He moves to the pantry and grabs two Pop Tarts from the box, then gestures to the living room with a tilt of his head. “Christmas movie time.”
“Which one?”
“You pick.”
We end up going classic again, but a different kind of classic thanWhiteChristmas. A comedy classic.TheSantaClaus. One of my favorites, which I learn Eli’s never seen (and since there are two sequels and he seems to like it as much as I do, we have the next two movies we’ll watch already picked out).
But the world is awake, now. Mom, Janet, and Hugh are all in the living room. Janet draws back the blinds and I wince at the glare of the sun off fresh white snow.
“The storm is done!” I cry.
“Should they have just kept us on a delay schedule?” Eli asks.
“The roads are probably still messy,” Janet says.
“They can’t change it now,” I say, grinning. I look at Hugh. “You wanna build a snowman with us?”
Hugh jumps up and down. “Yes!”
Janet corrals Hugh into his snow gear while Eli and I don ours. I look Eli’s over. “You seem very prepared for someone who said they’ve never fully enjoyed a snow day.”
“I might have ordered a few things after Thanksgiving. Just to be prepared.” Eli clears his throat. “The snowpants are great.”
“Let’s go!” Hugh says, barreling past us to slam his mitten hands on the front door.
“You got him for a few minutes?” Janet asks.
“Yeah, no worries.” I meet Eli’s eyes. “He’s got more weight to him with all this gear, so brace yourself for a snow monster tackle.”
Hugh roars and laughs, and I open the door to let him run out into the snow, hot on his heels. I can accept him being the first one out the door, but I have to at least tie with him to be first on the snow. Eli doesn’t count, since he came in the thick of it. There’s just something about making your footprint on that blank canvas, before anything or anyone else has shifted the powder.
Hugh trips over his clunky kids’ boots and goes down with a chortle. I barrel roll next to him. “I know I said snowman, but maybe some snow angels first? Since we’re already on the ground?”
“You are,” Eli says, standing over me and crossing his arms.
I hook my foot behind his knee and pull him down beside me. He grunts with the landing, then flicks snow in my face.
“Snowman!” Hugh says, tugging my arm while I’m still stunned by Eli’s attack.
“It’d be more of a snow devil anyway, with you doing it,” Eli says with a teasing smile, standing and pulling me with him in the motion.
“Have you ever made a snowman?” I ask Eli.
His expression goes serious. “I make one in the park every year. A little one.”
“Get ready to make a Hugh-sized one. We’ll get him properly dressed, too, once he has a body. Hat, scarf, mittens. Everything. But no food dye.” Eli looks at me quizzically. I bite my lip. “I tried to make my snowman pop last year, and used red food dye around the buttons . . . and around the base.”
Eli’s mouth falls open.
“I wrote his name in red, too,” I say, grimacing at the memory. As it melted, the red spread, the buttonholes looking . . . much less festive than they should. Unless you wanted something likeDieHard.
“What did you expect red on snow to look like?”
“I don’t know! Red catches people’s eye!”
He stares at me, mouth open again as if really stuck on how to respond, and then sighs and pats my arm. He crouches, scooping up snow and rolling it.
“Maybe we could use blue this year,” I say.
