Disclaimer- I own nothing.
December 24, 2001- First Grade
Matt must have been the only kid on the planet who hated Christmas. He didn't just dislike it; he hated it with a passion. For Matt Rutherford, Christmas meant having to spend far too much time with his family, which would have been fine if he had been born into a nice, normal family. But in Matt Rutherford's family, everyone was one of three types of crazy; mildly crazy, moderately crazy, or institutionization-able. Matt was the only one who was mildly crazy. There were a few moderately crazy distant relatives who stayed with the Rutherfords over the holidays. But ninety eight percent of the Rutherford family belonged in a mental institution. And when you get eleven people together, the things that unavoidably go wrong are unimaginable.
Matt was watching a football game on the T.V. while Mrs. Rutherford folded and unfolded blankets nervously; the house had been perfectly clean for the entire week, but Mrs. Rutherford wanted to impress her relatives so badly that she was incapable of resting.
"Matt, honey, you remember everything from last year, don't you sweetie?" asked Mrs. Rutherford. Matt nodded hi head yes, but Mrs. Rutherford decided to tell him once again, for her own unknown reasons. "I moved the air mattress into your room for you to sleep on. Now, I know this isn't the most convenient thing for the holidays, but there simply isn't enough room in this house! Your cousins are going to be staying in your room for the next week or so. Grandma and Grandpa will be staying in the guest room, and your aunt and uncle will be in the baby's room. Now, did you get all of that?"
"If Aunt Christina and Uncle Miguel are staying in Abby's room, where is Abby going to sleep?" asked Matt, not really caring, but he knew that if he didn't have at least one question his mother would assume he was not listening and repeat her entire speech all over again; and he most definitely did not want that again.
"Oh, we're just going to move her crib into your father and my room," she answered frantically. The doorbell rang. "Oh! That must be the cousins. Now, remember to show them around before you take them up to your and Lizzie's room."
"Why can't Lizzie do this?" Matt asked with a whiny edge to his voice. His mother shot him a terrible look and he immediately stopped complaining.
Mrs. Rutherford smoothed her dress and walked with false serenity to the door. "Welcome!" she exclaimed, reaching out to hug her brother, and then his wife.
'It's so nice to see you," said Aunt Christina, and even Matt could tell she was not really happy at all. Matt's mother than hugged Matt's cousins.
"Matt, why don't you show your cousins to your room?" asked Mrs. Rutherford in an unnaturally cheery tone of voice.
Matt begrudgingly led his cousins up the stairs. He walked down the hall, until they stopped at his room. There was a handmade 'Keep Out!' sign on the door that Matt did not recognize. Matt jiggled the door knob, but it was locked from the inside. "Lizzie! Let us in!" he aid, adding a kick to the door as his final touch.
The girly music coming from the room was so loud that Matt's sister probably hadn't even heard him- just the way she had most likely planned it. "Lizzie!" he yelled.
After about thirty seconds, Matt's cousin Santana- who also attended Lima Elementary's first grade, although she was in a different class than Matt- shoved him out of the way, with nothing more than a blunt, "Move!" Matt watched in amazement as little Santana kicked the door with more power than you'd expect a two hundred pound man to be able to muster up. It made a loud 'thud' sound.
Lizzie most definitely heard that. She opened the door a crack, so that only her face showed. "What?" she asked.
"Mom wanted me to bring Santana and Carlos to our room," explained Matt. Carlos, a twelve year old who already had a mustache, sighed in either frustration or boredom.
"Fine, whatever," said nine year old Lizzie, swinging the door wide open. She plopped down on one of the two air mattresses and continued to read her tween magazine, completely ignoring Matt, Santana, and Carlos.
"Dinner!" yelled Mrs. Rutherford, rather grandly as if she was announcing to a far larger and more important than her kids, niece, and nephew.
Lizzie, Matt, Santana, and Carlos rushed down the stairs to claim their respective seats at the dinner table. Santana shoved Matt out of the way to get to the seat next to the cranberry jelly.
Mrs. Rutherford smiled, still in that falsely happy style that anyone could tell was not real. "Santana, would you mind saying grace?"
"I'd love to, Auntie Rosa," said Santana sweetly. Santana was sweet around adults but a nightmare around other kids, a skill only a little girl with a brother six years her senior can possess. "Dear Lord, we are so grateful that you have brought us all together, and we are really happy that we have each other, but we are mostly grateful for the yummy food that Aunt Rosa made for us." Everyone laughed at the last part and started eating. As soon as the adults were no longer watching, Santana turned back into her real self. She kicked Matt under the table repeatedly. At first he gave her the benefit of the doubt, believing it was just an accident. That might have been so, if she hadn't done it at least five hundred times, and whispered "You suck," into Matt's ear every chance she got.
When dinner was over, the kids went back up to their room. Carlos sat down on the bed and started texting with a cell phone that looked to be much older than he was. Santana started snooping around the room, opening every drawer. Matt and Lizzie watched until Lizzie could not take it anymore. "What are you doing?" she asked.
"Looking for something to explode," said Santana, her voice oozing with 'duh'.
"Who do you think you are?" asked Lizzie.
"Amazing, beautiful, need I go on?" asked Santana with a smirk. She was very advanced for a seven year old.
"You forgot delusional," muttered Carlos, not even looking up from his cell phone.
"I'm leaving,' said Lizzie, taking her pillow and her iPod, not leaving because if Matt knew Lizzie at all she was just looking for attention.
Santana obviously knew this, too. Lizzie and Santana were really two of a kind. They were so alike that they really didn't get along at all. "Bye," said Santana simply.
Lizzie stormed out of the room and purposely made a lot of noise stomping down the stairs. Santana and Carlos acted as if nothing had happened at all. Matt dropped his mouth in awe. In Matt's world, you just didn't make Lizzie mad. It was just something that no one did, or even thought of doing.
"Why'd you do that?" asked Matt, shyly. Even if Santana and Carlos were his family, they kind of scared him.
Santana shrugged. "She was bugging me."
Santana said this like it wasn't a big deal at all, which never ceased to amaze Matt. Matt aspired to be more like Santana, or Lizzie. They didn't take crap from anyone, and they would never allow themselves to become invisible to anyone.
Matt walked down the stairs, planning to talk to his sister, but his plans were spoiled when he found her already asleep and snoring.
Matt debated whether or not to call Finn. His mother said it was rude to call anyone before eleven in the morning or after seven at night, and it was seven thirty. It also happened to be Christmas Eve, and Finn was probably busy. But on the other hand, Finn called him at about eight every night to ask if Mrs. Stein had assigned them any homework that day. And Finn didn't really celebrate the holidays with his Mom, when Matt had asked Finn hadn't even been sure what religion he was. So Matt decided to go ahead and call on the house phone. He dialed seven digits into the phone.
Finn answered on the first ring, and Matt was grateful for that. Finn was in the other first grade class so they really only spoke on the phone, on the bus, or at recess. "Hello?" asked Finn. Finn didn't have caller id so he had no idea who was calling.
"Hey, Finn. It's me," said Matt, not bothering to say who 'me' was. They had been best friends for over a year, and Finn just knew.
"Hey," said Finn. "How's it going?"
"Good. My cousin's are here, and Lizzie and Santana got into a big fight."
Finn was silent, and Matt knew that he was trying to figure out to whom Matt was referring when he said 'Santana'. After a few seconds, Finn asked if it was, "Santana Lopez?"
Matt nodded, until he realized that Finn could not see him. 'Yeah, she's my cousin."
"She's in my class," said Finn.
"Oh," said Matt, not knowing where Finn was going with this.
"She's kind of scary. She threw a chair at Rachel when she took her crayon."
Matt laughed, because he could totally imagine his cousin doing this. Then he put a face to the name 'Rachel'. "Rachel Berry?" he asked. Rachel Berry had been in his kindergarten class, and had always been fighting with Quinn, her foster sister who hated her. As far as Matt knew, Quinn still lived with the Berrys because they had not yet found a family who was willing to adopt Quinn.
"Yep, that's her," said Finn pleasantly. "I have to go, my mom says that Santa isn't coming this year because he doesn't have any money, nut if I go to bed early and the economy picks up, he'll come next year.'
Matt was in shock. Santa wasn't coming this year? Why hadn't anyone told him? "I've got to go Finn," said Matt.
"Ok, bye!" said Finn, hanging up the phone.
Matt ran over to the couch to wake up his sister. He poked her repeatedly until she awoke. "What do you want, Matt?" she said groggily.
"Finn just told me Santa's not coming this year!" exclaimed Matt worriedly.
Lizzie didn't appear as concerned as Matt would have assumed. "Go back to bed, Matt. We'll deal with it in the morning, all right?"
Matt did as he was told and awoke the next morning to Santana shoving him. "Come on, Matt. It's Christmas."
Matt followed his cousins downstairs and was relieved to discover that there was a mountain of presents waiting for his sisters and cousins. It took several hours to get them all open, even with Santana ripping into all of hers in about five minutes flat. Santa had obviously come to the Rutherford house, but he wondered why he hadn't come to Finn's house.
After all the presents were open, Mrs. Rutherford asked everyone to be quiet. "I have an announcement," she said in the only truly excited voice Matt had heard her use the entire week. She took a deep breath, "I'm pregnant!" Aunt Christina and Uncle Miguel congratulated her. Grandma and Grandpa were ecstatically shouting. Santana and Carlos appeared indifferent. Lizzie asked, "Is it a boy or a girl?"
"It's a boy," said Mrs. Rutherford happily. "We're planning on naming him Mark."
In all the excitement, no one had noticed that Matt was much less than happy. His parents barely had time for him now, what would happen to Matt if they had another baby? This was the worst Christmas ever.
And that was saying something in the Rutherford household.