Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
Jane raises the stuffed lion like a champagne glass. “We still love him.”
“And now she’ll hear her mom’s foul-mouth,” Dad retorts and then slow claps.
Eliot says something in French, and I imagine it’s, And we still love her.
Uncle Ryke joins the slow-clap in the video. Aunt Daisy is good at capturing everyone’s reactions, even Aunt Rose’s ice-cold glare staking Ryke. He raises his hands in defense. “I’m in support of foul fucking language.”
Sulli laughs, her eyes glittering and glassing seeing her dad. Young and still rough around the edges.
“I can edit it,” Aunt Daisy offers, but trails off at Rose’s glare.
“I don’t want Jane’s first Christmas edited.”
Aunt Daisy mock gasps. “Who suggested such a thing. They should be fined with a dozen chocolate chip cookies.”
Uncle Ryke makes a gesture for Aunt Daisy to come to him. “I can give you something better, Calloway.”
“Fast-forward,” Charlie says.
“What? No,” Sulli snaps. “Those are my parents.”
“We’ve all seen them flirt a thousand times before. It’s boring.”
“You’re fucking boring,” Sulli retorts.
“Clever,” he deadpans.
She flips him off.
After physical groping occurs between the Meadows on-screen and the camera footage wobbles and shakes as a result, my dad shouts, “Alright. No Christmas flirting.”
Eliot arches his brows at Charlie. “Like uncle, like nephew.”
Charlie rolls his eyes.
No one fast-forwards the video, and Charlie doesn’t reach for the camcorder to do it himself. We all fall hushed again and watch our parents on a peaceful morning. Uncle Connor and Aunt Rose are doing a crossword together while enjoying the company of loved ones. He tickles baby Jane’s foot, and she giggles up at her dad.
Soon, they go into a disagreement about when to tell Moffy and Jane that Santa isn’t real. Uncle Connor wants Jane to know the truth, but my parents are afraid she’ll spoil Santa for Moffy and every other kid in kindergarten. They talk about the holidays when they were growing up, and how Uncle Ryke clung to Santa as a kid because it made him feel loved.
Even though I believed in Santa Claus as a child, I never needed to feel loved through a fairytale. I felt love in the smiles and laughter around the tree. In the way Aunt Daisy would gift T-shirts with holiday slogans to everyone. In the way we’d spend hours building gingerbread houses, only for most of them to fall apart in the end. In the way we’d stay up as late as we could, just to drink hot chocolate and fight over which holiday movie to watch. The Grinch and Home Alone and Peter Pan (the 2003 film, which my mom is adamant is a Christmas movie in disguise).
There was always a surplus of love. It was the best gift every single year.
“I never celebrated holidays with my mother,” Uncle Connor says on-screen. “She found them pointless. I understand that fictional creatures can make you feel better, but we shouldn’t have to construct a lie just for that emotion. Jane will be comforted with the knowledge that Santa isn’t real and everyone else is living in fantasy.”
Dad sighs. “Come on, man. Being a kid means getting to believe in the impossible. It means believing that fairies exist along with spells and magic, and that on your eleventh birthday you’ll receive a letter from Hogwarts. It means thinking your presents arrived from a workshop in the North Pole and not the store down the street. And Connor…” His face twists at a thought. “I’m really sorry your mom took that shit from you. If you had even a semblance of it growing up, you would realize how special it is. Don’t take that away from Jane.”
Jane smiles fondly at the TV. “He didn’t.”
In the video, Aunt Rose says, “You know, we can see who figures out the truth first: Moffy or Jane.”
Mom crinkles her nose. “That’s evil.”
“Well, it is coming from the devil,” Dad says, then purposefully mugs the camera with a half-smile. “And Jane, if you’re watching this when you’re older, just know it comes from a place of love.”
We all laugh, and Xander asks our brother, “Who figured it out first? You or Jane?”
“Jane,” Moffy says with a laugh at the memory. “She told me like five seconds after she saw Uncle Ryke wrapping a present with a From Santa Claus tag.”
“We were four,” Jane explains. Of course the Queen of Curiosity would’ve solved that mystery at such a young age. She is a Cobalt, after all. “We agreed we’d keep up the ruse so none of you would know.”
“Did you believe in Santa?” I ask Charlie.
“No.”
That’s all he says, but like Jane and Moffy, he also never ruined it for the rest of us.
As the video continues to play and our parents open presents from each other, we laugh and smile hearing their banter at the ages we are now. They’ve changed, but they are also so much the people we know and love who’ve raised us.