“Can we watch Nightmare of Christmas now?” Eilidh asked suddenly.
“It’s The Nightmare Before Christmas,” Lewis corrected her.
“No, your dad doesn’t want you watching it,” Mac replied before I could.
Disgruntled, I placed their cutout cookies on the tray. I wanted to share one of my favorite Christmas movies with the kids, but Thane thought it was too scary for Eilidh. “We’ll watch The Christmas Chronicles instead.”
“But we watched that last year,” she said, pouting.
I smiled as I slid the tray into the oven and set the timer. “That’s the point, sweetheart. You rewatch your favorite Christmas films every year.”
“I wanna watch Elf, then!”
“We watched Elf yesterday,” Lewis grumbled and turned to me. “Please, Aunt Arro, I don’t want to watch it again.”
I nodded and walked around the table to my niece. “We’ll watch something everyone wants to watch, okay?”
She nodded rapidly. “Uncle Mac gets to choose, too, then.”
Mac grinned at her. “Thanks, darlin’.”
“Whatcha wanna watch?”
“What do you want to watch?” His lips twitched.
“Uh … Frozen!”
Lewis scowled. “That’s not a Christmas movie.”
“Is so!”
“Is not!”
“Is so!”
“Okay,” I raised my voice a little and held out a hand to both of them. “There will be no Christmas movie or cookie decorating if you’re going to argue.”
“Here’s what we’ll do.” Mac stood, towering over us in the kitchen like the big, friendly bodyguard he was. “We’ll each choose a film we’d like to watch, we’ll write them down on a wee bit of paper, mix them up in a bowl, and then Aunt Arro will choose a paper from it. Whichever film is written on it is the first film we watch. Plan?”
The kids nodded, happy with that solution.
Me? I inappropriately wanted to jump the man.
In the end, we watched Frozen and Frozen II. Lewis didn’t complain. He was just as engrossed in the movies, even though he’d seen them a million times. Eilidh sang along to the songs. We paused to decorate the cookies, and I’d allowed them a few each before putting the rest away. They’d then changed into their Christmas pjs (I had too—it was part of the deal) before we returned to watch the films, each with a mug of hot chocolate.
The kids fell asleep before the second movie finished.
Mac lifted Lewis into his arms, and I followed with Eilidh into the guest room. Neither of the kids woke up as we tiptoed out, closing the door just enough to allow in a crack of light from the hallway.
“Thane will be mad I didn’t brush their teeth,” I whispered as we walked away.
“It’s just this once,” Mac assured me. “Make sure they scrub them in the morning.”
“Coffee?” I asked as he followed me into the kitchen.
“You got decaf?”
“Of course.”