmerizing to the girls and they were content to just be held by their parents and look around. At first, Chloe wasn't going to pick Anna up, but once she pleaded her case ("Mama is too short for me to be able to see anything when she holds me"), Chloe relented and hoisted her older daughter on her shoulders to give her a better vantage point. Brittany however, was totally content to snuggle into her Mama's chest and look around from there. Out of the 2 girls, Brittany was the one that took a while to warm up to new situations, especially when there were many unfamiliar faces involved. However, once she was comfortable, you couldn't get her to stop.
After about 15 minutes of waiting, it was Anna and Brittany's turn to see the big man himself. Brittany had been talking quietly to Beca the entire time they were standing in line about what she wanted to tell Santa, but when it came time to actually do it, Brittany would just NOT let go of Beca. Anna had already scrambled down from Chloe's shoulders and was currently plopped in the fat man's lap, reading him the letter she wrote along with her wish list.
"Come on, Britt. Come give Santa your letter!" Anna encouraged her little sister.
Brittany just burrowed closer to Beca and grabbed a fist full of Beca's shirt with her little balled up hands. The photographer who was dressed as an elf clearly did not appreciate Brittany holding up the line, and let out a completely non-subtle sigh. Internally rolling her eyes at how absolutely unprofessional the worker was, Beca tried to set Brittany down.
Attempting to place her youngest daughter in to the arms of a strange man dressed in red with a lot of facial hair however, was not the best idea Beca had ever had in the world. Especially since the only men that Brittany was ever around were mostly the significant others of the Bellas or her grandfather. Brittany actually let out a whimper and her mini-Chloe like face scrunched up and started to turn red. Quickly trying to salvage the situation, aware of everyone in line watching, Beca took a deep breath and looked at Brittany.
"Do you want me to go with you?" she asked, silently hoping Brittany would suddenly grow some lady balls and do it by herself, even though she already knew the answer.
"Ohtay," Brittany mumbled into Beca's boobs.
With a determined look, Beca crossed the threshold and joined a now very annoyed Anna by Santa's large chair.
"Finally," Anna said, "Are you gonna take a picture with Santa and Britt, Mama?"
"Yep!" Beca said, trying to make her voice sound convincingly excited, while in reality she was anything but. Glaring at her wife who was giggling her ass off, Beca put Brittany down and grabbed her hand to lead her over to where her sister was.
Beca was fine with the idea of Santa for her girls, she really was. But while Beca definitely wanted Brittany and Anna to experience everything she didn't get to as a child, sometimes she couldn't help but be a bit jealous of her girls. Beca's dad had told her Santa didn't exist when she was 7. And a few years later, he walked out on Beca and her mom. Once the divorce was finalized, the holidays stopped being something to celebrate, and instead something Beca grew to hate.
It wasn't until she met Chloe and the rest of the Bellas did the holidays become something special again. After all the time that had passed, between Beca's childhood and beyond college, Beca had thought she had gotten over most of it, but apparently, not everything. It's hard to make yourself believe in something you spent your whole life being told wasn't true.
Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Beca returned her attention to Brittany who finally decided that if her sister was talking to the man and hadn't had anything bad happen to her, that he was probably okay. The little redhead was currently finishing up telling Santa about what she wanted, while still maintaining a firm grip on Beca's hand.
"Okay, now let's take the photo. I want all of you to look right at the bell on top of my hat and give me your biggest smiles. Okay? The photographer threw on a fake smile of her own, and went to take the photo when all of a sudden Anna shrieked at the worker elf to stop.
"MOMMY! Come join us!"
Beca looked over to her left, where Chloe was standing outside of the gate and filming the whole exchange. Shocked, Chloe said, "No, I'm good over here baby. Grownups aren't supposed to be in the photo. Just you!"
"Mama is a grownup and she's here," Anna shot back.
"Mama is there because Brittany needs her," Chloe responded.
"Well I need you too, so come here."
Chloe began to try to think of a reason she couldn't, but came up with nothing. Soon, Brittany added in her pleas for her mommy to come join. Beca though, was the final drop that tipped the bucket.
"Don't be a Scrooge, Chlo. Come join us. It can be our family photo for this year."
Having watched A Christmas Carol with Anna a few nights previous, Anna's eyes got big.
"Mommy don't be a Scrooge! Nobody likes him!" Anna honestly looked so sad at the prospect of someone not liking her mommy that Chloe finally gave in.
"Oh alright. Hold on," Chloe said, as she walked past the line and into Santa's Workshop.
Once the 4 finally got settled, the worker elf who had totally had enough of the Mitchell family by now, quickly took the photo and rattled off a spiel about how to get copies of the photo and promptly shoved them out of the workshop so she could deal with the next family in line.
"Oooh, look Mama! Snow globes! And ornaments! And oooh a keychain," the girls went running around looking at all of the objects they could get their faces plastered on.
Beca looked at the digital photo on the screen, quite pleased with how well it turned out. "Look how cute the girls are!" she said to Chloe, who came over to the computer monitor to see for herself.
"Definitely going in this year's Christmas cards!" Chloe agreed with a smile. "We made some great looking kids," she added.
After buying their photos, the Mitchells walked around the Grove for a while. They ate lunch at Maggiano's Little Italy, where the girls couldn't stop talking about their time with Santa, and then decided to returned home. The girls both went to take their afternoon naps after their busy morning, and Beca and Chloe curled up on the couch together.
"Thank you for doing this with the girls. I know it's still not your favorite thing in the world, but it means the world to me that you do it anyway," Chloe said. "Seeing the kids so happy telling Santa all of their wishes made my heart melt."
"Yeah well, that's the holidays for ya, I guess," Beca said, trying not to get sappy.
"What did you tell Santa you wished for?" Chloe asked, nudging Beca's side.
"Wishes don't work like that, Beale."
"It's Mitchell to you, missy," Chloe said. "Now tell me!"
"Whatever. If you must know, I wished for a puppy."
"Seriously Becs?" Chloe asked, surprised at her wife's wish.
"Yeah. I think it'd be fun!"
"Beca. Animals are a big responsibility. You have to feed them, and give them water and love, and walk them and…"
"Oh my god 'mom', I know!" Beca said, sarcastically. "I was just saying. But to be totally honest, it wasn't a puppy that I wished for, even though I do want one. My real Christmas wish was you." When Chloe started to look emotional, Beca immediately went to put a damper on it.
"Baby all I want for Christmas is yoooooou," she sang, in her best Mariah Carey impression.
"That wish already came true. It will always BE true. Because I love you, and I'm never going to stop."
"You're okay I guess."