A Little Christmas Spirit Page 4

  Stanley sighed inwardly. After eight years of marriage he knew what let’s meant in a case like this. It meant she had an idea for a project, and he’d be the one doing it.

  He also knew how much hassle this would involve. “Do we really need Christmas lights?”

  “Yes. Last year our house was the only naked one on the block, and that was just plain sad. The house will look so pretty trimmed with all those colors. Anyway, Christmas lights are to the holidays what frosting is to a cookie. They make something special even better.”

  He shot a look over at her. “So if I put up lights, does that mean you’ll bake those frosted cookies?”

  “I will,” she promised. “It’ll be your reward.”

  “Okay, deal,” he said.

  The next day they went shopping for lights. Carol gathered enough to light up the whole street. Plus a string of red plastic letters that spelled out Season’s Greetings.

  “We can hang it across the outside of the living-room window,” she said.

  Yep, the infamous we again.

  “Think we might have gotten carried away?” he suggested. Think I’ll be done hanging these before January first?

  “Well, maybe a little,” she said. “But better to have too many than not enough. Anyway, we don’t have to do only the house. We can do the bushes, too.”

  It was going to be a Christmas-light marathon.

  He got busy outside, and she got busy inside, making cookies. As Stanley was working, Edgar Gimble from next door came by to offer sage advice.

  “Better make sure they’re nice and secure. Got a windstorm predicted for later this week.”

  “I will,” Stanley assured him. He was an electrician. He knew all about lights.

  It took forever plus an eternity to hang the things and another millennium to decorate the bushes and put up the Season’s Greetings sign, but at last he was done. First ones on the block to have their decorations up that year. He grinned smugly as he put away the ladder.

  The house smelled like sugar and vanilla, and Carol was frosting cookies shaped like trees when he came into the kitchen. Their dog Goober, the mutt they’d rescued from the pound, lay nearby, his head on his paws, watching mournfully, knowing he wouldn’t get so much as a crumb.

  Stanley gave him a dog treat, then snagged a cookie frosted with green frosting and sprinkles. Someone had to sample them.

  “This is good,” he said. “Thanks for making these.”

  She danced over and kissed him. “You deserve a reward after all your hard work. And maybe I do, too,” she said with a flirty grin. “Think I might get a reward tonight?”

  “I think you might,” he said, grinning right back.

  As soon as it was dark she insisted on turning on the lights and going outside and admiring them. She’d been right, as usual. The lights did make their house look special.

  “It’s so pretty,” she said with a sigh. “It makes my heart happy.”

  Then, it was worth every moment he’d spent out there freezing his ass off. “I’m glad,” he said.

  A cold wind was stirring, and she shivered.

  “Come on, let’s get back in before you freeze,” he said, wrapping his arms around her.

  “Good idea,” she said, squeezing him back. “Let’s get inside and warm up.”

  “It’s nice to be inside and cozy,” she said later, as they snuggled together.

  “It is,” he agreed.

  Actually, it was more than nice. Being with Carol like this filled him with contentment.

  The contentment wasn’t quite so deep when he heard her on the phone with her sister the next morning.

  “I think that’s a great idea,” she said.

  Uh-oh. What kind of great idea were they talking about?

  “I’ll check with Stanley. I’m sure he won’t mind.”

  Whatever those two were concocting, he bet he would.

  “What won’t I mind?” he asked after she hung up the phone.

  “Having a little party to kick off the holidays,” she said airily.

  “A little party,” he repeated. He knew Carol and Amy’s idea of a little party did not and never would match his. “Define little.”

  “Just the families. Well, and the Gimbles. They’re such good neighbors.”

  That meant both sets of parents, his brother, Amy and her husband and two bratty kids, and probably all the grandparents. Plus Carol would be bound to slip in an extra neighbor or two.

  He groaned. “It’ll be a zoo.”

  “Zoos are always fun. You never know what you’re going to see.”

  “I know what I’ll see at this one. Your Grandpa Howard will doctor his punch with gin when nobody’s looking and get snockered. Amy’s girls will break God knows what, and your mom will bring something nobody wants to eat but we’ll all have to. Where did you ever learn to cook? Not from her.”

  “You have a very bad attitude, Manly Stanley. Now, can I tell you what will really happen?”

  He leaned against the door frame. “Sure. Go ahead.”

  “Grandma Bartlett will make that pound cake you love, and I’ll make those frosted brownies. You’ll gorge yourself, and then you and Curtis and Jimmy and my dad will set up the Ping-Pong table in the garage, and we won’t see any of you after that.”

  “You sure won’t,” he assured her. Her sister and the girls were enough to make any man want to hide. Some kind of drama was a given anytime they were around.

  “Then, it’s settled?”

  “It looks that way,” he grumped.

  They’d wind up doing this sooner or later, so there was no point in postponing the inevitable.

  “You know you’ll have a good time. You always do once these things get going.”

  “I guess,” he said, reluctant to admit that there was a measure of truth in what she said. “When is this big bash supposed to happen?”

  “Next Saturday. We’ll kick the month off with a bang.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he muttered.

  * * *

  As he’d predicted, Carol did sneak in some extra names to the guest list, but since they were a couple of buddies from his bowling league and their wives, he could hardly complain. The week before she went into party-prep mode, cleaning and baking, and the whole house smelled like a bakery. Stanley was put in charge of vacuuming and pulling down the punch bowl from the top cupboard where she kept it and borrowing folding chairs for extra seating from his parents. There were many evening phone conversations with her sister as they came up with games to play and debated over what kind of punch to serve.

  Reluctant as he was to have to entertain a crowd of people in his house, Stanley tried to look on the bright side. He would be with friends and family (some of whom were irritating, but oh, well). He didn’t have to worry about impressing anyone. And he would for sure be setting up the Ping-Pong table. There would be lots of good food and lots of smiles, especially on his wife’s face. And seeing her happy was what mattered most.

  The afternoon before the party, a windstorm swept into town, blowing over garbage cans and making tall fir trees sway.

  “It’s crazy out there,” Stanley said when he came in the door from work. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we lose power.”

  “Don’t say that. I don’t want to cancel our party,” Carol said.

  “You might have to. Plus I heard on the radio that they’re expecting snow.” If it snowed, their party size would definitely shrink. People in the Pacific Northwest could handle days of rain on end, but let one snowflake fall and everyone panicked. Their families, all presently located in Seattle, wouldn’t so much as poke their noses outdoors, let alone drive twenty-five miles to Fairwood.

  Stanley almost smiled. No crowd; small gathering; more cookies for the few who made it: it worked for him.
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  Carol made a face. “It better not snow until after the party.”

  They were just sitting down to dinner when the power went out.

  “Oh, no,” she moaned.

  “I’ll get the candles and the flashlight,” he said.

  “What if it doesn’t come on before tomorrow?” she fretted.

  “More cookies for me,” he said jokingly.

  Carol was not amused.

  But by early Saturday afternoon whatever power line had been taken out had been fixed. The lights were on, the fridge was humming, and the party was a go.

  Amy and her family were the first to arrive, her girls excited and dashing through the front door, winding up Goober and making him bark. She carried a bag filled with wrapped boxes for the white-elephant game the sisters had planned and a large foil-covered plate.

  “We’re here,” she announced. “Let the games begin.” Then she turned to Stanley. “What’s with the Season’s eetings?”

  “Season’s eetings?” he repeated, confused.

  “Look at your window,” she said. “Good job, Stanley.”

  He stepped outside and saw the string of letters he’d hung across the living-room window were dangling perilously. The G and R had dropped from Greetings. Yep, Season’s eetings. It looked stupid. He frowned.

  “Leave it up,” Amy said as he went to fetch the ladder to take down the ruined decoration. “It’s funny.”

  Yeah, anything for a laugh. Some people could laugh at themselves, he supposed, but he had his pride. The sign was coming down.

  The sign turned out to be...a sign.

  Goober got excited chasing Amy’s girls around, and his wagging tail sent several plates of seven-layer dip and chips flying from the living-room coffee table onto the carpet. Mrs. Gimble leaned too near the candles on the dining table when reaching for a piece of pound cake and came close to setting her hair on fire. One of the girls tried to feed Goober a brownie, causing total panic.

  Stanley and his fellow Ping-Pongers escaped to the garage for a brief respite. Stanley was good at table tennis, and he and Jimmy were well-matched. It was nice not having to worry about anything but that little white ball bouncing back and forth across the table. But eventually they had to rejoin the chaos of the party.

  The capper came later when everyone assembled in the living room to play the Bartlett family’s favorite white-elephant game and steal presents back and forth. Grandpa Howard, as Stanley had predicted, had spiked his punch and gotten tipsy. They were halfway through the gift game when he laughed so hard that he lost his balance and fell into the tree, knocking it over and trampling several of the remaining presents still under it. No harm was done to most of the ornaments, but the same couldn’t be said for Amy’s carefully coiffed hair when the top boughs landed on her, making her shriek.

  Both her husband and Stanley had rushed to try and stop it toppling but failed. Jimmy tramped two more presents in the process. One of them, obviously an inflated whoopee cushion, made a noisy protest that sounded like a fart. That about summed up the situation.

  “Oh, my gosh, I have sap in my hair,” Amy cried, frantically trying to undo the damage and sending fir needles flying.

  What comes around goes around. Leave it there, it’s funny, Stanley thought, remembering her comment about the Season’s Greetings letters. But he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

  “Well, will you look at that,” said Grandpa Howard with a grin and a hiccup.

  “You should have secured that better,” Amy informed Stanley, frowning at him.

  “Or else secure Grandpa,” he retorted.

  The tree was righted and the mess cleaned up, and the game went on. Stanley held his breath, hoping they could get through the rest of the evening without any more disasters. They did. After some major hair repair Amy’s sense of humor revived.

  Finally, all the food was consumed and the punch bowl drained, the fun and games were over, and the children were exhausted. Someone looked out the window and discovered it had started snowing, and that put a period to the party. Coats were hastily donned, empty serving platters and white-elephant presents gathered, and the guests departed. Stanley breathed a sigh of relief as the last car pulled away from the curb.

  “That was fun,” Carol said happily.

  “Is that what you call it?”

  She shook her head at him. “You know you had a good time.”

  “Yeah, putting the tree back together was a really good time.”

  “Everyone helped. And that’s what it’s all about.”

  “Putting messes back together?” he responded, determined to be obtuse.

  “Being together. We need each other. It’s important to stay connected.”

  He wouldn’t have minded disconnecting from some members of her family.

  “And really, no harm done with the tree.”

  Stanley thought of Amy, sputtering and buried under boughs of fir, and snickered. Then sobered. “Harm could have been done if I hadn’t seen Mellie trying to feed chocolate to Goober. He’d have been one sick pup.”

  “But we caught her, and now she knows.”

  Stanley just shook his head. “What a night. Your family is something else.”

  She smiled. “Yes, they are, and I love them. And I love you,” she added, hugging him. “Thanks for helping me get the season off to a wonderful start.”

  “Anything for you,” he said and kissed the top of her head. “I’m glad you had a good time. That’s what matters most to me.”

  “You are a good sport,” she said. “Let’s enjoy a quick walk in the snow. I bet our lights look beautiful.”

  They did, indeed. Some of their neighbors had decorated their houses that day and with the snow and the gaily lit homes, it felt a little like being inside a snow globe. As he and Carol stood on the sidewalk, bundled in their winter coats, taking it all in, their arms around each other, he couldn’t help but think what a perfect moment it was.

  I am one lucky man, he thought. “I wish you could bottle times like right now,” he said.

  “I guess in a way we do,” she mused. “That’s what memories are. Let’s make sure we bottle up a whole bunch.”

  Of course, after that year, hanging Christmas lights became a tradition. Much as Stanley hated being out in the cold messing around with them, he always enjoyed seeing how nice the house looked once they were up. Even more, it made him happy to know that he was making Carol happy.

  5

  Stanley’s heart rate went from a stroll to an uneasy trot as he walked around the front of his vehicle and saw the overturned red bin. Its lid was off, and the carefully wound Christmas lights were escaping.

  The trot went to a gallop. How could that bin have fallen? It had been securely stowed on the shelf for nearly three years, right above the one containing the tree ornaments and the one with the nativity set, the Santa teapot Carol had found at a garage sale one year (“Look, Stanley, it’s Fitz and Floyd!”), and the ceramic gingerbread house that had been her mother’s, along with the myriad scented candles she’d loved to scatter around on every possible surface.

  Maybe there’d been an earthquake in the night that he hadn’t felt. He could easily believe that. He’d been preoccupied with other things.

  Carol.

  He frowned. This was not some supernatural message. There was a logical explanation for it. He wished he knew what it was.

  He decided to stick with the earthquake theory. It was, after all, the Pacific Northwest, and once in a while they did get a shaking. Hadn’t had an earthquake in years. Not even a tremor. It was time. So that was it.

  He put the lights back in the bin, set it on the shelf, got in his car and drove to the tire shop.

  When he came home he aimed the remote at the garage door.

  As it creaked its way up he saw the bi
n was back on the garage floor again. Once more the lid was off, and the lights were spilling out.

  Okay, he was cracking up.

  “You’re not cracking up,” whispered a voice as he got out of the car.

  He whirled around, looking for the source. No one was there. A gust of wind swept into the garage, playing with his pant legs. Wind in the trees. That was what he’d heard.

  “I won’t stop till you get with it.”

  The voice again. He shivered in spite of the fact that he was wearing a warm, wool coat and the red scarf she’d knitted for him several Christmases ago.

  Okay, he’d put up the lights. To honor Carol’s memory, not because he thought she’d tipped that box over. He was not being haunted. He didn’t believe in ghosts. Anyway, this was Christmas not Halloween. There were not ghosts at Christmas.

  Unless you counted the ones that visited Ebenezer Scrooge. An invisible, icy finger tickled its way up his spine, making him shiver harder.

  “I am finally cracking up,” he told himself.

  He wished he could talk to someone about what was happening to him, but there was no one. Without Carol to nudge him into what she called his nice clothes, he’d stopped going to church. All those concerned faces and big noses anxious to poke into his business, not to mention a predatory widow or two, laying out casseroles like bear traps. No, thanks. He and God could hang out here at home just fine.

  He’d given up on his bowling league, too. He’d gone once, a few months after losing her, but it hadn’t been fun, and he’d dropped out.

  At first his buddies had called to see how he was doing, leaving him voice mails encouraging him to come back. “Come on, Strike King, we need you.”

  “Hey, Hambone, where are you?”

  Who cared how many strikes you bowled? He never called any of the guys back, and after a while they gave up.

  Which had been fine with him. He’d never needed a lot of people around to make him happy. All he’d needed was Carol.

  The day he lost her it was as if he’d gotten sawed in half. He still was only half of what he’d been when he’d had her, and that wasn’t going to change. He could dream about her all he liked, but she wasn’t coming back. Life was gray, and it would stay that way no matter how many Christmas lights he put up. Still, to appease...whatever, he’d do it. After lunch.