1
Five Weeks until Christmas
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Children screamed as a pattering of footfalls rattled the rafters hard enough to shake the dust on the windowsills. Skylar’s gaze latched onto a trembling fleck of dirt as it descended from the open wood cupboards where the serving dishes sat. The dust drifted like snow right into Great Aunt Colleen’s coffee.
That wasn’t the only thing hiding in Aunt Col’s mug. Chances were, that porcelain cup held an Irish coffee strong enough to strip the paint off a car.
Skylar breathed in the mayhem and grinned.
Homeyness, especially around the holidays, hid in the chaos. They weren’t the sort to put on a Good Housekeeping centerfold worthy Christmas. Their family was more along the lines of vintage tacky meets fire hazard.
Skylar adored how everything smelled like heat baked boxes from the attic, and how melted decorations still made the cut each year. Her favorite holiday accent was the lollypop ghost bundled in bathroom tissue that somehow replaced the baby Jesus that went missing more than a decade ago. That, and the toy trucks the kids usually added to the nativity, made the perfect McCullough display.
Wax stained boxes waited at the foot of the stairs in the foyer, each one hiding away treasures and trinkets that seemed to release the season’s magic. She’d helped Gran bring them down from the attic earlier, but it would take a week to set all the decorations out. For the whole month of December, the big house would resemble a winter wonderland.
Family would gather. Aunts would bake with the kids. Uncles would steal cookies set aside for neighbors and friends. The teens would raid the liquor cabinet, and someone would always get caught. Aunt Sheilagh would pull a massive prank on Uncle Kelly, thereby setting into motion more revenge pranks until one got out of hand and someone got hurt. Pop would grumble that there were too many people in the house, and Gran would threaten to call Santa every time the kids horsed around too close to the Christmas tree. It was the absolute perfect shit show, a pure hurricane of chaos that breathed nostalgic memories into each crazy year.
Thirty or forty tiny legs stampeded down the old wooden stairs—typical of every Sunday dinner—and the shrill voices of several mothers ordered the kids to “calm down,” “stop behaving like animals,” “go outside,” and one stern threat to “settle down before someone loses an eye!”
More crumbs settled like soot into Aunt Col’s coffee. Gran was about as domestic as they came, but dusting wasn’t her forte. In an old house like the big house, she often claimed she left the dust so flowers might grow. In reality, the dusty sills were a result of Gran’s age, a primitive log cabin built for storybooks, and the growing arthritis in her hands.
The stampede of little ones raced through the kitchen and out the back door sending a gust of cool November air through the house. Deep baritone voices droned from the wrap around porch. As usual, Skylar’s uncles had some sort of “man toy” occupying their attention.
Thanksgiving was next Thursday, and this year, the uncles were planning to deep fry a turkey in addition to the two the aunts were already roasting. They were a big family made up of McCulloughs, Clooneys, and Mosconis, and that was only her mom’s side.
Skylar’s dad was a Marcelli, and they had their own crazy traditions, as well. As much as she loved the noise and chaos of both her Irish and Italian relatives, she appreciated that her mom and dad kept their individual families apart on most holidays. Otherwise, it would be culture overload—and they might shatter the sound barrier from the sheer volume of their gossip alone.
The Marcellis got Easter, and the McCulloughs got Thanksgiving. Christmas was split—her Italian side getting her family for Christmas Eve, when they celebrated the Feast of the Seven Fishes, and her Irish side getting her family on Christmas Day, when each person consumed no less than four thousand calories and sipped Gran’s homemade Irish cream until they were fall down drunk.
Gran and the aunts always prepared multiple main courses for holidays. Uncle Finn had big plans for this Thanksgiving, plans that involved a vat of oil, blow torches, and one beloved bird named Augustus.
In the battle of bird versus man, Skylar’s money was on the bird. There was no way her Uncle could eat an animal after he named it—no matter how much of a master hunter he claimed to be.
When the deep fryer arrived this morning, every male relative became a culinary expert on preparing poultry, arguing which way the bird should be prepared and how long it should cook—as if any of them had ever prepared a full meal in their lives.
Finn set up the deep fryer on the back porch of the big house to do a “test run.” But everyone knew it was just a way of showing off his new toy. Egos flexed and voices carried like thunder from the porch as they debated over who should get the job of dropping poor Augustus next Thursday. It was a classic clash of McCullough-Clooney-Marcelli know-it-all-syndrome.