The Schoppenboer household was more than ready for the occasion. All the Christmas lights were on, wood was stocked up for the fireplace, presents under the tree, and speakers were set up in the living room right next to the TV, ready for that year's Christmas playlist (which, thankfully, lacked that one Mariah Carey song).
All the three sisters went to check under the tree as soon as they woke up. They each had two presents there, all of them from their parents. They analyzed the gifts.
"What could this be?", Mymy asked as she shaked the long, thin box that she got. "There's some sort of pole inside it..."
Coco shaked both her boxes, two big square ones.
"Okay, those are definitely the snare and kick drums that I asked for.", She affirmed with a big smile on her face.
Maya got a small square box and a small wrapped rectangular one. She genuinely had no clue what those could be, as she forgot to even give suggestions on what she wanted for Christmas.
Then, the sisters went to eat breakfast together.
"So, Maya...", Coco said. "You said that you invited a few people to spend this Christmas here, right?"
"That's right!", Maya replied.
"Who?"
"I managed to convince Epke to come here, Cleo said she probably will, and Kiki told me that it's unlikely."
Mymy was all-ears when Maya mentioned Cleo. She had just finished another bigger batch of moonshine and it was ready to be bottled and sold. She even got new, clean, empty 1L glass bottles off the internet so she didn't have to rely on crap off the trash anymore. To top it all off, her moonshine roster was varied: she made three bottles worth of stroopwafel moonshine, three worth of pineapple moonshine, four worth of homemade wine, and four worth of a special champagne recipe that she somehow found. All of this made her even more hopeful that Cleo would come, as Mymy knew that she'd be very impressed by her work.
"Cool!", Coco replied to Maya. "If anything else happens, let us know!"
After breakfast, Mymy went back to her room to analyze her moonshine batch. She took out the hydrometer and measured the ABV of each flavor. Both the pineapple and stroopwafel batches had exactly 50% alcohol, the wine had 13%, and the champagne had 12.5%. She took pictures of the results and sent them to Vera, explaining what flavor each of them were. Then, she bottled them up, sneaked the empty containers outside, rinsed them, and put them back where she found them. After all of this, she got Vera's response.
"Good choices there, Mymy.", She said. "Now come up with a lucrative price, sell part of it to Maya, and discuss business with Cleo whenever you can."
Mymy then went back to her room and went straight to her new bottles. She now had to decide how many of them to sell directly to Maya, and how many to sell to Cleo. Considering what Maya had left, and how high her tolerance is, Mymy decided to separate one bottle of stroopwafel hooch and one of pineapple hooch to Maya, as that was more than enough to make her happy. At the same time, she knew that Maya would also be interested in the champagne and the wine, so she separated two bottles of each to sell to her.
A while later, at afternoon, Cleo was the first to arrive at the Schoppenboer household. She dropped off with three gifts, a sleeping bag, and a backpack. The three sisters then stood outside by the front door to greet her.
"Hey girls!", She said as she approached the three sisters.
"Hey, Cleo!", The three replied, almost in unison.
"Is everyone ready for tonight's sleepover?"
"We sure am!", Mymy replied. "Now come in!"
They then went inside. Cleo placed her sleeping bag and backpack on the couch and went to greet the Schoppenboer parents.
"Hello, Mr. and Ms. Schoppenboer!", She said.
"Hello, Cleo!", They both replied.
"How are you two doing today?"
"We're doing fantastic today!", Mrs. Schoppenboer replied.
"Great to know!", Cleo replied. "By the way, here are my presents.", She then handed the parents her presents.
"Why, thank you!", Mrs. Schoppenboer said before placing the presents under the Christmas tree.
She then went back with the sisters and began to chat a little. Soon, Mymy caught her attention.
"Hey, Cleo!", Mymy whispered. "Can we start discussing the more important stuff now?"
"Oh, sure!", Cleo replied.
"Then follow me."
The two then went to Mymy's room. Mymy pulled her blanket up and pulled all of the bottles she intended to sell to Cleo from under the bed and lined them up.
"Behold!", Mymy said.
"Wow, that's a lot of different flavors!", Cleo remarked. "What kind are they?"
"Well, those two are stroopwafel-flavored moonshine...", Mymy replied while pointing to the two brown bottles. "Those two are pineapple-flavored...", She pointed to the two yellow bottles. "Those two are a special wine I made, and those other two are bottles of champagne."
"Huh, never thought I'd ever see homemade champagne in my life...", Cleo said. "So, uh, how strong are each of them?"
"Well, the stroopwafel and pineapple ones stand at 50% alcohol, the wine has 13%, and the champagne has 12.5%"
"Okay, that should be good... what about the prices, though?"
"That's what I wanted to discuss with you, Cleo. I'm a newbie in the business so I don't know the prices for each type of bootleg alcohol."
"That's okay... well, it depends on a lot of factors, including quality, potency, presence of adulterants and age. From the looks of it, they all seem to be of fine quality and don't look to have any adulterant. How old are they?"
"Oh, those are all brand new."
"I see... well, I think around €10 would be a valid price for the moonshine bottles, €15 for the wine, and €25 for the champagne."
Mymy mentally drooled at those prices. That's a lot of money! Yeah, let's do this!
"All sounds good!", Mymy said. "It's sold for those prices then!"
Cleo then grabbed a calculator and added up the total price of all the bottles. It came out as €100, so she handed Mymy two €50 banknotes.
"Thanks!", She said before putting the bottles in a box, surrounding the boxes with paper and taping the lid. "Pleasure doing business!"
"Pleasure doing business, Mymy.", Cleo replied. "Now let's go back to having our fun!"
The two then went back to the living room and resumed playing with Maya and Coco.
Soon later, Epke arrived at the residence. Maya instantly rushed outside.
"Wait, who's that?", Mrs. Schoppenboer asked.
"That's probably Maya's boyfriend.", Coco replied.
"Her WHAT?", Mrs. Schoppenboer asked in shock.
"Shocking, I know...", Mymy said.
Outside, Maya approached the car as Epke jumped off it. He had two gift boxes and a sleeping bag with him.
"Hey, Epke!", Maya said.
"Hey, Maya!", Epke replied before giving Maya a kiss. "How's it going?"
"I'm doing great, how about you?"
"I'm doing fine, thanks."
"Ready for the sleepover?"
"I sure am!"
He then followed her home and dropped the sleeping bag on the couch.
"Hello, there!", Mrs. Schoppenboer said upon noticing Epke. "Are you Maya's boyfriend?"
"Hello, ma'am!", Epke replied. "Yes, I am! Name's Epke, by the way."
"It's wonderful to hear that you and Maya are together! I want only the best for you two!"
"Thank you a lot, ma'am. Anyway, where can I put my presents?"
"Put them under the tree. You'll all get to open them up at night."
Epke then placed the presents under the tree and followed Maya to her room. Before going in, however, he noticed Mymy and Cleo walking down the hall.
"Oh, hey, Mymy, hey, Cleo!", He said.
"Hey, Epke!", The two replied.
"What's up?"
"Mymy was showing me her military uniform collection earlier, it was pretty cool.", Cleo replied. "How about you?"
"I just got here, and Maya and I are going to spend some time in her room together."
"Have fun!"
Maya and Epke then got to her room while Cleo and Mymy went to the living room to watch some Netflix together. They decided to watch some Breaking Bad together.
"This could definitely be us some time!", Cleo jested halfway through watching.
"Haha, definitely!", Mymy replied.
A while later, late in the evening...
"Hey, kids!", Mr. Schoppenboer announced. "It's dinnertime! We'll be opening our presents later!"
Mymy then got up and was going to knock on Maya's door to inform her about the dinner, but, right as she was about to do it, Epke came busting out the door with a huge smug grin on his face, looking like he had just achieved something big. Mymy peeked at Maya's room. It looked normal, except the bed, where Maya was sitting, was messy. Maya was sitting on her bed, her hair also being messy.
"I'll spare you the details, Mymy...", Maya said. "But, yeah, I'm coming."
Mymy didn't know how to feel about this and slowly went to sit at the dinner table. The dinner was very rich, and it contained lots of fruits, vegetables, and a fair lot of rice and spices. To drink, there was water, soda, and some wine, which only the parents partook on. This made Maya very antsy to drink more, especially as she was coming down from her last drink at this point, and almost ruined her night.
Later, however, after everyone finished dining, it was time to open up the presents. All of the sisters placed her presents under the tree. Christmas music was playing out loud. Maya briefly went back to her room to drink some more and then went back to the Christmas tree. She analyzed her presents.
"Let me see...", She said before getting a random box. "This one is from... Coco."
She then unwrapped it and opened up the box, revealing...
"Oh, wow, a new lamp! I actually needed this a lot! Thanks, Coco!"
"No problem, Maya!", Coco replied. "I'm glad you like it."
Maya then grabbed another present. This one was from Mymy, and it was soft. She was sure it was some fabric. She opened it up, revealing a Belgian flag.
"Very funny, Mymy...", Maya said, unimpressed.
"Whaaaaat, you don't like it?", Mymy teased.
"Mymy!", Coco warned.
Maya then got a huge box that was at the very back of the tree. It was from Cleo. She opened it up.
Maya gasped.
It was an electric guitar with an amp included.
"Are you actually kidding me...?", Maya said, absolutely astonished.
Maya opened up the box. The guitar was a red and white Stratocaster, and the amp wasn't as small as Maya first guessed.
"Cleo...", Maya said, still overwhelmed. "Why?"
"I knew you would like it a lot, Maya.", Cleo replied. "Especially since I know that those are your favorite colors and all..."
Maya then suddenly got up and gave Cleo a very tight hug.
"You have no idea how much this means to me!", Maya said. "I can't thank you enough for this!"
"Haha, it's no problem, Maya!", Cleo replied.
"How much money do you have, though? Like, damn!", Epke asked.
"Let's just say that it's more than the average person.", Cleo replied.
"More than the average person?", Mymy asked. "More like, drug dealer levels of rich!"
Cleo just stared at Mymy blankly, subtly telling her to shut up.
Maya continued opening up her presents. She got a Death Grips vinyl from Epke and new shoes and a computer mouse from her parents. Mymy, meanwhile, among her presents, got a Dutch flag attached to a pole that she paraded around the house with absolute pride.
After this, everyone watched some more Netflix on the TV and waited until falling asleep. Maya started thinking about her day during this time. She just had her best Christmas in years. One where she didn't lock herself in her room and waited until everyone stopped celebrating. One where she had fun. One where she had people over that weren't just her relatives. One... that she enjoyed. And, in her mind, this was all thanks to her drinking. Having alcohol in her system made all of this happen, and she couldn't help but thank God for putting alcohol in her life and allowing all of this to happen. Who cares if it's dangerous? After all, a short yet fun life is better than a long, miserable one, right?
Mymy, meanwhile, couldn't wait for the next day. As per family tradition, they'd have relatives over to give out even more presents and celebrate, and those relatives include many of the alcoholics in the family, which could only mean big money to Mymy and her cartel.