Ugly Sweater Weather

I guess I was going to need it for the baking extravaganza to come.

"I'll be right back," I said, walking past my bathroom just barely big enough to turn around in and into my bedroom that didn't even have a proper door. Or a proper bed. Instead, I had a Murphy bed that folded up into the wall at all times or else I wouldn't be able to make it into my closet.

In the interest of keeping the walls from closing in on me too much, I opted to keep everything I could white. White walls, white light-filtering curtains, white cabinets. I even covered the old faux brown and black marble countertops with white marble contact paper to make it feel a little more airy. Then I just added pops of color in the art, the pillows, the rugs.

It wasn't much, but it was home.

And I had put a lot of myself into it.

Stripping out of my shirt, I quickly pulled on the sweater, checking myself in the mirror I had attached to the underside of my Murphy bed, nodding at my reflection. It didn't get much more Christmasy than an ugly sweater, did it?

"Please tell me these boxes aren't full of those plastic bins of plain bulbs," Crosby asked as I made my way back in, hand resting on one of said boxes.

"Don't you know me at all?" I asked, placing a hand to my heart, feigning being wounded. "Each and every ornament in there has a story, has character."

"Those are the only ornaments worth owning," he agreed with a nod. "Now, we need to have a serious talk," he told me, voice grave.

"What's wrong?" I asked, stomach twisting, not used to Crosby being so serious.

"Nothing yet. But something could be terribly wrong in a moment," he informed me.

"I... I don't understand."

"I think if I find out you are an all-white-lights person, we can't be friends anymore," he told me, making a laugh bubble up and burst out of me.

"White lights can be pretty."

"Pretty, yes, but lacking some of the character we both value so much."

"Okay. I have to agree with that. I bought colored lights. Solids and twinkling."

"Our friendship lives another day," he declared as I fetched the lights, putting them on the table. "So, how are we handling the lights?"

"I think I should maybe leave it in the hands of the expert. While I make us hot toddies."

"Because we're seventy-year-olds," he said, but he was smiling.

"I've honestly never had one. They sound both disgusting and amazing at the same time. Like eggnog."

"Eggnog is a Christmas abomination," Crosby informed me, cringing like he'd just gotten a sip.

"What? There is actually something about Christmas that you don't like?"

"I know. My parents damn near disowned me when they found out."

From what I understood, if it was even possible, Crosby's parents were even more into Christmas than he was. Clearly, since they'd named their children Crosby, as in Bing Crosby, Clarence, as in the angel looking for his wings in It's A Wonderful Life, and Noel.

He'd told me little snippets of their insane Christmas traditions, making me so envious I almost teared up as he detailed the food, the games, the customs that went back several generations. Including some spider web thing that crossed the ceiling in the dining room that still made no sense to me since the only spider tradition I knew of involved the tree itself.

They had cookie bake-offs and toy drives for the needy and secret Santas and white elephants and all the stuff I had never known, had secretly coveted.

As a whole, I tried hard not to compare my life to someone else's. It never led anywhere good. I spent a lot of my childhood wallowing in that unhappiness, wishing my mom was the sort who took me out to brunches like my friends' moms, wishing I had a father who would warn me off of boys, that I knew the warmth of a large family gathered around a Thanksgiving table, or opening presents on Christmas morning.

It was toxic to focus through a lens of lack. All it did was reinforce the idea that you were missing things, that there were holes to be filled, that you wouldn't be able to fill them yourself.

So while I absolutely thought Crosby and his wonderful family had an absolutely amazing holiday planned, I chose to see mine as wonderful too.

And, well, it was.

I heckled Crosby about his blind-spots, grumbled about too many blinkers, made him readjust the star seven times before it finally looked straight. And I did all this with a big smile on my face, with the warmth of the hot toddy flooding my veins, with carols playing in the background.

"Alright. I am going to need to know why there is a pickle ornament," Crosby declared, brandishing the ornament in question with a furrowed brow.