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it’s a date.

18

Outside, the first week of November turns drizzly and gray, but inside my apartment, it’s starting to feel like Christmas.

The morning after my movie date with Mackenzie, I haul the Christmas decorations out from the back of the living room closet where they’re covered in a thick layer of dust.

After my mom died, I Iost interest in decorating for Christmas, but Larry would make an effort every year. He’d put up a tiny, apartment-size tree and hang two red oven mitts below the window. They were covered in tiny photos of Larry dressed as Santa—a gag gift from the Secret Santa game at the curling club where he worked. I think he felt like he needed to carry on some Christmas traditions for me. I had told him once that my mother and I exchanged ornaments every year, picking ones that reminded us of each other, and he insisted we do the same.

Last year, Larry was in the hospital and I didn’t want to do anything for Christmas other than binge-watch movies. It was easier to get my serotonin fix from moonlit snowball fights and mistletoe kisses without the daily reminder that I’d be both putting up and taking down my apartment-size tree alone for the foreseeable future.

This year, however, everything feels different.

Every night after work, I come home, order takeout, and settle in for a Christmas project.

One night, it’s stringing lights around the windows. The next it’s cutting out patterns for two Christmas stockings.

I knit.

I decoupage.

I even attempt to bake a gingerbread house from scratch with a recipe I find online and ingredients like real ginger and allspice that I have to borrow from Harmony. However, my enthusiasm and patience wane when it comes time to stick the whole thing together, and my roof keeps sliding off. Eventually, I give up and purchase one of those premade kits. The store-bought icing is basically edible superglue. My final creation deserves its own Pinterest board. Instead, I snap a pic and send it to Mackenzie.

Mackenzie:

Wow! Harmony is not fooling around.

Annalise:

Actually, you’re looking at an original Annalise Harris. Just a heads up though—Christmas may or may not have exploded all over our apartment.

Mackenzie:

Why am I not even a little surprised?

Annalise:

You aren’t? I am. Wait, is this another Virgo thing?

Mackenzie:

No. It’s a you watch Christmas movies in October thing. I assumed the two went hand in hand.

Annalise:

Did you ever stop to think I might just be into guys in flannel?

Three dots appear. Then disappear. Then appear again.

After another message-less moment, I give in and type:

Annalise:

I know it’s weird, but I’ve always seen the two as mutually exclusive interests. Hallmark movies are a way to give my brain a break from reality. They’re set in cute little towns with carolers and hot chocolate festivals, where nothing truly bad happens. And if there’s problems, they’re fixable little blips easily remedied with a sweeping grand gesture. Real Christmas is always a little bit of a letdown. If we get snow, it’s a murky gray slush. All the carolers are in the Distillery market, which is too crowded with tourists. Half-assing a Christmas dinner with a rotisserie chicken and stovetop stuffing feels sad. I find it easier to accept that big, magical Christmases only happen in fiction and that it’s easier to keep things low-key with minimal expectations.

Mackenzie:

Ahhh, I get it now.