“I miss you too, Mom, but I’m fine, I promise. Better than fine—I’m having the best Christmas break.”
I deliberately do not mention my current scene is borderline depressing. I mean, yeah, I’ve lit my gingerbread candle and made myself a peppermint martini, and I’ve got Christmas with the Rat Pack playing in the background.
But . . .
The tree is also dark and lonely in the corner, and . . . heck, I’m lonely.
As mentioned, usually I put all of my Christmas tree energy into my family tree. My parents pick it up sometime during the week while I’m in the city, and then I go to their place the last Friday before Christmas and we decorate it together.
I thought if I duplicated my mom’s playlist and her trademark martini, and if I got a perfect enough tree, I could sort of recreate the whole thing, but I’m realizing belatedly that what makes the decorating of the Christmas tree magical is my parents and tradition, not the tree itself.
I give myself a quick little shake to reframe my thinking. Yes, I’m by myself, but there are perks to that! For starters, I started a new tradition: cutting down my own tree.
Sort of.
Also, my mom, bless her, is adamant about putting multicolored lights on her Christmas tree, and I’m sort of all about the white lights. So, guess what I got at Walmart? About a billion boxes of white lights.
I also got all new ornaments—I decided to go with a white and aqua theme, and found this huge package of assorted white and teal ornaments online for only twenty bucks.
A little generic? Sure. But it’ll look like a Tiffany & Company box, and it’ll save me from the extra punch of sad I’d get if I had to pull out the family ornaments with no family.
“Honey, hold on. Your father wants to say hi,” Mom says.
There’s a rustling noise as they do the handoff.
“Hey, Kelly.”
“Hey, Dad,” I say, taking a sip of my drink, then setting it aside so I can pull out the first box of lights.
“Will you please tell me that you’re having the time of your life so that your mother will stop fretting?”
“Time of my life,” I state automatically. “Really. Are you guys having fun?”
“Time of my life,” he says.
I smile, because though his tone is joking, I can tell by the relaxed sound of his voice that he really is enjoying it. My mom, too, as evident by the fact that she spent most of our conversation torn between wanting to tell me about the baby whales they’d spotted and fretting over my “aloneness.”
“You know, I just talked to Darlene, and—”
“Dad. I love you, I love Aunt Darlene, but I don’t love Christmas in Milwaukee. Christmas is just a day. We’ll celebrate when you get back.”
“I know we will. And we found you the best present at the Seattle airport.”
I wince. Airport gifts. Yay.
“Sounds amazing. Now, how about you guys go do that champagne-tasting thing Mom was talking about, and I’ll go decorate my new tree.”
“Is it big?”
“Yup.”
“Crooked?”
“Always.”
“Sounds perfect. Mark help you?”
It’s technically a question, but my dad says it more like a statement, as though it’s a foregone conclusion that my best friend would be willing to help me lug home a Christmas tree. Which I guess it sort of is.
“He did. He even helped me get it into the stand.”
He hadn’t, however, taken me up on my offer to stay and decorate, but . . . eh. I wasn’t really expecting it. Mark’s a guy’s guy. He has his limits.
I thought about calling one of my girlfriends, but my best girl (Ivy) is a mom of two and has her own Christmas thing going on. Plus she and I are grabbing coffee tomorrow.
My other Haven bestie (after Ivy and Mark) is Krista, but she’s cozied up in a Vermont cabin with her new boyfriend.
I have plenty of other friends in Haven, but they’re more the “Hey, let’s grab a beer on a Saturday” type of friends, not the “Come decorate my Christmas tree, and don’t judge if I get teary during the song ‘The Christmas Shoes’” kind.
My dad hands the phone back to my mom, who insists I take video of myself decorating the tree. I compromise by agreeing to send photos of each stage of the process so she can see, then send them on their way to their champagne tasting.
Then it’s just me, Dean Martin’s voice, and a whole lot of boxes of lights.
Taking a deep breath, I force myself to sing along with “Silver Bells” as I tug out the first strand of lights and begin the tedious process of unwinding the coil.
I’ve just plugged the first strand into the wall and have started winding it haphazardly among the bottom branches when there’s a thump at the back door.
Probably Rigby. I’ve been trying not to let my feelings get hurt by the fact that Rigby followed Mark home after the tree setup. Mark said the dog was neurotic and just needed some time to get used to the newness of the tree. A kind way of letting me deny that my dog is perhaps starting to prefer Mark to me.
It is Rigby at the back door, but the cocker spaniel’s not alone.
Mark’s changed into clean jeans and a black sweater, his dark hair not all the way dry after his post-tree-farm shower.
He’s also got a bag of groceries in one hand and wine in the other, which I know from experience means really good things for my belly.
“Sorry to distract you from the tree project. My hands were full,” he says by way of greeting as he pushes past me and heads for my kitchen.
“You’re here to help me decorate?” I say, not bothering to keep the surprised pleasure out of my voice.
“I’m here to test a new pasta recipe on you while you decorate the tree.”
He’s started to unload the groceries, but he has to stop when I hurl myself at him, my arms pinning his to his sides. I squeeze as hard as I can.
“Thank you,” I say, pressing my cheek to his shoulder.
I expect him to peel me off him or to make some joking comment, but after a moment of hesitation, he surprises me by lifting a hand and resting his palm against my arm. It’s then that I know—he’s here not to test a recipe, not to decorate the tree, but because he knew I was feeling the absence of my family and wanted to be here for me.
I hold on for just a touch too long, frowning a little when I realize I’m not ready to break the contact. I must be more melancholy than I thought.
There’s a rustling of bags from the adjoining living room, and I slowly back up to go save the tree skirt I bought at Target from my dog’s destructive prowess.
Sure enough, Rigby’s pulled the white satin tree skirt from the bag and is just settling into tearing out the faux fur trim.
“Sorry, baby, not that one,” I say, leaning down to rub the dog’s ears as I rescue the tree skirt.
I rummage around until I come up with the reindeer dog toy I bought him for exactly this reason, squeaking it repeatedly to get him excited before tossing it down the hall into the foyer.
“Where’s his snowman costume?” I call to Mark.
“Burned it.”
“I hope you didn’t put it the washing machine—it’s hand wash only,” I say, picking up my peppermint martini and heading back into the kitchen.