A Christmas Accord

My back aches whenever I wear this jacket. The slippery exterior is a poor anchor for my heavy backpack. It’s also shedding down feathers like a Christmas goose and isn’t warm enough for the snow. I tug the zipper up to my chin and shove my hands in the pockets. Despite its flaws, it’s vintage. It was my Mom’s. I love it.

Sometimes love is like that: even in the face of imperfections, you can’t help who or what you get attached to. Like right this instant I’m standing in the freezing cold, waiting at the third spruce back from the gate. It’s been our tree since we discovered the shoulder high cavity in fourth grade, perfect for hiding treasures and leaving notes. I peek out from under the branches and the world goes dark. I stumble backwards on the frosty grass until I collide with something surprisingly warm.

“Guess who?” a teasing voice hits my ear.

“Connor Wilder, what took you so long?” I whine, peeling his gloved hands off my face. I twirl to face him, fist raised for a well-deserved punch to the shoulder. He anticipates and ducks out of the line of fire.

“Nothing important. Just Christmas stuff for my Mom.” He shrugs and massages his temple with his knuckles.

I tear my eyes from that cute display to scan the skies. Sure enough, there’s a few flurries falling outside the canopy of the branches. I groan and yank my backpack straps higher on my shoulders.

“First snow,” I say by way of explanation for my sudden exit. “You know what that means.”

“Do I ever,” he replies with a mock salute. “Catch you on the other side?”

“May the most spirited win!” I shout, halfway to my front door.

As I expected, I arrive home to find the dining table covered in garland, ornaments, and strings of lights. Mom stares out the window over the kitchen sink, clutching her Christmas tree mug and muttering an incantation that sounds suspiciously like sugarplums and wreaths and gingerbread. The flashing lights on her hokey holiday sweater reflect on the glass, making our kitchen look like an emergency response situation.

The first snow never fails to send the neighborhood women into a holiday frenzy. If it weren’t for Connor’s warning, I’d be waltzing into a war zone. I tiptoe toward the staircase, ready to slink to my room when Mom catches me.

“Have you seen this?” She brandishes a cream-colored envelope with gold embossing. I open the flap with all the caution of someone defusing a bomb. A rectangle of thick cardstock drops into my hand and I find myself face to face with the Wilder family Christmas card: dark-haired and blue-eyed Wilder parents holding court with the three Wilder children. It looks like a catalog advertising high-end cashmere sweaters. Connor looks slightly itchy in his.

“She sprung for the foil imprint this year,” I say, keeping my voice neutral. Our family Christmas cards teeter in a precarious stack amidst the jumble of holiday décor. Merry Christmas from The Clifford Family, it reads in matte red script.

“With the beveled trim and pearl glimmer cardstock, gosh darn her.” Mom snatches the envelope back.

“The audacity,” I mumble, remembering to turn my back before rolling my eyes.

“Yes Olive, exactly. She had Connor hand deliver these, no doubt to beat me to the mailbox. Can you believe that woman? She’s coercing the entire neighborhood into a progressive dinner two nights after my annual Christmas cookie swap. God help her if she shows up with another poor imitation of my peanut butter fudge,” Mom rants while pulling down flour, sugar, and butter. There’s a stress-baking session brewing.

“You know, Mom—you and Mrs. Wilder have a lot in common. I can’t think of any other Moms more committed to the holidays than you two. Maybe this year, you give the gift of real friendship instead of this performance of happiness just because it's the holidays?”

She ceases stirring, spatula poised over a mixing bowl. Then she shakes her head.

"Hush and help me roll out this shortbread," she commands.

That evening I tuck a bag of freshly baked cookies into the tree nook. There’s a note attached in spidery sharpie, my own handwriting far-cry from my mother’s skill with a calligraphy pen.

Connor- We’re in for the progressive dinner. First course, our house. We can end this feud. Talk tactics via the tree? Love, Olive

###

“Ryan, that candy cane charcuterie goes on the sideboard!” Mom directs Dad like a battle-worn general. She swivels to find me lurking, surreptitiously sneaking samples from the snowman vegetable platter. “Olive, honey, are your hands clean enough to pipe these Christmas tree deviled eggs?”

“Sterile,” I declare through a mouthful of olives. Mom shoves a piping bag in my direction and pokes halfheartedly at raw dough.

“This gosh darn puff pastry refuses to puff around the pigs in a blanket wreath,” she gripes, wiping her hands on her holly print apron.

“I don’t think pushing it down helps puff it back up,” I advise. She frowns and shuts the oven door. After a meditative sip of wine and a long exhale, she’s back in action: bustling around the house straightening frames and knickknacks we haven’t touched in months.

Last egg piped, I see Connor through the window, hunched and nearly tripping up our driveway. I slip through the kitchen door to intercept him.

“You got the goods?” I whisper. After two weeks of planning, we finally have our ducks in a row. The plan to broker peace on earth for our mothers is underway.

He gives me his pirate’s grin, so incongruous with the plaid oxford button down he’s wearing. I accept a large box with a slapdash wrap job and produce a purloined ribbon from my pocket to dress up the package. I will not think about our fingers brushing. Connor may come from a fanatical Christmas family, but he’s still a teenage boy and not to be trusted with gift wrap.

“Gotta run,” he said. “See you for phase two?” I shoot him with finger guns and he returns a wink that makes me blush.

“Mom,” I shout. “There's a gift on the front porch.”

She emerges from the hall bathroom, potpourri refill in one hand and a tube of lipstick in the other. I hoist the package to the countertop. It clinks ominously.

With obvious disregard for the wrapping, Mom tears the ribbon and squints into the box. “Someone sent a box of bone china dishware?”

“Hmm, I wonder who that could be?” I pretend to look for a gift tag.

She reverently extracts a serving bowl and her face constricts in fury. “Oh, the nerve of that woman,” she spits. “This is Jennifer Wilder’s china. I remember she used it at the last Independence Day barbeque, because what woman in her right mind uses china at a barbeque? This is an intimidation tactic, I swear—”

“Maybe it’s a gift of goodwill; a thank you for volunteering to host?” I wheedle, trying and failing to get Mom’s anxiety train back on track.

“No, she doesn’t think we have any dishware good enough. Well, she has another think coming. Olive, run into the garage and fetch the fancy dish box. Ryan,” she shouts across the house, “Get your dishwashing gloves ready.”

When she tramps away, I unpack the box. Moments later, the doorbell rings. I welcome the first guest, handing them a plate from the Wilder’s stash. Soon, everyone is at our house, munching appetizers and sipping Wassail. The Wilders themselves appear fashionably late. Mrs. Wilder leads with her manicured hand and weighty wedding band resting on her husband’s shoulder.

“Welcome Wilders! Come in, make yourselves at home,” I begin an overexaggerated bow but abort it when I catch Mom glaring daggers. She pastes on a smile and greets her neighbor with all the hospitality due a Trojan Horse.

“It’s lovely to see you, Jennifer. Thank you for arranging this festive event, and for so generously loaning us your china!” Mom skillfully suppresses a shudder as she notes the scores of abandoned used dishes.

Mrs. Wilder hesitates, confusion evident, then nods regally. “It’s no trouble, truly, Melissa. I love what you’ve done with these appetizers. Is that salami and mozzarella arranged into a candy cane?” She selects a plate and sweeps through the buffet line. Her family follows in formation. Connor crosses his eyes at me as he passes. We bump fists. Phase one, complete.

###

After an eternity of small talk, the Wilders finally invite the group to progress to their house for the second course. My Mom and I do our best to shepherd people out of our house. I’m about to load the dishwasher when she yanks my elbow and hustles me across the street.

“That was humiliating,” she hisses. “I couldn’t bear the look on that woman’s face when she saw us using her dishes. We were practically groveling. Olive, weren’t you supposed to set out our china?”

“Sorry Mom, there wasn’t time. The first guest arrived early and I did the only thing I could think of.” I widen my eyes, the picture of innocence.

“Never mind. I want to see what atrocities she’s cooked up this year. Not that she cooks, mind you. I’ve seen those meal delivery boxes piled in the recycling. She’s probably having this whole thing catered.” I scramble to keep stride with her maniacal pace, coat flying in the breeze.

The Wilder’s porch looks like an evergreen forest in a fairytale. Rows and rows of what smell like real Christmas trees flank the door, dusted with delicate string lights and no extension cables in sight. Mom and I exchange a glance. Yeah, they paid somebody to do this.

There’s a crowd in the doorway, more of a mob than the orderly line I’d expect Mrs. Wilder to orchestrate. Mom and I push our way to the front with cheerful apologies and season’s greetings.

In the formal living room, chaos reigns. I count eight ducks doing what they do best: quacking, flapping, and shitting on Mrs. Wilder’s Persian rug. Connor is perched on the staircase grinning like a madman while Mrs. Wilder scrutinizes a packing slip on a box marked Handle With Care.

“You!” She shrieks when she sees us. “You did this! You cancelled my duck l’orange and sent these beasts instead!”

Mom gapes like a fish while the onlookers titter behind her. My head swivels from Connor to his mother, disbelieving. He was supposed to choose a gift: a side or an additional entrée to the catering with a note that said Happy Holidays from the Cliffords. He was not supposed to turn his living room into a barn.

“I’ll forgive you for stealing my china if you apologize for this stunt and admit that my cookies were the best at this year’s cookie exchange,” Mrs. Wilder snaps, mouth twisting scornfully.

“Stealing? You sent the china to our house. If you want to talk stealing, you stole my peanut butter fudge recipe three years ago, not to mention our Christmas card design last year,” Mom retorts. She looms over the petite Mrs. Wilder. “I had nothing to do with this.”

“For the last time, I did not steal your Christmas card design. We use the same service. It was on the catalog’s first page. There was bound to be overlap. Now, getting back to my china. This reeks of a plot cooked up by that no-class daughter of yours—”

“What about your doe-eyed, doughy son, just like his doughy data analyst father—"

“Watch who you’re calling doughy. You couldn’t get the puff pastry to rise in your pigs in a blanket—"

No one is even pretending at politeness. Guests stare openly at the reckoning underway in the foyer. I escape the hallway and drag Connor into the pantry.

“What the hell is this?” I demand, fishing for the light’s pull chain. Connor tugs it for me and I make a mental note to tell Mom the Wilders eat Pop Tarts, not Toaster Strudel.

“It’s genius, isn’t it? I cancelled the catering, ordered live ducks, and then added your note. Mom will blow her stack, they’ll fight, and then they’ll be friends. My bros and I always feel better when we punch it out,” he smiles beatifically.

I groan, raking my fingernails down my face. My plan was a slow thaw through gifts and compliments, not a battle of the titans. How could I possibly love a boy whose communication and comprehension skills are so utterly lacking?

“There’s a ton of hungry people out there and it’s only going to get worse. We need to fix this. Now,” I say, crossing my arms.

“What should we do?” He looks adorably crestfallen.

“Get the car keys. We’re going out.”

This is not how I imagined my first date with Connor. I’m riding shotgun in his father’s BMW; that much is straight from my fantasies. So is the smell of piping hot pizza from the backseat. The main drawback is I’m seething at him for implicating me in the great Christmas duck caper.

The scene of the crime is eerily quiet on our return. The ducks are cordoned off in the youngest Wilder’s playpen. Guests mill about, trying to decide if it’s too soon to move on to the next house for dessert. Mom and Mrs. Wilder are nowhere to be found.

Connor and I waste no time unloading the pizza which the guests accept without protest. Mr. Wilder graciously opens his wet bar since it seems the sommelier was cancelled along with the catering. I head to the kitchen to round up cups and plates when I find the two women, sitting side by side in the breakfast nook. There’s a ceramic Christmas tree between them. They’re taking turns dropping peg lights into the slots on each bough.

“You know, I have one of these back at the house,” Mom says, her voice gentler than I expected.

“It was my mother’s,” they say at the same time, exchanging a fragile smile.

“You think I’m a terror during the holidays? You should have met my mother, God rest her soul. She would start working on our Christmas cards in October, when it’s still far too hot to pose for photos in those fair isle sweaters. She was a music teacher so we were trained to sing our Christmas carols in harmonies,” Mrs. Wilder grimaces. For her part, Mom is listening respectfully, without judgement.

“The term you’re looking for is generational trauma,” I offer.

Both women notice me for the first time. They scowl. I guess I’m not forgiven yet.

“You know, we make a good team,” Mom says, admiring the ceramic tree. “We should throw another progressive dinner for New Year’s Eve.”

Mrs. Wilder raises a brow. “I can offer my home if you’ll cover the catering.”

Connor sneaks up behind me and nudges my side. I smile at him. Maybe he was right. And maybe I’ll let him kiss me at midnight on New Year’s.