Well, with my usual timing, here's a Christmas story in August. Just goes to show, you never what your muse is going to show up with. I look forward to getting feedback, be it positive or negative. Enjoy
As usual, all characters are fictional - they exist only within the confines of my imagination.
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You know, I'd heard all the mother in law jokes before I got married, but honestly, from the moment we met, I never had a single problem with John's mom, in fact, I found Cora to be as supportive and sweet as I think my own mother would have been. Of course, some of my friends argued that it was because John and I lived in Seattle while his Mom lived in rural Michigan. We both taught high school and on teachers' salaries we could barely afford our single annual trip home at Christmastime to see his Mom.
I didn't mind the trips each Christmas. My folks had passed away while I was in college and John and his mother were all the family I had and besides, Cora's a wonderful person and we both looked forward to going home and spending time with her in her farm house.
John and I had met in college and fell in love and were living the typical young couple's life in Seattle. Seattle and its rain is an acquired taste, but we enjoyed living there and after a few years were looking for a house to buy and had begun to talk about having kids. The highpoint of the year however was splurging on plane tickets and flying into Detroit and driving on to John's childhood home at Christmas. Cora always had the house decorated with a huge Christmas tree and Christmas trim all through the house. We almost always have snow and, well, it just seems that it's like we're living in some old classic Christmas movie and life was indeed (forgive the pun) wonderful!
It was our fourth Christmas trip home that things began to change for John and his mother and me. It began with just a little silly moment, but even then, I knew that something more had begun even if I didn't understand it. It's funny how it's those little things that can change your life forever...
It was a Christmas out of a storybook. It had snowed off and on since the morning of the twenty-third and now the woods and farmland around us looked like a winter wonderland. Inside my mother in law's warm and cozy house I could sit and watch Cora for hours, amazed at her energy and her imagination and her kindness while she did all the little things that made her old farmhouse a real home. John's dad had passed away the year after John started college and Cora had sold the farm, but not the house and surrounding property. Although at age forty-seven, she could still go out and work, between the sale of the farm and a pension from her late husband's company, she lived comfortably, content to grow a large garden, do seamstress work when she felt like it (often donating her time to church), and of course making sure that Christmas was wonderful.
She and I were in the kitchen on Christmas Eve -- Cora working on an apple pie for tomorrow's dinner while I watched at the kitchen table (a huge old wooden work of art -- the surface worn smooth from six generations of the family using it day after day). Cora moved around the kitchen effortlessly with the energy of a teenager and I have to admit, a figure any woman my age would admire.
Cora had long black hair streaked with gray that she usually kept braided, the end of which scraped along the seat of her tight blue jeans, the seams stretched by her voluptuous bottom. She had on a thick sweater that did nothing to conceal her equally voluptuous breasts which swayed braless underneath the warm wool material. Her big brown eyes sparkled with laughter and I wished I had her fair, almost flawless complexion.
As she put the finishing touches on her apple pie, she gave me a quick glance and a smile and asked, "So, Diana -- are you and John going to make me a grandmother anytime soon?"
I giggled and took a sip of hot chocolate from the mug in front of me. "We're talking about it. We'd like to find a house first -- neither of us want to bring up kids in an apartment, especially like the little cracker box we have now."
Cora nodded and said, "I understand that -- a family needs a house." She turned away from the counter and smiled at me. "Well, it makes me happy just to know you two are at least thinking about children, by now I'm sure you know how to make them." She winked at me naughtily while I felt my jaw drop.
"Why, Cora Holland -- I can't believe you said that!" Sometimes I think John's mother made jokes like that just to see my reaction. I grew up in a strict, conservative home where just uttering the word "sex" could get you spanked.
Cora walked across the room with a hot pitcher of cocoa and topped off my mug and while pouring two more mugs full, said, "Well, its true and this old house has seen a fair sight of babymaking. John's old room -- that big old poster bed you're sleeping in used to belong to John's grandparents and they conceived ten kids in that bed including John's daddy."
While I tried to get my mouth to work, Cora leaned down and kissed the top of my head and said, "You two should get some practice in while you're here -- who knows, the old Holland family luck might kick in!"
I could feel myself blushing and managed to get out -- "Cora, you're awful!"
My mother in law just laughed in reply and was about to say something else when John called from the living room, "Hey, you girls ever coming in here -- its getting late and we haven't even listened to the old records yet!" There was a pause and Cora and I looked at each other and together perfectly lip-synced silently as my husband hollered, "It's tradition, you know!"
Cora rolled her eyes and shook her head as she said, "That boy and his traditions." She picked up the two mugs of hot chocolate and motioned towards the hallway. "I guess we better go before your husband has a cow."
I laughed as we walked down the narrow hall, "Well, you raised him, you know." I said in a bantering tone as we approached the narrow entrance to the living room which in itself was quite spacious. John was a bit anal retentive when it came to some things. My husband is big on traditions -- like his Christmas records that had to be played on Christmas Eve -- a tradition that dated back to his childhood. Another was Christmas Goose for Christmas dinner and sending out only Currier and Ives prints for Christmas cards. Others were more benign, like never attending a Mariners - Tigers game without his ratty, sweatstained Detroit Tiger's cap that he bought the first time he attended a game or always stopping at the local Dairy Queen for a chili dog while driving in from the airport in Detroit. Yeah, he's weird, but I love the big goof.
