Seventeen. O Holy （Sht）, This Night Isn’t So Terrible
Seventeen
O HOLY (SH*T), THIS NIGHT ISN’T SO TERRIBLE
“Jill! Don’t forget—we’re going to Brian’s for their ornament-making party!
” my mom calls up the stairs. Since I got home from my cocoa with Corey, and under the guise of wrapping gifts, I’ve been lying in bed staring at the ceiling.
I can’t stop thinking about what Corey said.
If it’s true, then I definitely have a shot with him now.
It’s falling into place: I came to Sweetville after my argument with Grant (well, and after stubbornly leaping out of his car and passing out in a novelty sleigh), and the first meaningful interaction I had here was with Corey Hartwell, the guy I wished I had dated in high school.
Maybe I needed this strange trip to tell me who I was supposed to be with all along.
Or, at the very least, who’s right for me now.
I think maybe I’m supposed to be with Corey in the real world.
Corey is accessible, down-to-earth, and the kind of guy who won’t make me wonder where I stand.
I needed Sweetville to show me that there’s a future for me with Corey.
I’ll put Grant, and maybe even LA, in my rearview. Mom will be so happy.
“Wait, what?”
“Ornament making! At Brian’s! It’s on the family calendar,” she says.
I pause. We are not an ornament-making family. We’re a break-at-least-two-ornaments-while-decorating family. To my knowledge, we’re also not a family-calendar-making family.
Plus, Brian’s house. I don’t know that I can deal with their dog hurling himself at my crotch today. It’s way too much intimacy for me.
I’m tempted to say I don’t feel well, but then Mom adds a kicker. “Jill, you have to go. We’ve barely seen you with all your baking!”
“Can’t wait,” I finally manage.
Dad drives us to Brian’s house, singing “O Christmas Tree” the whole way as Mom hums along in the passenger seat.
My inclination is to find this all extremely annoying, but they seem so happy and united that I can’t fault them too much.
Normally, this close to Christmas—we’re only days away from Christmas Eve—my mom, in solidarity with moms everywhere, is totally losing her shit.
But in Sweetville, all is calm, all is bright.
She’s not panicking about getting gifts wrapped and mailed to her aunts in Florida.
She isn’t freaking out that we haven’t gotten to go to the city to see The Nutcracker —something that she talks about doing every Christmas and that we never get around to doing.
She’s not anxious that she’ll screw up the porchetta—the fancy Italian pork roast her mother and grandmother always made.
She makes it every year and it’s delicious, and yet she’s always sure hers doesn’t measure up.
We turn down Brian’s street. I’m expecting to see his subdivision’s usual repeating variations on Cape Cods and Dutch colonials that are intended to convey a certain amount of character but aren’t exactly charming, as they were all built at around the same time in the early 2000s.
But now, his neighborhood looks like it sprang up organically, beginning many years ago.
The homes are different colors of brick or siding, some with arched windows, others with deeper front porches nestled beneath wide eaves.
Nothing here looks like it was built by the same construction company in one fell swoop.
But that’s not what takes my breath away.
It’s the lights. The street is lined by mature trees, and draped above us as we drive are Christmas lights that go all the way down the block, a canopy of sparkle.
There are smiling snowmen and snowwomen and snowchildren in several front lawns, each sphere of their bodies rolled so it’s smooth and glistening under the holiday lights.
We pull into Brian’s driveway—his snowfamily resembles his own, with a snowdog that is meant to be Pepper—and I’m blown away by how camera ready their place is.
A wreath of holly and berries hangs on their dark-green front door, and more lights twinkle around the sets of shutters framing each of their second-story windows.
A Christmas tree covered in homemade ornaments and colorful lights stands merrily in the massive bay window facing the street.
Rachel has the door open before we’re even at the steps.
And she looks calm and happy, not like she was in the middle of escaping small-kid chaos and we just happened to catch her before she disappeared into the night.
“We’re all ready for you!” she says. A glorious smell wafts out as we approach.
“I made roasted chicken and vegetables. Start eating so we can get to our ornaments!” She steps backward, and as we enter the foyer, I see she’s laid out a buffet in their dining room.
Chicken, vegetables, bread that looks freshly baked, salad.
I pause as Brian takes my coat. “What are you waiting for? Come in,” he says.
“Get a plate before Dad downs all the food by himself.”
My dad is indeed piling a plate high already, but I’m nervous about something. “Where’s Pepper?” I ask. Because I know the second I go to get my food, their dog will shoot out from wherever he’s hiding and be the first thing to have his face between my legs in far too long a time span.
“He’s right here,” Brian says, as Pepper—who’s some kind of fox-faced mutt—saunters toward me and lightly nudges my knee with his nose. “See? He wants you to eat, too.”
Okay. I’m almost insulted. It’s like Pepper broke up with my vagina without telling me.
But once I see he’s not going to tackle me to the ground, I make my way to the food.
My niece and nephew are seated at the table, waiting as Rachel makes their plates, and give me bright smiles.
“Aunt Jill!” Alice hops off her chair and flings herself at me in a hug.
We eat and chat—Henry practices some of his Tiny Tim lines, and everyone begs to know what Corey and I will be baking, but I refuse to give away any secrets—and get the table cleaned up.
Then Rachel brings out the ornament-making supplies—flat wood cutouts to paint along with an array of craft supplies to decorate them with.
“I’m going to make Santa’s sleigh and dinosaurs to pull it!” Henry says, grabbing two shapes and waggling his paintbrush in the air as Rachel pours a few paint colors onto a tray for him.
Alice is bouncing in her chair. “I’m making a happy Christmas penguin and using lots of glitter.”
I peek at Rachel and Brian on the word “glitter”—every parent’s crafting nemesis—but they seem unbothered.
Brian is actually pouring different colors of glitter into cut-up sections of an egg carton.
He gives each of his kids one of the sections, like he’s not at all afraid of finding glitter in crevices he’d rather not explore.
Rachel puts on a Frank Sinatra Christmas album, and we all get to work. I stare at my selection of blank wood ornaments, wary of them. My crafting history is spotty at best.
But as I watch everyone else settle into their work—my dad is painstakingly painting a red collar on his reindeer-shaped ornament—I decide to go for it. There are a candy cane, a tree, and a snowman in front of me. I find a paintbrush and start in on the tree.
“Don’t forget to loop some string at the top,” Mom reminds me. She’s already painted a boy- and a girl-shaped ornament into likenesses of Henry and Alice.
“What do you think?” I ask my mom as I add a dusting of glitter to the green boughs of my Christmas tree.
“That’s lovely, Jill!” She squeezes me in a half hug, and I can feel some of the tension fall away from my shoulders.
The wholesomeness of the scene should rankle me.
But it doesn’t. Usually by now, someone’s feelings would be hurt and my mom would have passive-aggressively suggested everyone stop making ornaments if they were having a bad time.
I’d be rinsing glitter from my mouth and—let’s face it—have had one too many glasses of wine.
The doorbell rings.
“I’ll get it!” Mom says. Rachel doesn’t even flinch like she normally would at my mom walking around her house like she owns the place.
When Mom stands back from the door, two familiar children walk in, followed by Allie. What is going on?
“Hi, everyone! So sorry again we couldn’t make it earlier, but Gia had dance class.”
“Look at her little tutu!” Rachel says. Gia is adorable with her chunky toddler legs in pink tights.
Brian takes everyone’s coats. “You’re not late at all,” he says. “There’s plenty of food left and lots of ornament supplies!”
“Henry and Dylan go to school together,” Mom says. “I thought it might be nice for them to join us.”
She’s staring at me, as if I’m supposed to second this.
I think back to how awkward my chat with Allie at Lotta Love Pub was.
I don’t hate her or anything, but we were having such a nice time as a family that I’m not exactly thrilled at the addition of my former best friend.
And yet, Mom keeps looking at me. It’s the first sign of any stress she’s shown all night.
So finally, I say, “It’s definitely nice.”
Allie beams at me as she forks food onto plates for the kids. She sets them down and makes a third for herself before sitting next to me.
“Thanks so much for having us,” Allie says, taking an appreciative bite of chicken. “Rachel, this is so good.”
“The more the merrier,” Dad says. He holds up his finished reindeer. His skills come nowhere near Mom’s, but it’s a solid effort.
“Can we paint now?” Dylan says.
“Two more bites,” Allie tells him. On the stereo, Frank begins to croon “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”
“I love this song,” my mom says. And, because this is Sweetville and not Powell Park, she doesn’t make a passive-aggressive comment about my not being home for Christmas very often.