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However, it takes almost a half hour to get a reasonably acceptable group photo in front of it. With this many people, of course it’s expected there will be a few closed eyes, or a handful of awkward expressions. If only we were that lucky. Lisa sets up a tripod but can’t get the timer right. In two photos Zachary is picking his nose, in one he’s trying to feed the treasure to Miso. We catch Miles midsneeze; Mom can’t get her Rudolph earrings to flash in sync with the camera. Theo is looking at his phone in one, and checking to see if his zipper is down in the next. (It was.) For the next, Miso jumps in front of the camera. Then Miso jumps on Kennedy and it takes a little while to calm her down. Ricky’s kissing Lisa in one and can’t manage a casual smile in the others. The more we point it out, the worse it gets.
I remind myself that change is also not crying out “But—tradition!” when Theo impatiently steps in for Lisa and resets the tripod with his phone.
Good news: now we’re all in frame. Bad news: Kyle’s highlighter is so on point and in focus that he looks like a disco ball.
“Fuck it,” he says just as the oven timer goes off for dinner. “Good enough.”
• • •
After we’ve stuffed ourselves, we scatter around the living room, falling into a comfortable quiet.
The living room is a majestic place—I mean, it is massive—with vaulted log ceilings and old wood floors covered in wide woven rugs. Along one long wall, the fire crackles and snaps, heating the room to just below too warm. It’s wood from town and nothing smells like it. I want to find a candle of this, incense, room spray. I want every living room in every house I live in for the rest of time to smell like the Hollis cabin does on December evenings.
The hearth is expansive; when we were about seven, and our chore was sweeping out the fireplace at the end of the holiday, Theo and I could almost stand up inside it. The flames actually roar to life. Even once they mellow into a rumbling, crackling simmer, the blaze still feels like a living, breathing creature in here with us.
A plate of cookies sits on the coffee table. Mom and Dad occupy opposite sides of the love seat, reading their respective books. Benny, Kyle, and Aaron are doing a puzzle on the floor with Kennedy while Zachary sits on Benny’s back and pretends he’s a motorcycle. Christmas music plays quietly in the background, and Lisa futzes around, adjusting the lights, poking the fire, fetching throw blankets for us. Ricky is on a call in the kitchen, and Theo slumps on the couch, scrolling through his phone.
Seeing him sparks a memory in me: this night, the first time around, I was sitting next to him and we spent the evening going down various Instagram rabbit holes together, totally oblivious to other people around us. Which was such a teenage-y thing to do, now that I think about it. Why didn’t we hang with the others, and how often were we like that? Is that why Andrew thought that Theo and I . . . ?
Maybe if I had spent this evening just enjoying the ritual and the sheer bliss that comes from being in a room full of people I adore, things wouldn’t have turned out the way they did.
I shuffle over to the tree, sliding beneath it and lying on my back so I can look up through the gnarled branches. It’s a kaleidoscope of color and texture: the smooth light bulbs, the prickly pine needles. Ornaments of glass, and silk, and spiky metallic stars. A little wooden drummer Theo gave Ricky nearly twenty years ago. Laminated paper ornaments of our handprints from preschool, handmade ceramic blobs that were supposed to be pigs, or cows, or dogs. Nothing matches; there’s no theme. But there is so much love in this tree, so much history.
Beside me, a shadow blocks the heat and light of the fire, before sliding beneath the tree. I turn my head, coming eye to twinkling eye with Andrew.
My heart trips over itself. After the tree farm, I wasn’t sure whether he’d keep his distance.
“This looks like a good idea,” he says, turning his face up to the branches overhead. His profile is illuminated with blues and yellows, reds and greens. A few lights make flashing patterns through the ornaments and onto his cheekbones. “Smells good, too.”
“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” I shift a little, scooting deeper beneath the branches. I wonder what we look like from the outside: two sets of legs, sticking out from under the tree like the Wicked Witch of the East trapped beneath Dorothy’s house. “A good thinking spot.”
