Page 79 of Mistletoe, Mayhem & Mr. Grump
"Why not?" she asks.
"I can't remember what I put in it," he admits. "But it's either very good or very dangerous."
"With your cooking, there's no difference," June points out.
"Exactly!" Giuseppe says proudly.
"First up," Delia announces, "competitive carol singing! Each couple must perform one verse of a traditional carol with interpretive dance!"
"I'm leaving," Malcolm announces.
"Participation is mandatory," Delia informs him. "It's in the bylaws."
"Since when?" he demands.
"Since you showed up at a social event," she says firmly.
I look at Wren. "Partners?"
She looks at me, then at Malcolm, who's trying to convince Anastasia that interpretive dance is beneath them, then back at me.
"Fine," she says. "But if we're doing this, we're winning."
"Winning carol karaoke?" I ask.
"It's not karaoke if there's no machine," she corrects. "It's just public humiliation with melody."
"Even better," I say. "What's our strategy?"
"Chaos," she decides. "Pure chaos."
"My favorite strategy," I admit.
The next hour becomes the kind of chaos that'll be whispered about at committee meetings for decades.
We perform "Silent Night" with an interpretive dance that Teddy describes as "aggressive ballet." Malcolm and Anastasia attempt "O Holy Night" with yoga poses that June documents as"inadvisable and potentially blasphemous." Giuseppe performs a solo rendition of what might be "Jingle Bells" in Italian or might be a recipe for marinara sauce—nobody's quite sure.
The three-legged gift wrapping goes worse. Malcolm insists on optimal paper-folding techniques while Anastasia live-streams the whole thing. Wren and I just throw paper at our box until it's covered in what she calls "festive chaos”, and I call "abstract art."
"This is ridiculous," Malcolm complains, his perfectly wrapped box looking somehow worse than our disaster.
"This is tradition," Delia corrects, making notes on her clipboard.
Then comes the mistletoe gauntlet.
"The rules are simple," Teddy explains, now wearing his drums as a hat. "Each couple walks through the tunnel. You must kiss under every mistletoe bunch. There are seventeen."
"Seventeen?" Wren squeaks.
"Should we do this?" I ask Wren quietly.
She looks at the tunnel, then at Malcolm, who's explaining to Anastasia the optimal kiss duration for public displays, then at me.
"Seventeen kisses?" she asks.
"Seventeen chances to annoy Malcolm," I point out.
"When you put it like that," she says, taking my hand.
