Spencer hated Christmas. There was a time, when she was younger, that it had been her favorite holiday. That had all changed when it turned into a delicate balance to spend the right amount of money on — and time with — each parent. Now that she was older, she sent her presents by mail and spent the day itself locked in her apartment, pouting.
For a few years, she had Daniel to help her get through the holiday season, provided he wasn’t off spending time with his family. Now she only had Abbey. Abbey’s only family was her dad, who lived right there in Nashville. She would spend a few days with him but always come back to their apartment for the traditional movie and eggnog marathon.
Zac had always loved Christmas, but he had a sinking feeling it wasn’t going to be so great this year. Their family dinners would have an obvious gap in them that everyone would have to keep stepping around. It was an entirely different type of holiday that Zac had no idea how to navigate. He had just barely survived Thanksgiving, with all his niece and nephews questions about where cousin Shep was.
At first, he didn’t even want to bother with decorations or anything like that at all. He had been forced to help Isaac and Taylor put up the tree in their office and that had really drained him of any holiday spirit he might normally have had. It was always his job to decorate the tree at his and Kate’s home. She would take care of the rest of the house, except for the things that required a ladder, but the tree was absolutely Zac’s territory.
When the divorce was final, he was going to get the hell out of the big empty house Kate had left him in. She was staying, temporarily, in Taylor and Natalie’s guest house and he was all alone in what used to be their home. When she packed up to move out, Christmas decorations hadn’t really been at the top of the list. One Sunday, in a fit of boredom and just a bit of holiday cheer, Zac discovered several boxes of ornaments and decorations stuffed in a corner of their attic.
He hauled the boxes down the stairs with renewed determination. It wouldn’t be the perfect Christmas, but he could certainly keep it from being entirely cheerless and depressing.
He was going to put up a Christmas tree.
Spencer hadn’t found herself in this kind of end-of-the-semester funk since her freshman year. She just didn’t feel right. Something was missing and she couldn’t put her finger on it. Whatever it was, it made her feel even less like celebrating Christmas than she normally did.
She and Abbey always put up a small tree and whatever cheap decorations they could throw together, but this year she just didn’t have the energy or the time. Abbey seemed to be working longer hours than usual, so Spencer had been able to avoid even fielding any questions about the décor.
One night after spending several hours at Strange Brew sucking down coffee and grading papers, she decided to get just a little bit in the holiday spirit. Finals week was winding down and that meant Christmas would be there sooner than she really would have liked. On her cold walk home, she made the last minute decision to stop into a small grocery store and pick up a few things. She even just managed to hum along with “Santa Baby” as it played over the store’s speakers.
Her arms loaded down with eggnog and several varieties of Christmas cookies and cupcakes, she finished the walk home. She had to set all the bags down to open the apartment door and when she did, the sight in front of her took her breath away.
In the middle of the living room sat Abbey, surrounded by boxes and bags full of Christmas decorations. In her lap was a bowl of popcorn, which she was working carefully to string together. On the television, How The Grinch Stole Christmas was providing the perfect background noise. Their thrift store silver tree sat in the corner, bare, begging for decoration.
“What’s all this about?” Spencer asked, carefully scooping up her bags and walking into the apartment to take in the sight up close.
Abbey looked up and grinned wide. “You’ve been mopey for months, and I’m sick of it. If you can’t be cheerful for Christmas, then when the hell can you be?”
“Good question,” Spencer replied, stepping into the kitchen and pulling a few glasses from the dish drainer. “Eggnog?”
“Of course.”
Drinks in hand, the two set to work on decorating the apartment. They covered not only the tree, but also the kitchen cabinets and island, and the television cabinet with strings of popcorn and tinsel. The tree was decked out with a mixture of homemade ornaments from their childhood and brand new sparkling stars and baubles that Abbey had picked out.
When they were finished, every room was filled with decorations. They even had small trees in gold and silver for the bedrooms. To top it all off, they wrapped the front door with bright red wrapping paper and tied a gigantic green bow around the middle.
“Thaks for all of this,” Spencer said as they flopped down in the couch, exhausted from their decorating efforts.
“You’re welcome,” Abbey replied, wrapping her arm around her best friend. “I know it sucks that it’s just us here for the holidays, but we gotta make the best of it. And I think we did.”
“We definitely did.”
Spencer was surprised to find herself feeling so happy about the upcoming holiday. It was a very new feeling, but not altogether an unwelcome one. Yet, even as she looked around at all the glitter and tinsel adorning their apartment, she felt there was something missing.
After exploring their attic for a while, Zac discovered that Kate had left nearly all of the Christmas decorations behind in her haste to move out. He piled the boxes up in the living room, poured himself a stiff drink, and set to work making his house look as cheerful as he wasn’t.
His first order of business was covering the outside of the house with strings of lights and garlands. It was all about keeping up appearances, he realized. As if the neighbors didn’t already know that it was just him there, his family having fallen apart. But it was just something he felt he needed to do.
Once he had covered the house in fake icicles and what felt like an entire forest’s worth of branches and wreaths, he returned to the inside. It took longer than he expected to sort out the tree branches and fit them together, then untangle the lights and string them up. It was the sort of busy work that Zac liked, though. It was rare that he could actually turn his mind off for any length of time, but doing that sort of manual labor provided him with a brief respite from the usual chaos of his brain and he always reveled in it. Music, too, had that sort of calming affect and he found himself humming a few bars of every Christmas song he knew as he worked.
Hanging the ornaments, however, required a little bit more thought and concentration. Kate had left three large boxes of them behind. The first two boxes contained bows, ribbons and a variety of shapes, sizes and colors of Christmas-themed decorations. Among them were dozens of penguins – Kate’s favorite, Zac remembered.
The last box of ornaments gave Zac pause. It contained all of the ornaments they had received as presents for Shepherd’s first Christmas. In addition to toys and cute little outfits, it seemed all their relatives had bought some sort of “Baby’s First Christmas” ornament for him.
Underneath all of those were the dozens of ornaments he and Kate had collected over their years together. Engraved silver ornaments that proclaimed their love, unique ones Zac had purchased for Kate while touring the world, and, of course, one for each year of their marriage. He examined each one carefully, as if they might reveal to him what he should do.
No answers came.
He briefly considered calling Kate and dug through the mess he had made in the floor in search of his cell phone. By the time he located it, he realized what a terrible idea that was. It would only devolve into a fight that he didn’t want to deal with. He carefully packed the loving couple’s ornaments back into the box, then divided Shepherd’s ornaments in half, doing his best not to play favorites.
The ones he had chosen to keep were carefully hung upon the tree. He placed an oversized angel on top and stepped back to admire his work. It had turned out quite well, he decided. Not too shabby for a bachelor’s Christmas tree.
He left the mess in the floor to clean up the next day and instead, walked back to the kitchen to pour himself another drink. Drink in hand, he plopped down on the couch and admired his handiwork again. He fished his cell phone out of the floor and scrolled through the address book for a name he had tried not to think about for months.
“Are you alright, Spence?” Abbey asked.
Spencer could feel her roommate’s eyes boring into her and she looked away to avoid revealing the truth. As she stood and walked to the kitchen for another glass of eggnog, she answered, “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Abbey leaned over the back of the couch and held out her glass. “Get me another, too. And you’re not fine.”
“Okay, I’m not fine. So what?” Spencer replied, taking the glass from her. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Well, I tried to help with the decorations and everything…” Abbey said.
Spencer nodded as she walked back to the living room, glasses in hand. “I know, and I do appreciate it. But it just feels… I don’t know, wrong. It’s not you or anything you did.”
Abbey gave Spencer a long, hard look. “It’s no fun being single at Christmas, is it?”
Spencer didn’t speak, but softly shook her head.
No, it isn’t, she thought to herself. But it was even less fun missing the guy she wasn’t supposed to want in the first place.
She took a long sip of her eggnog and jumped when she heard her cell phone chiming to alert her of a new text message. She grabbed it off the coffee table and flipped it open to read the message.
I know it’s early, but Merry Christmas 🙂 – Z.
Spencer couldn’t help but crack a small smile. Somehow, she didn’t feel quite as alone anymore.