So this little nugget entered my head when I was driving. The current plan is for it to be under 5,000 words, but we shall see.

Chapter 1

The Bingleys were both in the kitchen working on their first Thanksgiving meal together. Bingley was stuffing the turkey while Jane was removing some gingerbread cookies from the oven. While waiting for them to cool before removing them from the sheets, she went to inspect Charles's progress.

"That turkey looks great!" she exclaimed. "Maybe official turkey chef should be your permanent Thanksgiving day post."

"Let's see how it turns out after it cooks. Is that the last of them?" He gestured to the cookies with his elbow while continuing to work on the turkey.

"Yes, all done and I've already adjusted the oven temp for the turkey."

"Awesome Jane. We make a great team!"

Jane came up to him and wrapped her arms around him from the side while still wearing her extra long oven mitts. She pulled his head down and gave him a kiss before snuggling against him.

"Hey, no fair. I can't hug you back."

"We do make a good team. I hope it is always like this. I don't want to turn into my father and mother. She is always complaining that no one helps her in the kitchen, but when we try she always tells us we are doing it wrong even though we try our best to follow her directions (and they are vague and often contradictory). Dad used to help, but it just became too much for him and now he and Uncle Phil go and hang out at Denny's bar each Thanksgiving while my mom and aunt cook in their separate kitchens. I thought I hated cooking until I got my first apartment and could try it by myself."

Charles washed his hands for a long time and then put the turkey in the oven. With that accomplished he turned to Jane. "But you told me the gingerbread cookies were a family tradition. Is it just a Jane and Elizabeth tradition from the past few years?"

"No. Didn't I tell you about them? Lizzy and I learned to make them from our Memaw, my dad's mom. After Thanksgiving (sometimes right after the Thanksgiving dinner, sometimes a few days later) we would always make them together; it was her way of welcoming in the Christmas season. By the time she was gone, the two of us knew how to make them ourselves. It seems odd to make them without Lizzy, but I wanted them to be one of our traditions."

Jane began lifting cookies from the sheet with a spatula to join the other cookies cooling on the rack. Charles wandered over to the counter to watch. "Is that why they are all Christmas shapes?" he asked while reaching for a candy cane shaped one.

"Paws off!" she told him, playfully swatting at him. "Didn't you hear me tell you about how they are to welcome in the Christmas season? You can't eat them until after Thanksgiving dinner, and anyway I haven't frosted them yet. I wish Lizzy was here to help me with them." Jane got a little wistful expression on her face.

"Well, if you wait to do it until after our guests arrive, I bet you can get some help. Gigi at least will help you, maybe Louisa, too, but I doubt Caro can be persuaded. The guys, well I don't know about them, but I'll be glad to join in with the decorating if you don't care about the end result and running out of frosting before the cookies are all decorated."

Jane smiled at him. "What a good idea. So you are an eats-frosting-right-out-of-the-can kind of a guy? I keep being surprised by what I don't yet know about you, hubby. You might be disappointed to find out that the frosting is just made with powdered sugar, corn syrup, milk and vanilla."

"That takes all the fun out of it" he mock-complained.

"The frosting may be plain, but that is so you can still taste the cookies. But I do have all sorts of sprinkles and candies to put on them."

"Ah, so I can sneak little bits at a time. Just like I like to sneak cookies." His hand darted out, grabbed a tree shaped cookie and shoved the whole thing in his mouth.

Before Jane could retaliate with him by tickling him, her phone rang.

Charles could only hear Jane's side of the conversation which consisted of: "Oh no. . . . That's awful. . . . She didn't! . . . Yes, of course. . . . Three . . . . We have it handled. You can help decorate the cookies. . . . Of course I did; you got me the cookie cutters after all. . . . Okay, see you then."

Charles was used to hearing these sorts of conversations. "So Elizabeth is coming to our Thanksgiving dinner? What did your mom do this time?"

"Oh Charles, do you remember that obnoxious third cousin of ours that Mom invited to the wedding?"

"You mean the one she was trying to set Elizabeth up with? The one who critiqued all our reception decorations with how well his rich boss would have liked them?"

"That's the one, Will Collins. My mom invited him for Thanksgiving dinner and to stay over for the whole long weekend. Apparently based on everything my mother told him, he thought that he was now Elizabeth's boyfriend. He was following her around and even tried to follow her into her bedroom when she was trying to change into an outfit my mother bought for her and insisted on. Elizabeth had to shut the door in his face and lock it. And then when she unzipped the garment bag, she found a leather skirt with a black and white zebra print and a red silk shirt with a plunging neckline, and there was even a box with red pumps that were a size and a half too small. There was no way Lizzy was going to wear that. So she decided to fly the coop and join our little shin-dig."

"Well, that's fine with me, but does she know that Darcy's going to be here with his sister for the weekend, too?"

"I . . . I should have told her. She was talking so fast that I really wasn't thinking about the logistics. She may end up on the couch, but she isn't mad at Darcy anymore, not for a while. She likes him better than Caroline and I know she knows your sisters were going to come. I never told him about Darcy and his sister since that happened since we talked last week. Do you think I should call and warn her?"

"That depends. Was she leaving right away?"

"Yeah, she said she had her things packed and it was us or Charlotte."

"I don't think you should call her then. With the way your sister drives when she is upset she might wreck while trying to pick up your call. And anyway, she will probably be here hours before Darcy."