Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 22557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 113(@200wpm)___ 90(@250wpm)___ 75(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 22557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 113(@200wpm)___ 90(@250wpm)___ 75(@300wpm)
“Tea time?”
“Uh huh!” She nods.
“Don’t you mean tree time, honey?” Mommy asks.
“Yeah!” Caroline yelps happily, tossing her arms in the air over her head. My daughter’s happiness brings me such delight. I look over at Daisy as we take the stairs down to the living room. She’s grinning ear to ear.
The voices downstairs grow louder as we reach the bottom of the stairs and turn left down the hall. Everyone is laughing and having a good time, which just causes my smile to grow. I can feel Caroline squirming to be let loose. She’s so excited about decorating the tree with everybody, so I set her down and put an arm around Daisy, and we both watch as she scampers off, waving her arms shouting, “Tea time! Tea time!”
We enter the living room a few seconds after her, where Marissa, my parents, and Daisy’s mom are all gathered around the tree, discussing the best course of action as far as the lights and decorations go.
As usual, Daisy’s mom is being the most vocal, followed by my dad. My mom is nodding a lot and sipping her glass of wine but not really saying much. While she may be a bit of a snob, my mom isn’t the most creative. She’ll just mostly end up backing up my dad on whatever he says and chip in with the actual decorating part, but she won’t have much to say when it comes to the brainstorming aspect of it all.
Marissa turns when we both come in the room and smiles. To this day, I still feel a sense of relief and happiness when she smiles at me, knowing that she was once distrustful of me when I first reentered Daisy’s life.
“There they are!” she says, loudly enough to get everyone else’s attention. “Now we can finally get to it!”
The parents turn around, and instantly Daisy’s mom rushes over to me, grabs me by the sleeve, and pulls me over to the tree.
“Okay, we need your opinion here, Craig. Do you think we should have white lights and have them start at the top and coil down counterclockwise and do green and red lights going up in a clockwise fashion? Or just green and red? Because you can’t do a Christmas tree without green and red or it looks like a window at Macy’s. At least that’s what I think!”
I have to stop myself from laughing. I love Daisy’s mom, I really do. This is her fourth Christmas with us now. Sadly, we weren’t able to make the first Christmas Daisy and I spent together work, as she was still drinking and still avoiding everything that had to do with the holidays, but as I promised Daisy, I worked with her, and we were able to get her mom into a program, and as of this December, she’s just over four years sober.
“Wow, I’m not sure, Shelly,” I reply, pretending to ponder her question. I really think both would look fine. I turn and motion to Daisy to come join me. “What do you think, babe?”
“I think green and red,” Daisy replies instantly. I chuckle. She always has an opinion. Just like her mom. “I’m not a huge fan of the white.”
“I don’t mind white,” my dad chimes in. “What do you think, Caroline? Do you like white lights?” My dad has really taken a liking to my daughter over the years and always makes sure to include her in everything.
Caroline looks up at the tree, then over at me like she’s been stumped on a Jeopardy question. “I…yes!?”
My daughter’s adorable response draws a laugh from the crowd. Sometimes I think she’ll grow up to be a standup comedian.
“Marissa?” I ask.
“Hey, I don’t care!” she replies, stuffing another one of my mom’s gingerbread men cookies into her mouth. “I’m just here for the drinks and the grub!”
“I am so glad you like those, dear,” my mom says. I can tell she means it too. My mom and Marissa have become quite friendly as well. I think it has something to do with both of them always thinking they know what’s best for other people. But hey – as long as they don’t steer that habit in my direction, I’m fine with the two of them being as friendly as they like.
It took a bit of work getting my parents to come around on my relationship with Daisy, but a few months after we started dating again, I let them know that if they ever wanted to have a relationship with me as their son again, they were going to have to accept her and understand that she was going to be a part of my life forever.
They tried to fight me on it, but I just refused to back down, and I think my dad respected me for that. He came around more quickly than my mom, who kept telling me I needed to find a girl from a “more respectable family,” but once Shelly got into her program and it became obvious that Daisy and I were not going to break up, my parents started to change their view on things.