Chapter 23

The suburban McMansion is dotted with festive lights. But as the wind shrieks, it starts creeping towards the house, strangely drifting through the air like something eerie. "Well, at least your family cares enough to fight." Beth was in her room skyping her boyfriend Derek.

Beth said, "Yeah, my cousins are crawling out of the shallow end of the gene pool so everyone's a little on edge."

Derek asked, "Your mom popping Xanax again?"

Beth replied, "Like candy. Mary and I flushed the bottle down the toilet for the third time this month. Tonight we're making a Japanese snowflake tree of some shit. Takes a lotta work to make our family look more awesome than it actually is, you know? I wish Grandpa was here. He knows how to make the holidays fun."

Derek said, "Hmm, yeah, I like snowflakes but I like my plan better..." Derek holds up Gremlins and Die Hard DVDs, with a bag of weed and a Frosty the Snowman decorated bong. Then he playfully flicks his tongue at her. "This is my version of making the holidays fun."

Beth smiled. "Verrry enticing, but think I'm stuck here. I actually wanna hear how Mary's ballet went anyway."

Derek said, "C'mon, people escaped from Alcatraz and I'm only four blocks away." Beth's face drops... hearing something... something bad. "What? What's wrong?"

Her room rattles as a deep rumbling builds outside. Beth cringes, quietly playing for it to go away. Beth sighs and looked at her boyfriend. "Everything."

In Tom's den, the rumbling shakes Tom's boring work trophies and photos: Best Ceramic Tile Salesman 2013; Incentive Marketing Leadership Conference 2011; Paradigm Shifters Jamboree 2009. Wincing at the noise, Tom sneaks some whiskey into his coffee, closes his eyes, and silently mouths fuuuck.

In Mary's room, she got her red velvet Christmas dress on and felt the rumbling too. "They're here." She said in the same tone as the Poltergeist. She then got her white stockings out and started to put them on. "Heaven help us."

Max finishes his letter in the dining hall when DINGDONG-DINGDONG-DINGDONG- NONSTOP annoying doorbell ringing fills the house. At the same time in the living room, DINGDONG-DINGDONG-DINGDONG! Sarah pauses from her decorating, and breathes deeply, trying to keep it together whispering, "It's Christmas... It's Christmas... It's Christmas... It's –" Moments later, the door swings open, and Sarah is now all smiles! "MERRY CHRISTMASSSS!"

At the front doorstep, Linda has taken the shine off Sarah's younger sister. They hugged awkwardly. "MERRY CHRISTMAS, SIS!"

Sarah hugged her back. "So glad you guys made it!"

Linda said tiredly, "Oh my gosh, you have no idea! Accidents were all over the freeways and nothing but traffic and crazy talk radio for six hours. Oh and here- we brought a little taste of home!" Howie came in and hands Sarah a casserole dish filled with something brown and moist. It might be her version of eggs benedict casserole. Holding together but needed more time in the oven.

Sarah's stiff grin only gets stiffer. "Wow, thanks. It looks just... Wow!"

Then Howard came in. "Move on in, Linda! No need to keep the traffic jam goin' now!" Red-faced, broad-chested, with a Santa hat over his hunting cap, pushes his way inside with luggage and gifts crudely wrapped with magazines and newspapers.

Tom reaches for the luggage. "Howard! Lemme help you with that."

But Tom couldn't catch them in time as Howard basically dropped the presents to the ground. "Ha! Gave your butler the night off, huh, Tommy?" Tom smiles uneasily as the bulldog came in. "Yeah, we brought Rosie. You don't have a cat do ya?"

Linda tried to ease the mood. "It's fine. It's fine, right? It's fine." She started to laugh.

Linda then saw her two nieces. Jordan and Stevie. Both sport varsity jackets, glum faces, and shaved heads. "Merry Christmas, girls. Don't you look cute in your matching jackets!"

Linda said, "They're a little cranky because the Steelers lost." Then she tried getting her girls to talk to Sarah. "Jordan, Stevie, why don't you tell Aunt Sarah about your Presidential Fitness Awards?" The girls shook their heads as Linda left. "It's a good story."

Max greets pudgy Howie, a mute mouth-breather with enough body fat to only need a football jersey for warmth. "Ummm, hey Howie..." He tried to search for the words. "Soooooo what'd you ask Santa for this year?"

Howie looks at his cousins Beth and whispers to Max, "Dialysis." Howie flips off Beth. "Oh, he moves." Then she walked away.

Max shook his head. "If you're looking for Mary, she's upstairs getting dressed."

Howie's eyes went big and went upstairs. He arrived at Mary's door and like a gentleman, he knocked on the door. "Come in Howie."

He walked in and saw Mary in her dress and stockings and was having a hard time picking her holiday shoes as she has 12 pairs on the ground. "How did you know it was me?" he asked. He sometimes only talks to her.

Mary said, "I can always tell a person by the way they knock." She smiled. She moved her head to the door. "If you wanna talk to me without Thing 1 and Thing 2 listening to us, close the door. Got some news about earlier today."

Howie knew what that meant and closed the door. Once the door was closed and locked, he ditched the dead-pan act and turned into his true self which was a small clone of Leslie Jordan to some extent. "Spill the tea."

Mary got the present that has yet to be unwrapped from her grandfather. "2 down, 1 to go! I just finished Swan Lake!" The 2 squealed quietly as they tapped their feet with excitement. "I'm so close. I just need one more and I can finally open this."

Howie said, "I already can't wait to see you as the maddest bitchy fairy in that theater. Man, you're so lucky. All I'm getting for Christmas is a damn football."

Mary asked, "Why not tell your parents what's on your mind?"

Howie said, "To quote Leslie Jordan: My mind is like a bad neighborhood. Honey, you do not want to go up there alone." He sighs and looked at her shoes. Then he picked black fancy shoes. "Can you wear these for a few hours?"

Mary said, "Limit is 4 so I think I can." She put the present on the bed and put on her shoes. "What do you really want for Christmas anyway?"

Howie said, "I asked Santa for tap shoes. I'm not into jazz but I don't mind going into my dad's Irish roots. I would be a natural in Riverdance."

Mary nodded as she got a mental picture. "I can see that." Once her shoes were on, she got her present in her hands. "Well ready?" Howie but back on his dead-pan face not speaking. "You're too good at this."

Meanwhile, Uncle Howard pulled Max into a painful headlock and noogie. "MAXI-PAD! Still gettin' straight A's in detention?!" Max twists lose, annoyed.

Then a woman walked up. "Christ-on-a-stick, would it kill ya to shovel the walk? I coulda broken a hip out there!" Sarah glares at Linda as if she invited a Nazi to Passover.

Linda said, "Surprise...? Please don't be mad."

It was Aunt Dorothy trudging inside looking for something else to bitch about. Sarah forces another smile and a stiff hug. "Aunt Dorothy... What a surprise."

Aunt Dorothy said, "Yeah well, your sister's no Mother Teresa but at least she swings by once in a while to make sure I'm not dead. Now, where's your nog? I wanna get merry."

Sara said, "In the kitchen. Help yourself."

Aunt Dorothy scowls at Sarah's decorations as she leaves. In the dining hall, Aunt Dorothy looked at the decorations. "Lord Almighty looks like Martha Stewart threw up in here."

Tom is about to close the door but stops and looks at Linda. "Wait, wasn't there... another...?"

Linda smacks her forehead, remembering, "CHRISSY! Dammit Jordan, I told you to bring her inside!"

Jordan said, "Not my kid." Jordan elbows Stevie and points to the letter poking out of Max's back pocket, clearly addressed to the North Pole. Ideas brewing, the girls mischievously whisper to each other.

Howard slaps Tom hard on the back, lurching him forward. "C'mon Tommy, help me grab the baby and the rest of the girl crap outta the truck."

Coast clear, Sarah pulls Linda inside. "A holiday roast is a surprise. Cancer is a surprise. She is a goddamn nightmare. What were you thinking?"

Linda tried to explain herself. "Oh c'mon, she's not that bad! And besides, she tricked me! I thought we were just dropping off gifts but on the way here, she came to the car door with a suitcase. What was I supposed to do, leave her alone on Christmas? She said she just finished watching a theater show or something."

Sara said, "No, but you could at least warn me when one of your mistakes is going to become my problem."

Linda said, "You think everything I do is a mistake. Oh, and by the way, that theater show was Mary's ballet of Swan Lake." Sarah's eyes widen. "Yeah, who made the bigger mistake?"

Howard walks back inside carrying baby Chrissy, his arms outstretched like he's holding a bomb. "I, uh, think this warhead is armed."

Linda takes Chrissy as Sarah raises a brow at her sister: point proven. Another defeat in a lifetime of lost arguments. "Guess I better go change her." Tom and Sarah exchanged a look - a brief private moment. He goes cross-eyed and Sarah shakes her head, smiling. Until...

Aunt Dorothy said, "So. What's for dinner?"

Max sits on the steps, baffled by his bizarre family. "Wish you were here Grandpa."