Page 84 of The Twelve Months of Christmas
IN MAY
17
Because the twenty-fifth of May was part of Memorial Day weekend, the Christmas-in-May party got bumped up. Sunny wasn’t in much of a holiday mood after her Mother’s Day snub the previous weekend, but she told herself to get over it and get on with it. Getting on with it would mean more rejection and rudeness from her stepdaughter, but Bella wasn’t the only one coming. Others were looking forward to this.Find that holiday spirit!she cheered herself.Goooo, team!
Holiday spirit. Wasn’t that why they were doing this in the first place? Yes, it was.
“You can do this,” she told her reflection in the bathroom mirror the morning of the party. Yes, she could. She put on her lipstick, then donned her Santa hat and went downstairs, ready to face the day. And the step-kids.
Her tree was decorated with silk flowers in honor of spring, and once the kids arrived, she succeeded in drafting Dylan to help her make a dirt cake—layers of cookie crumbs, chocolate pudding and gummi worms. He, at least, appeared to have recovered from his “hatred” and was perfectly happy scraping the pudding bowl before the gang arrived for their monthly Christmas celebration. Sunny had made up goody packages of “worms” for everyone and, as usual, Bella was sneering.
“Those are for kids.”
Travis, serving as the antidote to his daughter’s perpetual Grinch germs, popped one in his mouth. “And for kids at heart. And you used to love these.” She was about to open her mouth and barf out some snottiness, but before she could, he held up a hand and said, “I don’t want to hear it. And if you don’t like the candy, you don’t have to eat it. More for the rest of us.” He took another one, gave it to Dylan, who was happy to gobble it down. Then he smiled at Sunny. “Great idea, babe.”
Bella flounced off into the living room.
“Every party has a pooper. That’s why we invited you,” Travis sung under his breath.
Sunny shook her head at him, signaling for him to zip it. Mocking the girl would only make her feel all the more justified in her resentment.
Dessert was ready and the grill was fired up for burgers and “White Christmas” was playing when the rest of the holiday celebrants arrived, bearing all manner of green goodies. Molly had made her Jell-O salad with green Jell-O, cottage cheese and pineapple; Ava brought makings for punch—7-Up and lime sherbet; and Arianna arrived with Sophie and a tired-looking Mia. Their contribution was a salad with strawberries, pretzels and yes, more Jell-O. Red so that the partiers would have both red and green foods.
The reporter, Josh Farley, arrived just as the kids (minus the pill in the corner with her cell phone) were putting seed packets in red net gift bags for all their neighbors. He took in the tree, the Christmas-in-May gifts and the food laid out on the counter, and smiled appreciatively.
“This is impressive,” he said to Sunny.
“We’re having fun,” Sunny told him.Most of us, anyway. She led him over to the table where everyone was assembling their bags and introduced him. “And that’s my stepdaughter, Bella, over there,” she said, motioning to where the pouter sat.
Bella kept her gaze riveted on her phone, refusing to look up and acknowledge their guest. It was all Sunny could do not to say, “I lied. I have no idea who that kid is. She wandered in off the street.”
But Bella was a part of her family now. They were tied together by marriage. She was a gift.
The booby prize.
No, no, no. Someday, somehow, some way, they would have a good relationship.
“How did you ladies come up with this idea?” Josh asked.
“It was Sunny’s idea,” Arianna said. “We’d all had kind of crummy Christmases.”
For Arianna, it had been a lot worse than crummy. And now she was dealing with more crummy. Looking at what her friend was going through always put things in perspective for Sunny. It seemed like no matter what you were dealing with, there was always someone struggling with something worse.
“So we decided to do a restart,” Sunny explained.
“And that first restart was so much fun we decided to keep it going,” added Molly.
“What was that?” Josh asked.
“We went ice-skating in January,” Molly said.
“What else have you done?” he wanted to know.
The women filled him in on their other adventures. “Christmas comes and goes so fast. I thought it would be a good idea to celebrate the season all year long,” Sunny finished.
“There’s a quotable line,” Josh said as he made notes on his tablet.
“What do you guys think of this?” he asked the kids, who were nearby, happily switching from filling bags to filling up on chips and dip.
