Christmas with the Calvins

Chapter Forty-Seven

So The Calvins and their Millers had their rescheduled Christmas Day. Bernard and Jess received a surprisingly large amount of baby items from Scott and Carol thanks to Santa's magic bag. But they also received plenty of things for themselves too, like exotic hot coco mixes for their daughter and incredibly detailed stationary products for Bernad. Neil had managed to find Jess some of the best sellers that she had been wanting to read but weren't printed at the North Pole, and in return his step daughter had tracked down some first edition physchology journals that he had been look for for years. Lucy was happy to receive a "little sister" bracelet from Jess, and she was even happy when she saw a matching "big sister" charm dangling from just under her sister's sweater sleeve.

"And Lucy, you have one more gift from us." Bernard explained. He and Jess had their gifts wrapped in candy cane stripped paper in a pile between them. They all blended together in a festive zebra pattern. All except one square silver box. Bernard reach down and plucked box out of the pile before handing it to his little sister.

"Since you're part of the family secret now," Jess said as Lucy toyed with the silver ribbon that wrapped around the package, "We figured you would need one of these."

"What is it?" Lucy asked, not wanting to destroy the perfect wrapping job, that had no doubt been done with Bernard's meticulous hands.

"You'll have to open it to find out." Bernard chucked. With Charlie's help, Lucy delicately opened her present. She smiled as soon as she saw what it was. A snow globe just like the one Bernard had given to Charlie when he was Lucy's age. The only difference, was that this snow globe had her name painted on it in silver and gold. "Merry Christmas Lucy, love Jessie & Bernard." It read.

"Oh I love it!" Lucy grinned. She gently place the snow globe back in its box for safe keeping. "Thank you Jessie, thank you Bernard!" She exclaimed pulling both her favorite elves into a hug.

"We're glad you like it Lucy." Jess smiled. "Now this one is for you Charlie, and please be careful with it, it's very expensive." She handed her brother a small, rectangular peppermint striped box. Charlie tried to be gentle as his torn into his box, but he was very excited. Jessie and Bernard always gave him the best presents.

"A cellphone?" He remarked excitedly once the present was opened. He could hear all the adults in the room open their mouths to protest, but Jess was prepared for exactly that sort of reaction. It was not an ordinary cellphone. She explained. It could only call the numbers that had been programmed into it, and all the programming was controlled at the North Pole. So with the phone Charlie could only call Scott's office, Bernard and Curtis' offices and the Miller's home. Bernard also added that the phone was linked to the N&N list and the second that Charlie tipped over to the Naughty side it would stop working. It was a lot of rules, which all the parents seemed to agree to, but Charlie knew his friends would still think he was cool for having a cellphone. Even if it could only call four numbers.

After the gift exchanging was done, the family gathered in the cafeteria for a traditional-ish Christmas dinner. Neil was given the honor of carving the Christmas turkey considering he'd let Scott carve the actual bird on Christmas Day. Everyone's favorite dinner fixings were served from sweet potato with marshmallows that Lucy liked to butternut squash that Carol loved more than anything else. It would have been a perfect Christmas Day, if only it had taken place on the afternoon of the holiday.

Much to Scott's enjoyment, Judy and Abby served everyone hot coco and cookies for dessert before they were taken on a tour of the workshop. Bernard tried his best to remain focused on the tour, but every so often he'd catch a minor elf infraction and he'd have to speak up. After two or three of these incidents he pulled Santa aside and begged his boss to let him get back to work. Realizing that it was more work trying to keep his Head Elf from work, Scott agreed.

"Twelve months from now I'm forcing you to take a maternity leave, buddy!" Santa shouted as Bernard ran off to harass a pair of stable elves who had lost another baby reindeer.

"Please don't." Jess asked her father as the family walked away from the stables. "He's already worried about the baby cutting into production time and making the house bigger. You'll only make it worse threatening to keep him home."

"I know-ho-ho.." Scott chucked. "It just never gets old seeing him all flustered like that." Jess rolled her eyes at her father's childish behavior.

"You won't think it's funny when he murders Curtis Lowe tonight for doing what Bernard thinks is a subpar job." She joked.

"Nah he won't murder him." Scott added seriously. "Because if he did, we'd have to put him in elf jail. Which he would hate because it's basically like having a day off for the rest of his life."

"Work would be punishment for most people, but not my Bernard." Jess said. "Speaking of work, Let's show everyone the school, I'm sure Carol would love to see it."