The Gift of the Gay Guy-6
1497 Words
It’s not like there had been a big discussion about it: the only person who might have found it even the slightest bit awkward was Derrick himself, and he was actually quite content to cuddle up to Lee in the corner of the vast sectional sofa after dinner while the kids opened presents. Considering that he was mostly sharp angles and fragrant feet, Derrick was surprised that Lee felt quite so good. In the giant garlanded mirror above the fireplace, Derrick didn’t figure he looked terribly comfortable with Lee sprawled shoeless across three cushions and his own turkey-bloated belly, but he was grateful for the response of an attentive body under his fingertips when the festive mood tipped towards romantic, such as when Randy gifted his wife Yvonne the exactly right set of enameled bangles, or when his mother said something offhandedly hurtful that stoked the need to clutch something defensively in front of his heart, such as every time she opened her mouth. For his part, Lee sighed and dozed and squeezed Derrick’s hand, content to observe the goings on, laughing each time an especially frantic gift wrap rrrrip released a squeal of delight from a Little Halvorson.
It so happened that, as far as Randy and Chad’s kids knew, Santa had his mail held at a post office in Colorado. His nieces’ and nephews’ letters to Santa appearing annually in his mailbox naturally made Derrick the most popular gift giver every year. He always sent the exactly right Lego set or Bedazzle Your Own Mosaic kit, and having him on hand in person for hugging was something of a novelty in recent years; shortly, Climbing On Lee and Uncle D was deemed more fun than opening presents, and the pointy knees and elbows in Derrick’s sides increased tenfold until Editta’s fear for the safety of her antique side table outstripped her yen to be the fun grandma and she cried out for calm. The bouncing subsided, although few Little Halvorsons abandoned their posts, be they slung across Derrick’s neck like a mink or perched precariously atop one of Lee’s narrow, knobby knees.
“Well?” piped up Chad’s five-year-old Magnus. “What are we being quiet for?” He certainly wasn’t turning loose his Uncle D’s neck just for the fun of it.
“Your Farmor has more presents for you,” Editta said, referring to herself by the Norwegian word for grandmother that nobody called her. This succeeded in getting attention, although another round of bouncing and clattering ensued, as climbing down from atop uncles and their friends was its own kind of process. “Ben,” she directed her eldest grandson, “gather up those stockings hanging by the fire. There’s one for each of you; you can pick the one you like best but no quarreling.”
Fifteen minutes of quarreling naturally ensued as eight cousins wrestled for eight bedazzled stockings, and it was only once calm—and Farmor’s eggnog—had been restored that they were permitted to look inside them.
“It’s money!” Ben crowed.
“It’s lots of money!” one of his cousins marveled.
“It had better not be ‘lots’ of money,” Chad said. “Ma, you shouldn’t have done that.”
“P'shaw,” Editta said. “They’re all old enough now to have some fun at the mall.”
“I got a hundred dollars!” Ben trumpeted.
A chorus of No Fairs arose, but was quickly abandoned in favor of far more celebratory Me Too!s.
“A hundred dollars?” chorused the parents in their turn. “Ma, it’s too much.”
“Don’t tell me what I can spend on my grandchildren.”
“That’s for your college fund,” Derrick told his nearest nephew, snatching his money away. “Your Uncle D will save it for you.”
“Give it back!”
“Your grandmother would have wanted it this way,” Derrick solemnly intoned.
“She can give you your own hundred dollars,” his nephew cried.
“I already have a hundred dollars,” Derrick told him, fanning the little fistful of twenties.
“Mom!”
“Okay, new rule,” Chad announced. “No money for whiners.”
“But Uncle D took my money.”
“For your college fund,” Derrick reminded him.
“Mom!”
It was shortly after this, from her position as something most closely resembling an agitated wig, that Randy’s middle daughter Camilla dropped down from atop Lee’s head, took his long, goofy face in her hands, and asked him curiously, “What did you bring us?”
“Camilla,” Yvonne rushed to say, “Lee is Uncle D’s friend. We don’t expect him to have presents for everyone. You got a lot of presents already, and Santa hasn’t even come yet. Sorry, Lee.”
“Why ‘Sorry?’” the eight-year-old pursued. “Uncle Peter was Uncle D’s friend and he always gave us loads of presents.” This last she leveled at Lee as a friendly heads-up.
“Camilla!” Yvonne scolded.
“No, no, she’s quite right,” Lee said, helping the little moppet somersault off of his head. “What sort of a person comes for Christmas and doesn’t bring presents?” he asked Camilla.
“See?” she said to her mom. “So what’d you bring us?”
“Yeah,” Derrick said, squirming from behind Lee into something more akin to an upright position and surrendering the college fund to his anxious nephew. “Do tell. What did you bring us?”
“Not you, Uncle D!” Camilla squealed. “Us, the kids! He’s already your friend, that’s your present!”
Both men laughed. “That’s all I get?” he asked his niece.
“All?” she repeated. “He’s a pretty big present. Bigger than anything you could wrap. I once got a tricycle, and my mom couldn’t even wrap that.”
Yvonne rolled her eyes. “You didn’t bring them presents, did you?” she asked Lee. “You certainly didn’t have to.” While everyone knew that Lee had been a last-minute addition to the line-up, Derrick had failed to elaborate on the fact that twenty-four hours before he’d never met or even laid eyes on the guy.
“Well, I didn’t actually bring anything,” Lee said. A confession that did not impress Camilla, who, suspecting a trick, frowned. “But,” he went on, addressing Camilla and those of her sisters and cousins who’d begun to circle at the smell of presents in the water, “I bet you don’t have wallets for that money, do you?”
“I do,” announced ten-year-old Ben proudly.
“I don’t,” Camilla pouted.
“A wallet seems pretty important, now that you’re rich, though, huh?” Lee asked her.
“Well, yeah. Cuz what if I lose my money?”
“Right.” Lee said. “What if I showed you how to make one? Would that be a good present?”
Camilla’s eyes brightened and her ponytail bounced in time with her enthusiastic nodding.
“Wait, I want one, too,” Ben said.
“You already have a wallet,” his cousin reminded him.
“No fair.”
“Wait, you guys.” Lee stepped in. “Everyone who wants one can make one. There’s no rule in life that says you can only have one wallet.”
“I want one!” hollered everyone.
“Okay,” said Lee, extracting himself from Derrick’s pretzel embrace. The candlelit living room was fairly littered with wrapping paper, which Lee commandeered. “Everybody gather up a piece of your favorite wrapping paper,” he said, standing and stretching. “Maybe we can use the dining room table? Pick your favorite paper—little sister, that piece is gonna be too small. Look, over there, it’s the same pattern, but a better size, get that one. Pick your paper and grab a spot at the table. Little sister,” he said, vying for Camilla’s attention.
“Camilla,” Derrick provided.
“Thanks. Camilla,” Lee called. “Pick me a piece, too, would ya?”
“You get one?”
“Well, I have to show you how to make it, don’t I?”
After the initial excitement, which was considerable, died down, Lee gave the grownups the best Christmas present ever: a table of quiet kids, tongue tips out, hanging on Lee’s every instruction. Eggnogs were refilled, Christmas cookies were set out, the smaller paper scraps deemed unsuitable for wallet-making were hucked into the fire in the Christmas Eve World Series of Kneeling One-on-One, of which Yvonne was eventually crowned the champ. Even Editta shocked her sons by sliding out of her shoes and curling up on the couch to soak up—and sip on—the Christmas Spirit. With Lee’s help, the Littlest Halvorsons folded this like this and that like that, until, wrinkles smoothed and stray holes taped, the new paper wallets were paraded around the living room with pride.
“Mom, can Lee come with us to the mall?” begged more than one cousin.
“If he wants to,” Wendy assured, raising an eyebrow at Lee from across the room. “See what you started?” she teased.
“Hey,” he shrugged, “I love the mall.”
Derrick padded across the room from the cookie tray and put an arm around Lee’s little waist. “Can he come upstairs with me?” he asked quietly. “I want to play with my present.”
Lee raised an eyebrow in mild surprise. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Lee smiled. “Good.”
“G’night, everybody,” Derrick called to the room in general.
“Are you going to bed?” fretted Camilla.
“Yeah.”
“Does Lee have to go with you?” she asked. “Can’t he stay down here with us?”
“Actually,” said Wendy, seizing her moment, “it’s everybody’s bedtime.”
“No!”
“I’m not even tired!” little Magnus woke up to say.
“Obviously.” His dad laughed. “But you gotta get up to bed, now, or else Santa can’t come.”
“But there’s a fire in the fireplace!”
“We’ll put it out,” Chad assured the worried brood.
“And there has to be cookies!”
“What is this, my first Christmas?” Chad asked. “You think I don’t know how to get ready for Santa?”
“And milk!”
“I know, milk. Now you’re just trying to get out of going to bed,” Chad said.
“Putting out the fire requires a lot of concentration,” Randy added. “I might not be able to get it out in time if I’m distracted by a bunch of kids who won’t go to bed.”
“We’re going, we’re going.”
Yvonne piped up. “Everybody say thank you to your grandma.”
“And to Lee!” Camilla cried.
“Thanks, Lee!” chorused the cousins.
“And grandma?” Yvonne repeated.
Dutifully the cousins traipsed over to the couch to give Editta a cursory thank you hug.
“Good job,” Yvonne deadpanned, rolling her eyes. “Now, does everyone have their money in their wallet?” she asked. A sea of affirmative nods. “Good. You can put it in your stockings, 'k? Then we’ll hang them back up, see if Santa wants to put anything else in them.”
This led to another eight-cousin pile up as the kids scrambled to maximize their present-getting opportunities, and Derrick took Lee by one of his baseball mitt hands and led him up the stairs, away from the chaos to another, more intimate round of festivities.
- Writer
