Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 91461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“If you guys find any of the Halloween stuff up there,” Hannah called out, “bring it down. You know how scared the neighbors get when the spiders just fall out on their cars and stuff.”
“Why don’t you come up and do it yourself,” Kola yelled down to her.
“Ohmygod, will you let me?” she asked excitedly, passing me the Funyons.
“Sure, why not?”
“No!” Jake and Harper both bellowed back.
“Have you lost your mind?” Harper snapped at my son.
“She thinks it’s a bungee and starts hopping all over the place,” Jake snarled at him. “Do you want her to fall because she’s messing around?”
Hannah grunted and turned to me. “I totally want to do the climbing.”
“Absolutely not, Danger Girl,” I scolded her.
She glanced at Finn. “No one will let me express myself.”
“I think I’m gonna throw up,” Wick announced.
“How long will this take?” Finn yelled up to Kola.
“We just got up here,” he answered, and then we all heard him gasp at the same time.
“Jesus, what?” Finn thundered, running to the base of the oak that Kola was in.
“There’s a racoon family up here,” he said, sounding pretty happy. “B, send me up some fruit and peanuts.”
She was on it and filled the basket and had Finn use the pulley system to get it up there to his boyfriend. It helped to give him something to do.
“Aww, Finn, they’re so cute,” we all heard Kola’s voice get all soft and sweet.
And I saw Kola’s boyfriend take a breath and realize that everything was going to be all right. I had to comfort Wick a bit more, especially when Harper had to rappel over and help Kola create a temporary nest for the racoons. Jake would have to make them a real shelter like we had for the squirrels.
Last year, we had a live tree that was planted, by Delano’s as well, after Christmas, so this year, after years of only having real trees, Hannah finally talked her father into a pre-lit fake tree. This way no trees were murdered over the holiday and he didn’t have to see it lying in the driveway before the guys picked it up to be turned into mulch. No one but his family would suspect that Sam Kage was a giant softie watching his Christmas tree taken away.
I will say that the sixteen-foot tree Hannah got was impressive. It was done with colored lights, not white ones because Sam didn’t believe in all white, and was very full. She made sure to make me simmer pots to keep the house smelling like Christmas, and once it was decorated, it was really beautiful. Plus, bonus, there was one switch, on a timer, and there was no looking for which strand was not plugged in or which light bulb had died, creating unlit patches in the middle of the tree.
“It’s just not the same,” my husband lamented.
And I understood. He used to take me and the kids to different lots in our search for the perfect one. It had been our tradition for years. But now the tree would simply be pulled from a box. He looked miserable, even after putting the star on the top of the tree as he did every year. But again, normally he was the light man. He did that first, then I did the garland, and the kids and I put on the ornaments. Now as he sat and watched us, I was thinking about what I could do when my son, who was far more observant than I gave him credit for, told his father they had to go.
“Where are you going?”
“Not me, you and me,” he clarified. “We gotta go get the boxwood wreaths for outside and all the windows. Plus the stupid mistletoe.”
“Mistletoe is not stupid,” Sam corrected his son. “Do you have any idea how many kisses I’ve gotten from your father just for standing under some?”
He glanced at Finn then, who huffed out a breath and flushed a lovely shade of pink. Turning back to his father, he said, “Okay, let’s go get some.”
Finn bumped into the refrigerator. I mean really, how adorable could they be?
The Christmas parties were crazy this year. Everyone we knew was having one, and we were invited.
“Why?” my husband asked, holding up an invitation to Aaron and Duncan’s that was beautifully embossed, gold-foiled, and seriously a lot because the envelope had glittery stars in it that were now on my kitchen counter.
“To make it festive,” I replied and smiled big.
Turning it back around to him, his eyes then returned to me. “How about no?”
I shook my head at him.
The invitation to Michael’s party, interestingly enough, looked much the same. There was even more glitter stars in red, green, and gold.
“Big no,” Sam told me.
I crossed my arms.
“Our Christmas better be low-key,” he demanded.
“Of course it will be,” I promised, crossing my fingers behind my back.