What’s Your Flavor // 96. Christmas

Time: Back In The Day / Kinsey: Age 10 / Pre-YIM
Rating: Fun For All


This story was written for Becca’s 12 Days Of Christmas. I wanted to include it with this table, as it is a short vintage YIM piece.

“Mom… I’m not wearing those,” 10-year-old Kinsey Jackson said, eyeing the white tights covered with little reindeer that were sitting on her dresser. Their cheerful faces seemed to mock her, just like she knew Isaac, Taylor, and Zac would do as soon as they saw her in them. Her mother was taking full advantage of the holiday season to force Kinsey into true girly clothing. Kinsey had agreed to the plain red corduroy jumper with a green turtleneck, but the tights were just too much.

“Oh yes you are,” her mother said, “Brenna already put hers on and she looks adorable.”

“I don’t want to look adorable. They’re going to make fun of me.”

“They’ll all be dressed for Christmas, too. I was with Diana when she bought their sweaters.” Kinsey grinned at the thought of the boys wearing goofy holiday sweaters with pompon snowmen and shiny jingling bells, and that was motivation enough to pull on the tights. Once she had finished up, she ran to her younger sister’s room, sticking her tongue out at 7-year-old Brenna before shutting off the lights on her and taking off down the stairs.

“KINSEY!” Brenna shrieked, and then upon realizing that Kinsey was already gone, “MOM!” But it was too late, Kinsey was sitting on the bottom step with her coat on and her best fake innocent smile plastered on her lips.

“What did you do?” her dad asked.

“I didn’t do anything!”

“Uh-huh,” her father replied disbelievingly before going upstairs to retrieve Brenna. Ten minutes and a brief sisterly spat later, they were on their way to the Hanson’s annual Christmas Eve Open House. Every year they had over their closest friends and their families for a party full of food, drinking and general holiday merriment. Most of their friends had younger children and they were all girls. So, Brenna went to play with them and Kinsey always took off with the boys, leaving all of the parents free to spend time with each other. Once their car pulled up in the driveway, Kinsey had unbuckled her seatbelt and opened her door.

“Kinsey! You could at least wait until the car is in park,” her mom scolded, but Kinsey was already halfway to the front door. She rang the doorbell over and over until Walker Hanson answered.

“Merry Christmas, Kinsey,” he said.

“Merry Christmas, Walker!” she said, smiling brightly at him until he stepped aside to let her in. She ripped off her coat and tossed it onto the ever-growing pile on the couch in the living room before going into the kitchen to find everyone.

“Nice tights,” Taylor snickered as soon as she walked in.

“Nice sweater,” she said back, flicking the big white pompon representing the top of Santa’s hat on Taylor’s sweater.

“Yeah… Mom picked it out,” he said, looking down at it with a frown.

“Well, my mom picked out my tights, so there.”

“KINSEY!” Zac exclaimed excitedly, running across the room to throw his arms around her, “Merry Christmas!!” She pushed him off of her so she could hug him for real.

“Zachary! Were you just drinking this?” Diana asked, walking briskly into the kitchen and holding glass in her hands.

“Yeah, it’s eggnog,” he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“No, Zachary. You’re supposed to drink the eggnog in the refrigerator. You got this from the bowl on the table, didn’t you?”

“What’s the difference again?” he asked. She sighed heavily and dumped its contents in the sink.

“The eggnog on the table is for the adults. Don’t drink any more of it!” she scolded.

“Zac’s drunk!” Taylor laughed.

“He is not! Go downstairs!” Diana shooed, shoving the three of them in the direction of the hallway.

“Let’s go get Ike,” Taylor said, still chuckling to himself and Zac bopped down the hallway.

“How many glasses did he have?” Kinsey asked, tugging at the collar of her turtleneck. It felt like the evergreen fabric was slowly suffocating her. All she wanted was to put on some jeans and a sweatshirt, but one look down at her reindeer covered legs reminded her how far from that possibility she really was.

“Only one I think. He’s fine. Just annoying as usual,” Taylor responded. They peeked into the living room and found Isaac watching TV with a look of pure annoyance on his face while a sea of little girls played with Barbies on the floor in front of the couch.

“Ike, let’s go downstairs,” Taylor said from the doorway.

“Oh thank god,” Isaac sighed, getting off the couch quickly and moving to meet them. His face broke into a smile when he saw Kinsey.

“Merry Christmas, Kinsey. Nice dress,” he laughed before giving her a hug. Taylor joined in with his laughter, prompting Kinsey to scowl at them.

“I hate you guys,” she huffed before stomping her way towards the living room.

“Let’s go watch a movie!” Zac said before taking off after Kinsey, “Kinsey, wait up!” They tore down the stairs together and plopped down in the oversized bean bag chair next to the couch.

“Your sweater has snowmen on it,” she informed him, poking one of their heads.

“Well your legs have deer on them,” he replied.

Reindeer,” she corrected, watching as Taylor and Isaac made their way down into the finished basement. They put in a movie without consulting Zac and Kinsey and then settled themselves in on the couch. Kinsey looked at the screen to find that they’d put in “Christmas Vacation,” which she was pleasantly surprised with. Every year, they usually insisted on watching “A Charlie Brown Christmas” over and over until Kinsey had to remove it from the VCR herself if she wanted to keep from going crazy.

An hour into the movie, Kinsey heard her stomach growl loudly.

“I need food,” she announced, “Anyone want anything while I’m up?”

“Some pretzels and those little pigs in a blanket,” Zac said.

“And some Mountain Dew,” Isaac requested.

“Eggnog? Oh! And some cheese and sausage,” Taylor said.

“Ooo yeah! More eggnog!” Zac exclaimed. Kinsey sighed loudly and stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

“I can’t carry all of that by myself,” she said, turning to face them and putting her hands on her hips.

“Fine, I’ll help. You’d probably spill the eggnog anyway,” Taylor rolled his eyes and got up before following her up the stairs. When she went towards the dining room instead of the kitchen, she heard him trot to keep up with her. “I thought we were getting food.”

“I want to see what our parents are doing first,” she told him, leading the way.

“Probably talking. That’s all they ever do,” he said disgustedly, “They’re really boring.”

“I know,” she said matter-of-factly, but not changing her course. When they reached the doorway to the dining room, they found the entire room full of adults and their parents in one corner laughing at some story Kinsey’s dad was telling. Seeing that they obviously couldn’t get a word in edgewise at the moment, they just lingered there and waited impatiently for them to quiet down. “And they say we’re loud.”

“Uh-oh! Look at Taylor and Kinsey!” her dad said, obviously trying to hide a laugh.

“What?” Taylor asked as the rest of their parents turned to look at them. Diana just pointed at the ceiling discreetly so only Taylor and Kinsey would notice it, so they both looked up. Hanging from the top of the doorframe was an unmistakable bunch of mistletoe. With horrified looks on their faces, they both took a big step back, putting themselves far from the offending plant, prompting their parents to start laughing at them. Kinsey’s mom managed to compose herself quickly and she came to meet them in the hallway.

“Did you two need something?” she asked, smoothing a hand over Kinsey’s long blonde hair.

“We just wanted to see what you were doing,” Kinsey said, her heart still pounding in her chest from embarrassment.

“Go back downstairs, you two,” she smiled, giving Taylor’s head a pat before going back in the dining room.

“So… food?” Taylor asked. Kinsey just nodded and followed him.

“Stupid mistletoe,” Kinsey muttered under her breath as she filled three glasses with the safe, alcohol-free eggnog from the fridge.

“It was your dad’s fault!” Taylor exclaimed, “If he hadn’t said anything, we never would have noticed and we could have just talked to our parents and gotten food and not had to feel weird on Christmas Eve.” Kinsey rolled her eyes at Taylor’s dramatic speech and put the carton back where she’d found it.

“I don’t feel weird. Why do you feel weird?” she asked.

“You know why I do.”

“I really don’t, Taylor,” she sighed, moving to the table where she started to fill a plate with the food everyone had requested. She felt him move close to her left side. “What?”

“Because of what happened this summer, Kinsey! I can’t believe you don’t remember!” he said in a hushed but borderline hysterical voice. Of course she remembered. Every time she’d been around Taylor since they’d decided to have their first kiss with each other it was all she’d been able to think about. The second the kiss was over she’d been unable to believe they had done it because it was Taylor.

“I know what happened, Taylor. I was there,” Kinsey said, “But we can’t freak out every time we see some mistletoe or something.”

“Who’s freaking out?” he spat, grabbing two cups off the counter and heading downstairs. She looked at the things he had left her to carry, more than she could manage with two hands, and decided to pocket Isaac’s can of pop so she could carry the plate and her own glass of eggnog. As she made her way back downstairs, she found herself thinking about what had just taken place. Sure, realizing that she was under the mistletoe with Taylor had freaked her out, but only because their parents had been teasing them. If they had been alone, they would have laughed and just walked away. Right?

“Where are my pigs in a blanket?” Zac demanded, now fully sprawled out on the bean bag chair. She dropped the plate on the ground before situating herself on the ground closer to the TV and farther away from the guys. “What’d we do now?”

“A thank you would have been nice. It is Christmas Eve after all,” she informed them, not taking her eyes off the screen as Clark Griswold ranted about how he wanted to tell off his boss.

“Aww… we’re sorry,” Zac said, getting up and hugging Kinsey hard from behind, “Come on guys, group hug for Kinsey!”

“Do we have to?” Taylor asked. Kinsey didn’t have to look at him to know that his mouth was full of something she’d brought for them to eat.

“Yes!” Zac yelled, “Come on!” After a few seconds of Kinsey struggling against Zac’s surprisingly forceful 9-year-old hold, she felt two more sets of arms encase her. “Merry Christmas, Kinsey!”

“Ugh, get off me!”

“Not until you say it back!” he ordered, none of them moving until she finally relented.

“Merry Christmas,” she muttered begrudgingly, smiling despite herself as they all gave her a final squeeze. Instead of going back to their original spots, they all grabbed their drinks and food and settled there next to Kinsey. As they sat there and watched the ending of the movie, Kinsey let herself lay down and get comfortable. Four hours later, then officially Christmas, she woke up to find the guys all sprawled out next to her, all of them sleeping soundly as the TV blared a bright blue light on all of them. For a moment she considered getting upstairs and seeing why they still hadn’t left, but instead she just lay back down and smiled.

“Merry Christmas,” she whispered to their sleeping forms before closing her eyes and falling back asleep.

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