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This is the first chapter of a holiday series that will run for seven days and end on Christmas.

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“Don’t go downstairs,” Kristen warned​ her brother while sitting at the top of the stairs.  “Doug and Dana are at the kitchen table talking.  Doug’s smoking so you know it’s serious.  Dana has a glass of wine.  She put it in one of the colored aluminum tumblers, so it’s not obvious it’s wine.  But it is.”

Kyle Nolan was put off by the warning, as well as the way his older sister referred to their parents by their first names.  It sounded odd.  It sounded disrespectful.  The last year or two, ever since she’d hit high school, really, Kristen had become edgy.  It might have had something to do with Mason McCulloch hanging around the house all the time.  It might have been that once she started returning his attention they started acting differently and harder to be around.  

Nonetheless, Kyle was perplexed.  He wanted to go downstairs and get a Coke and watch TV.  But the last thing he wanted to do was walk into a minefield of his mom and dad arguing or raising their voices.  Recently, they’d done more of that.  Best he could tell it was usually about money, but a lot of times it involved Kristen, or the friends she was hanging around with, or Mason McCulloch being over at the house.  Sometimes it was just general disagreement.  His mom thought they should go to church more often.  His dad enjoyed his weekends free of the encumbrances of organized religion, or even the unorganized version of it practiced at Second Baptist Church of Fort Stockton.  

Kyle’s dad taught history at Jim Bowie High School.  Seeing his students five days a week was plenty; he preferred to not see them during worship services, as well.  His mom was a stay-at-home mother and wife.  By Sunday she was stir crazy and wanted to spend some time with other adults, even if it meant sitting through Brother Bob’s admonishments about drinking, fornicating, and coveting, all of which she could stay home and enjoy without his input.  The compromise they had reached involved going about three times a semester (never after report cards had just come out) and every holiday.  Just the religious ones, not Memorial Day or Labor Day, or those involving a President.

“Any idea what’s being discussed?” Kyle asked.  He wanted all the information he could gather before risking it and heading downstairs into the fray.  If it was just the standard tense words over whether or not they should have gone into hock for 36 months for the new Country Squire, he’d probably risk it for a Coke.  If it involved Kristin and possible disciplinary action for some act of rebellion, he’d rather not overhear the details.  It was better to wait for those till they were officially rolled out for public display and enforcement.​  Then he could treasure them at his leisure and rub them in when it was just he and his sister.  No point in getting out ahead of that situation.

“Christmas, I think,” Kristen said.  “I’ve only caught snippets.  But I think it involves the holidays.”

“The whole ‘money is tight’ thing, and whether or not to ​p​ut Christmas​ on the credit card this year?” Kyle asked.

“No,” Kristen informed her brother.  “I heard that one last week through the heater vent in my room.  This is a whole new one.  They’re talking in a low voice, so I’m not picking up any specifics.”

“Have you tried the vent?”

“Nothing.  You may need to go down and run reconnaissance.  Doug’s on his third cigarette, so it must be big.”  Kristen had a look of concern on her face, and she wasn’t one normally given to much worry, or even deep thought.

When Kyle went downstairs and into the kitchen, the talking at the table stopped.  That wasn’t a good sign, but no one told him to get back upstairs, so he took advantage of the ambivalence and hung around after opening the Coke and putting the bottle opener back in the drawer next to the Harvest Gold refrigerator.  “What’re y’all talking about?”  He figured the best strategy was just to go straight in and see if he could catch them off guard.

Doug and Dana looked across the Formica topped kitchen table at each other briefly, then his dad said, “Talking about Christmas.  Maybe take the new Country Squire up to Michigan and see your grandmother.  It’s been a while.”

Indeed it had.  The last time his family had made the trek to Michigan to visit his grandmother Kyle had been in first grade, Kristen in fourth and his little sister, Kim, was just a twinkle in Doug’s eye.  He remembered it as being a long, long trip in a hot car, he and Kristen fighting over back seat space like it was valuable ground that neither could afford to give up.  The​ old ’62 Ford Galaxie was not equipped with air conditioning and that’s when Doug and Dana first discovered Kyle was pr​one to car sickness.  The payoff was being able to see his grandmother in the house that his dad had grown up in, along with his two uncles, the only two he had.  

Ferndale, a suburb of Detroit, was like a foreign country to a kid born and raised in Fort Stockton, Texas.  The people talked funny.  The houses were all old and had basements, and there seemed to be an over abundance of trees everywhere he looked.

“I’ve got two weeks at Christmas,” his dad said, focused back on Kyle’s mother.  “We could make it a leisurely drive.  We’ve got a brand new car, so we don’t have to worry about break-downs or repairs.  One of the reasons we bought it was for family trip​s while the kids are all still young.  ​I haven’t been back in years.”  Kyle was trying to make a case to himself more than his wife, who was ambivalent​, at best.  “We spent last ​Christmas with your family,” he finished.

“My family is in Amarillo,”  Dana shot back.  “Not a three day drive in possible bad weather to stay in a house that’s too small for all of us.”

“We could get a hotel,” Doug said.

“And blow the savings we were setting aside for a real vacation next year at spring break?”  Dana’s voice raised just slightly, but enough that Kyle had a pretty clear idea how the battle lines were drawn on this one.

“Bottom line,” Doug went on, “who knows how long my mom​’s going to be around.  I don’t want to look back and say, ‘I wish we’d have . . . .’  Know what I mean?”

Dana didn’t have a rebuttal for that.  Her own parents were getting up there and thoughts of their mortality had crept into her mind the last time or two she’d seen them.  She would have been upset if Doug had denied her time to see them.  The fact that his father had been gone for years and only his mother was still among the living made his situation even more dire than her own.  “Okay.  Tell her we’ll come.  We’ll make the best of it.  Might be the only chance the kids have to see snow.”

Kyle felt like he’d hit the goldmine of information and couldn’t wait to get back upstairs to share the intel with Kristen who he knew would be impressed.  Still, he wanted to maintain a look of fifteen year old indifference and went over to the pantry, fishing out a bag of Cheetos before heading back upstairs, two steps at a time.

“We’re headed to Michigan for Christmas!” he whispered at the top of his lungs after entering the inner sanctum of Kristen’s room and shutting the door behind him.

“Bullshit!” she screamed.  The effortless way Kristen allowed cuss words to roll off her tongue continued to amaze Kyle, though it was an ​t​alent she’d been ​honing for quite some time.  He hoped one day he would be able to swear as creatively as his older sister, but remained too fearful of parental retribution to give it the practice he knew it would take.  “Tell me everything they said.  And give me that damn bag of Cheetos.”​  Kyle spilled all the beans with as much detail as he could remember.

As is the case with any teenager, the thoughts flooding into her mind were all regarding how this new development would personally affect her. What about the Winter Carnival Dance she was planning on Mason taking her to? Would she be able to drive any of the journey, since she’d received her drivers license just six months earlier? What would the sleeping arrangements be? She remembered Grandma’s house being small; there was no way she was going to share sleeping quarters with her brother, having a pretty clear idea of what took place at night when he was alone and left to his own devices. Would she have an opportunity to meet any Michigan boys? Would they be different from Mason, back in Fort Stockton? Kristen had kind of a crush on Uncle Bobby, her dad’s youngest brother. Would he remember her?

That night, when the whole Nolan family went to bed, only the youngest member of the clan, little Kim​, slept well.  Doug wondered if he’d made the right decision telephoning his mother and telling her they’d come.  Michigan was a long way.  Winters could be tough.  Three kids and a disgruntled wife in a station wagon, even a ​new Country Squire, for two weeks could be​ fraught with minefields.  It would be impossible to find them all before they exploded.  Then, there were his brothers.

Dana laid in bed and fought her mind wandering to her own parents and the fact that they seemed to be getting smaller every time she saw them.  More frail.  Her two sisters had married and moved out of state, following the career paths of the men they’d married.  Taking care of her parents would fall on her shoulders.  On top of the three kids, it would be a lot.  She wasn’t ready to think about it, but knew she’d have to soon.  When Doug rolled over and pulled himself close to her, his front pressed tightly to her back, she knew that he was looking for something to make him sleepy and get his mind off Christmas.  She hoped her pretending to already​ be asleep  would put an end to those thoughts.  It did, even though he knew she was pretending.

Kyle was thinking about what a long road trip in the new Ford would look like.  Would they see snow?  Would his grandmother cook some of the things he remembered that filled the entire house with the aroma of baked goods that made his mouth water?  Would he still get car sick?  He hadn’t in a long time, but this was going to be a long trip.  Would he get to spend some time with the cool uncle?  Would he be stuck alone with the weird one?  He remembered his grandmother’s house in Michigan as only having one bathroom.  Not a big deal when he was five, a whole different situation now that he was fourteen.  Privacy could go for a premium.

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The trip to Amarillo for Thanksgiving with his maternal grandparents was a week later and some of those questions were answered.  Kyle made it all the way up and back in the way back seat without an issue, so he felt good about that aspect of the Christmas journey.  He could sense tension with his other grandparents over the Christmas trip​ to Michigan.  He heard them ask his mother while they were doing dishes after the big meal, “Why can’t she just fly down to Texas?”  At fifteen, he still wasn’t up to speed on family politics.  He’d figure that out later on his own.  But it seemed to be more complicated than it needed to be.

On the way back home from Amarillo there was debate in the front seat as to whether the house should still ​need to be decorated for Christmas.  “We won’t even be here.  Why drag everything out of the attic and put it up, just to walk out the door and not see it for two weeks.  When we get home, that’s just one more thing to deal with,” his dad argued while gripping the black and wood grain steering wheel till his knuckles were white.

“I’m not the one who wanted to go to the Great White North for Christmas,” Dana said, her voice raising that same single octave that Kyle was beginning to recognize as a sign.  Not a good one.  “We have never not put up a Christmas tree.  This will damn well not be the first year we don’t.”  The use of a curse word, even one of the minor ones that can be found in the bible, signified that the discussion had just been raised to a whole new level.  Kristen and Kim in the middle seat, and Kyle in the wayback all reacted as though the Cone of Silence had been lowered and waited to see just what direction this development would take the debate.

“Fine.”  That was it.  A one word surrender.  They got home the Friday afternoon after Thanksgiving.  Decorations went up Saturday.  And Sunday.  Perry Como on the stereo drowned out the chilly silence in the Nolan living room as they prepared the house to celebrate the birth of their savior.

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“What are we going to do with Crocket?” Dana asked as they sat at the Formica table, basking in the glow of Christmas lights on the tree Sunday evening.  “I didn’t even think about what we’d do with the dog.”  Crocket was a retriever – boxer mix that Doug had brought home in a weak moment a couple years before.  “Do you know what it’ll cost to board him for two weeks?”

“We’ll take him.  He’ll be fine.  Mom won’t care.”  Doug was again talking to himself, more than Dana.  As soon as the words came out of his mouth, the lights on the tree began to flicker.  Then an entire string went out.  And then all of them.  “I’ll go to the Rusty Hammer after school tomorrow and buy new lights.  These are shot.”  

Monday night Doug and Dana took everything off the tree and threw the lights in the trash.  Perry Como playing on the stereo just seemed to irritate both of them.  Doug smoked a half pack of cigarettes.  Tuesday night they redecorated the entire tree.  Dana had two aluminum tumblers of wine.  Perry Como remained silent on the stereo, as did all three kids upstairs.  Crocket got in the trash while everyone was distracted and ate some of the unrefrigerated leftovers from Thanksgiving.  Nobody slept well that night.

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