Ch 10- Jingling her Bells

House was dressed nicely standing outside Cuddy's house after having rang the bell several times to no avail. He tried again, starting to feel the extent of the New Jersey winter biting into his warm flesh and swearing under his breath about women taking too long. He was rewarded for his patience…or at least his waiting, by a kiss from Cuddy and nearly forgot all about the half hour he had spent out in the frosty Christmas air. He settled down on the couch with the newspaper watching Cuddy rush around the house looking for various things.

In true Christmas spirit, her sister expected her to cook a ham and bring it along as well as the gifts for the family. House rolled his eyes half a dozen times before pointing out that Cuddy was still wearing a slightly charred apron round her middle as she was pulling on her coat. The Dean of Medicine swore loudly, much to House's surprised pleasure, turned a light shade of pink for using foul language around Rachel, then set about righting the mistake, leaving House to handle the child.

All in all, the diagnostician would have much rather been in charge of the ham on the trip across town, but he was stuck with Rachel duties and ended up reluctantly calming her sniffles as Cuddy tried valiantly to remember everything that she needed to put in the car for the evening. When everyone was finally settled into Cuddy's sedan, House received another kiss, much to his pleasure, and then they were off. He listened to his girlfriend go on about her sister's flaws and children (which he would have also considered flaws, but didn't care to say it for fear of getting her started in on him), happy that she was at least not berating him.

Her demeanor changed almost the instant that they pulled into the driveway of the small house in the suburbs. House assumed it was all for the Christmas spirit or Cuddy would have taken one of the light-up candy canes and shoved it up her sister's presumptuous little ass for putting a single working mother with an entire hospital to manage to so much trouble. Much as House would have liked to see his lover sodomize her sister with a candy cane, he wanted the evening to go smoothly so that he could be the one to shake up her holiday.

House was pleasant to the four people who Cuddy called relatives and helped his girlfriend haul all of the gifts and the ham into the house, leaving the sister to take Rachel inside. Buck, Cuddy's brother in law, offered him a cigar and he stood outside in the biting air once again that evening to 'bond' with the fatter, less intelligent man. When he returned to the living room with Buck not far behind and beaming like an idiot, Cuddy shot him a relieved and very tired look. He determined that later that night, he would give her a back massage, as it looked as though she would need it.

The evening wore on and House listened to several non-amusing croquet stories from Buck and an even less amusing story about Amy, Cuddy's sister, locking her in the basement for nearly six hours when they were children. The food was mediocre, save for Cuddy's ham, but House held his tongue and even wished Buck, Amy, Christopher, and Samantha a happy holiday before he, Cuddy and Rachel left.

"I meant to ask before," House started on the way home after ranting for ten minutes about her boring, unintelligent family members; "Why do you celebrate Christmas? What kind of Jew are you?"

"Well you don't have to get rude," she replied, "but Buck is obviously not Jewish. I do my own celebration with Mom during Hanukkah, but Amy has chosen not to participate since she had kids. Buck doesn't want to confuse them…"

"Go figure," House replied, rolling his eyes.

"Hanukkah's over, but I'd planned on celebrating Christmas with you. Rachel's already had her celebrations."

"Ah. I should have picked her up a bag of diapers as a gift," he said sarcastically. "I got her a little jumper that Wilson couldn't stop fawning over instead. It's in my car with your stuff."

"You didn't have to get us anything," Cuddy said, smiling a real smile for the first time all night. "But thank you."

"You're my girlfriend and she's…your kid. I did have to get you something."

"Did you even get Wilson something?"

"Yes. I pay for his subscription to playboy every year…they get sent to my place and he picks them up there…"

Cuddy snorted. "Right. Those are Wilson's gifts."

"They are. Just check the labels next time you see one lying around. Occasionally I'll spring for a sweater too. Or a tie…he loves ties."

"So he does." Cuddy looked over at House in the passenger's seat. Rachel was already asleep in the back and they were only a few miles away from home. "Thank you for tonight," she said seriously. "I really appreciated it."

"You're welcome…I expect a nice reward, though…"

She laughed. "Fine, I'll break out the handcuffs…" House's eyes lit up, causing her to break into a fit of giggles. She pulled up in front of her house a few moments later and kissed House slowly.

"What say we take the squirt upstairs and do a little celebrating?" he suggested, wiggling his eyebrows.

"I'd say that sounds like a plan," she replied.