When Donald came back with the VCR, Louie was kneeling by the box of tapes as Della took out all the ones that were labelled.
"Uncle Donald, get it hooked up to the TV," said Louie. "I wanna see what's on these little old-timey boxes."
"You've seen a VHS tape before," Huey said, unamused.
Louie ignored him. "Hey Penumbra, how do people on the moon watch movies?"
"There's no time for passive entertainment there," she said. "Our daily lives consist only of combat training to fend off moon mites. Or they did."
"You're welcome," Della said chipperly.
Huey took out his Junior Woodchuck Guidebook and wrote "moon mites" in the corner of his most recent page. "You guys have to tell me everything you saw on the moon someday."
"Later," said Della as she put a tape into the VCR. She affected a sort of trailer-announcer voice. "Right now, you kids are gonna see me and your uncle Donald as you never have before."
"Except for Dewey," Donald muttered.
Della looked up. "What was that?" But there was no answer, and the tape had started to play, so she just sat cross-legged on the floor and watched.
Donald and Della couldn't have been more than eight. Duckworth was cleaning up scattered wrapping paper from the floor and putting it in a plastic bag, and Donald picked up a wrapped gift from under the tree and brought it to Scrooge, who sat on a big red armchair.
"This one's from me and Della," he said as Scrooge took the gift and placed it on his lap. He unwrapped it to find a big hardcover book of carols.
"Isn't that grand," he said, admiring the cover. "Thank you, kids."
The twins propped themselves up by either side of the chair to look with him. As he flipped through it, he noticed that some pages had seemingly been torn out.
"We took out all the Santa songs," said Della.
"Good thinking," said Scrooge. "What say we put it to use, eh?"
The video cut to the piano, where the kids sat on the floor and watched Scrooge play an old, slow, sentimental song. Donald hummed along every now and then, but Della was rather fidgety.
"Play a fun one, Uncle Scrooge!" she whined.
He sighed, but did as she said. He flipped to another page and started to play a more uptempo song.
"We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, and a happy new year," the three of them sang. Scrooge tried, but couldn't quite hide his wincing at Donald's voice. Della started singing the next verse - her favorite - before Scrooge even got to the bridge, but he and Donald managed to catch up as she stood up and bounced next to the piano singing about figgy pudding. That part had always made her laugh.
It still did.
Donald was wearing an uncomfortable looking Christmas sweater that some older relative had definitely pushed on him, and he started scratching around his collar. Della tried to help him by pulling the back of the collar and stretching it over his head so it covered his face. She burst into a fit of giggles, but her brother was less amused and chased her around the foyer without even readjusting his sweater.
"Dumbella!" he screamed as she kept on laughing. Scrooge stood up from the piano bench and went after them.
"Alright, none of that!" Somewhere offscreen, he struggled to pull the kids apart after Donald finally caught his sister and the two had started hitting each other. "Hortense, put the blasted camera down and help me handle your kids!"
The screen went to static, and Della announced to the room, "For the record, I totally won that fight."
"Neither of ya won," said Scrooge, almost scolding. "But I certainly lost. Now, was this the same year you pushed Donald into the tree and knocked the whole thing over?"
"That was the year after," Donald grumbled.
"Aw," Della said, and went to stand next to Donald's chair, smirking. "Aren't you glad we can get back to making memories like that?"
Donald didn't reply, just turned around to show her that the ornament on the middle of his back was still stuck there. She pulled out the hook and hung it from the band on his hat instead, so it fell right between his eyes.
He yelled incomprehensibly, but she didn't even flinch.
"If you're all quite done in here," Beakley said flatly as she entered the room. "Dinner will be served in five minutes. Everyone wash up." She started walking out, but soon turned over her shoulder. "And Donald," she said.
He looked over at her past the bauble in his face.
"If you would refrain from taking anything breakable into the dining room. Thank you."
She was barely three steps out the door when the ornament fell off his hat, rolled off his beak, and shattered on the floor.