*Sneaks in* Hi, long time, no see. I hope everyone has been well. While this is not technically an update of Twist of the Kaleidoscope, it happens in the same universe. I have not stopped writing Twist of the Kaleidoscope. It's just easier for me to write shorter stories at the moment with my health issues. Plus there are specific moments in that universe I want to write about but would take forever to get to. Hence, I have decided to write these side stories while trying to piece together my normal, long chapters. But I have not stopped writing it.

"I think this ranks as our most successful Thanksgiving meal to date."

Angela accepted the last piece of silverware from her dad and dried it before placing it in the drawer. He insisted on doing the dinner dishes before dessert. It was annoying. "It's the only one we've ever tried to make ourselves so it's hardly a contest."

"What do you mean tried? I think the food turned out pretty good." Alvin could feel his daughter's eyes on him, silently judging. "Don't you dare say a word about the grocery store rotisserie chicken. That wasn't cheating. That was a life-saving precautionary measure." He scoffed when she chuckled. "I didn't know how long it takes a turkey to defrost for the thousandth time!"

"Why did you get one so big when it was just us? You could've fed a pro football team with that so-called turkey thawing in your bathtub. Were you expecting the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions to show up and play in your living room instead of on TV?"

"I figured I could send you home with leftovers and then I'd make a big pot of soup and freeze portions to last me until-"

"Until next Thanksgiving?"

"You do realize that no matter how old you are I can still send you to bed without dessert, correct?"

Though she knew he was likely bluffing, Angela played along. "Sure, dad."

"Speaking of the Bears and Lions, I do believe you owe me $10."

"Really? Collecting on a bet during the holidays? I don't get a grace period?"

"You're right. I'll give you until I drop you off at the airport Saturday night."

"Wow, so generous."

"Thank you." He clapped his hands together. "How about we get the leftovers into the fridge so we can enjoy your butterscotch pie while we watch the second half of the Cowboys and Dolphins game?"

"Let's hold off on the word enjoy until we eat the pie. This was my first time baking something that wasn't a boxed mix."

"I would've been happy with boxed cake."

"I know, but Aunt Lois's daughter converted all of Nan's old recipes to disc and I wanted to make something of hers'. I know it won't taste nearly as good, but-"

Alvin wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Her maternal grandmother's death earlier this year had hit Angela hard, probably harder than she'd ever admit. "I'm sure you've done Nan proud."

"Thanks," she said. After a moment she cleared her throat. "So, leftovers?"

"Right. Leftovers in fridge and then football and pie."

/

A few hours later- after the football game and dessert- Angela and her dad were sitting in front of the TV indulging in more of their tiny holiday traditions.

"I still don't understand why a man would ask for a first date on Thanksgiving. We know Jon has a family. He sees them in the Christmas special. And his grandmother sneaks in and makes a whole traditional meal for him and his date, then sneaks back out without getting to enjoy it?"

"Dad, it's Garfield. Stop looking for subtext. Realism left when they decided he loved lasagna and we could hear his inner monologue."

"I'm putting on WKRP. Now there's a Thanksgiving classic."

She smiled as he looked through the shelf of tapes in his entertainment center. "You know, rumor has it that VHS will go away now that there are DVDs. Will you catch up with the times?"

"Never." He put the tape in the machine before returning to the couch. "I'm glad we were able to do to this. I know I've missed a lot of holidays and-"

"Dad, you don't have to-"

"No. I know it's hard to maintain relationships and traditions when someone isn't around the way they should be."

"You're in the military. If you're not around it's because you're working."

"Still, I am happy we have traditions we can enjoy, no matter how small."

"Me, too." Angela was quiet for a moment as memories of Thanksgivings' past came back to her.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For whatever it is that put that look on your face."

"I was just thinking."

"About?"

"Gingerbread houses."

"What about them?"

"Every year when I was a kid…at least before mom left…on Thanksgiving night we'd make a gingerbread house."

A wistful smile graced his face. "I remember."

"I think that was always my favorite part about Thanksgiving; not the meal, desserts, or when we'd see family. I loved when we'd stay up and make a gingerbread house."

And just like that Alvin was transported twenty years into the past. "You started the tradition, you know?"

"How?"

"Your mother found out she was pregnant with you around Halloween and by the time Thanksgiving came around she was having trouble keeping down most foods. She was miserable the entire holiday and spent most of it in your grandparents' basement, much to my mother's annoyance. Anyway, it was almost midnight when she was finally hungry. She wanted gingerbread cookies.

"I drove around and the only thing open was a 24-hour convenience store. The closest thing I could find to her cookies were gingerbread house kits. I bought a couple of them and hoped she didn't puke at the sight of them."

"Obviously it worked."

"No, by the time I got back the gingerbread craving was gone and she was eating cold, leftover mashed potatoes directly from the Tupperware. But she was so touched by my efforts that she insisted we make them." Alvin shook his head. While their marriage went out like a supernova, he and Camille truly did have a lot of good times.

/

/

"How are we so bad at this?" Camille laughed and caught a wall as it was falling. "I'm creative and artistic and you're analytical and precise. Together we should be an ass-kicking, gingerbread house-making machine!"

"If it were a gun I'd have disassembled and reassembled it ten times by now." He laughed with her and read over the directions again. "Do you think we're fit to raise a baby if we can't build a gingerbread house? The last I heard they don't come with an instruction book."

"We'll figure it out. Practice makes perfect."

"Are you talking about the baby or gingerbread?"

"Either…both."

They spent the next few minutes working in a comfortable silence, making what was surely the most dilapidated gingerbread house in history.

"This time next year there's going to be a little baby with us. Isn't that insane?"

"In the best way, yes."

She sat up and looked him in the eye. "Will you promise me something?"

"I'll promise you anything."

"No matter where you're transferred or where we live, I want to give our child traditions and values, happy memories of the holidays. Even…especially if there are times when it's just the three of us. A nomadic lifestyle is one thing, but I want it to be warm and loving, full of good memories."

"Camille, baby, I promise. Our child will have everything and then some. Plus, I'll be retiring in a few years anyway. We'll have all the time in the world."

When they married a year ago, Alvin had just signed a four-year extension with the army. But he promised if she could tough it out for a few more years, he'd be done and then they could focus on her professional dreams. She wanted to sing and make music, not substitute teach and give piano lessons. "Thank you."

He leaned in and kissed her gently. "You don't have to thank me. What's the point of being together if we're not helping make each other's dreams come true?"

"You're making me want to say thank you again." Camille unsuccessfully hid a yawn. "Damn, this kid is sucking all of my energy out already and I'm still in the first trimester."

"Let's go to bed."

"No. I want to finish the gingerbread house first."

"Camille-"

"Alvin, no. You can go to bed if you want, but I'm finishing this trainwreck."

He could tell there would be no talking her out of it by her tone. Oh, the joys of marrying someone who matched your tenacity. "Okay, we'll finish." He stared at the edible decor and tried to brainstorm ways to salvage some structural integrity. "How about peanut butter?"

"For what?"

"To hold it together. That would work, right?"

"It's worth a shot."

"And finished," Camille said as she carefully attached a chocolate chip doorknob with the peanut butter. She took a step back. "Well?"

"If it were real I don't think the city would condemn it right away. They'd give us a chance to fix it up first."

"That's comforting." She leaned into him and wrapped her arms around his waist. "This was fun."

"Yeah. We don't get the chance for stress-free fun often."

"And at least this fun won't lead to me throwing up for however long…unlike some other fun activities."

He laughed quietly and returned the hug. "You weren't complaining at the time."

"And I'm sure I'll stop once I'm done with the vomiting part. Hey, what if we did this?"

"Do…what? We've covered gingerbread houses, vomiting, and sex in the last thirty seconds."

"Gingerbread houses, you butthead. That could be the tradition we start with the baby. Every Thanksgiving we'll do a gingerbread house together. Kickstart the transition to Christmas."

"That's not a bad idea. Clearly, we need the practice."

"And it'll be just us. Even if we're visiting family. It'll be ours'." She moved a hand to her still flat stomach. "Do you hear that, little one? We have a tradition for you."

/

/

"…and that's also how we came up with the in-utero nickname of Ginger for you."

Angela unsuccessfully suppressed a smile. "You called me Ginger?"

"Ginger, Gingerbread, Ginger Snap, Ginger Bear, Ginger Root…..whatever cute variant we could come up with."

"Sounds like I'm lucky to have escaped being named Ginger."

"We thought about it, but then you decided you really liked Stevie Wonder and moved like crazy in your mom's stomach."

She nodded, having already heard how she was named after a Stevie Wonder song. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"How come we stopped making gingerbread houses after mom left? Just because she was gone didn't mean the tradition had to stop."

"I tried to keep it going that first year, but you didn't want to."

"You're blaming me? I was a kid."

"No, I'm not blaming you. I'm answering your question." Alvin picked up the dessert plates and went to the kitchen with Angela trailing behind him. "That first Thanksgiving I bought the supplies and we were ready. You seemed excited, too. Then we couldn't get this one wall to stay up. No matter what we did it kept falling." He placed the dishes in the sink and braced his hands against the counter. "You burst into tears and began throwing things around the room."

"I did?" How did she have no memory of this?

"You said mommy was the one who always made everything pretty and it was too hard without her. You didn't want to make the gingerbread house anymore."

Angela blinked back her tears. While she had no memory of the event, somehow her heart felt every word.

"I tried again the next year," he continued, "but you ignored me. I assumed it was too painful for you, so I stopped trying to push it. The last thing I wanted was to hurt you."

"I'm sorry, daddy," she whispered.

He offered her a sad smile. "It's not your fault."

"It's not yours' either."

"We'll agree to disagree there. There's a lot I could've done better. I'm sorry I couldn't give you whatever you needed."

"Dad, we're good. I swear."

He kissed the top of her head. "I love you, you know that?"

"I love you, too."

"I think I'm going to head to bed. You still want to be one of the insane shoppers tomorrow to find presents for Eric and your friends, correct?" She nodded. "Then I need sleep to deal with that many people. Don't stay up too late, sweetheart."

"I won't. 'Night, dad."

"Good night."

Once her dad was out of the room, Angela sat at the kitchen table. Not even Thanksgiving could go by without them tripping over a bittersweet memory. They could never just be happy. There was always extra layers and baggage to unpack. That was probably what Angela hated her mother for the most. She robbed her and her dad of the pure, unadulterated joy of the past. Every happy memory was surrounded by emotional landmines and neither Angela nor her father had figured out the traps. It wasn't fair. She had to do something. Something to reclaim the power…to reclaim the happiness.

/

Alvin stumbled into the kitchen and found Angela rooting around his kitchen cabinets. "Young lady, it is almost midnight."

"I know."

"You want to get up at four to go shopping with the other crazies."

She dragged a chair over to the counter and stood on it before she opened the cabinets. "Ah, score!" She placed the jar of peanut butter on the counter and hopped down.

"Why are you making so much noise in my kitchen? I'm not even going to ask about the mess."

"I wanted to see if we had everything."

"Everything for what?"

"A gingerbread house. You don't have gingerbread, and I was going to drive to a store to look for a kit, but I'm not familiar with the area and I figured you'd yell at me for going out this late when I don't know where I'm going."

"You figured right."

"So I raided your kitchen. We have graham crackers, Golden Grahams cereal- I figure that works for the roof, peanut butter, cake frosting, pretzel sticks, and some candy to decorate."

He felt his anger melt away. "You want to make a…a…graham cracker house?"

"Yeah. I know it might be lame, but I figure we should make the best with what we've got. It might not be the prettiest, but I think we can make something that will stay standing."

"I think so, too." He took a seat at the table. "What are we waiting for? Let's get building."