I'm Dreaming of an Undead Christmas (12 page)

“And yet we still watch it about once a month,” I said, chuckling. I touched my forehead to his. “I’m so sorry.”

He put his arms around me and squeezed me tight. “I’m not mad.”

“So just to be clear, we are not getting married,” I told him, sitting back and putting space between us.

“Right. And we’re not going to date anymore?”

“No,” I said. “I think it’s for the best.”

“But we’re still friends, right? None of that fake ‘let’s still be friends’ bullshit where we only stay friends on Facebook and when we see each other face-to-face, it’s uncomfortable, and we avoid eye contact. You’re still the coolest girl I know. Not having you in my life is just unacceptable. Got it?”

He held up a hand, and I slapped it hesitantly. I guessed the “friend zone” meant that we were now bros who high-fived. There were definitely fist bumps in my immediate future. “Got it.”

“Is this all an elaborate scheme to get out of coming to my parents’ house for Christmas tomorrow?”

I cackled and shoved at his shoulders. “Yes, it is.”

“I knew it,” he growled, shaking his fist at the darkening sky.

“I love you, Ben.” I sighed.

“Just not that way,” we said together.

“Me, too, Geeg.”

“You sure you don’t want to stick around for the Holly Jolly Undead Christmas?” I asked. “It might be more fun than Christmas Eve at your nana’s house.”

“Gigi, what the hell happened to my floor?” I heard Iris yell from inside the house.

“You know what?” Ben said, pushing himself up from the steps. “I’m gonna pass.”

Relationships and traditions change over time. Whether you accept that change will be a huge factor in whether your family can maintain a strong connection to your vampire relative.

—Not So Silent Night: Creating Happy and Stress-Free Holidays with Newly Undead Family Members

W
e scraped up the non-lava portions of the sweet potato and the broken dishware while Iris and Cal debated the merits of replacing the floor with “Gigi-proof” asbestos tile. We managed to prepare the other side dishes without incident. I changed out of my food-spattered jeans into a pretty red party dress and flats. After the sun set, Jane and Gabriel arrived, with Dick, Andrea, Sam, Collin, Zeb, and the twins showing up in a motorcade of Christmas spirit.

The slamming of car doors and the chatter were almost deafening, but I couldn’t help feeling like a giddy little kid. Christmas was here. My family was here, loaded down with goodies and presents and half-werewolf kids wearing adorable little Santa hats. (Dick Cheney was sporting his version of a holiday sweater, a “You Can’t See Where I Put the Mistletoe” T-shirt.) After all the worry and preparations and weird traditions, we could finally get down to celebrating. I took my usual place by the door to greet everybody while Iris remained in the kitchen. And just to enhance the warm, fuzzy family feelings, I was the recipient of hug after hug.

Collin’s blue eyes were practically twinkling as he came through the front door. “Happy Christmas, Gigi. Miranda’s texts were very entertaining. Apparently, the two of you have already had quite the busy day!”

“We agreed to a pact of silence, Miranda!” I yelled.

“Doesn’t apply to boyfriends!” Miranda shouted back.

“It doesn’t,” Collin told me with an annoyingly straight face. “Miranda claims it’s in the Geneva Conventions.”

“Boyfriend? Still haven’t proposed yet, huh?” I whispered.

Collin’s hand flew to his pocket, obviously clutching at a ring box there. His brows furrowed. “How did you—”

“You’re not the only one with superpowers,” I said archly. “Now, man up and propose to my friend.”

“Is setting holiday dishes on fire considered a superpower?” he asked, letting his voice rise to a normal level.

“I’m never going to live this down.” I sighed, dropping my head.

“Until Miranda breaks something or lights it on fire,” Collin assured me, his tone kind.

“I heard that!” Miranda called.

“Sam!” Iris cried at the appearance of the lanky vampire. He’d shed his usual construction-site uniform of jeans and T-shirt for a plaid button-up and darker, much dressier jeans. “Thank goodness you’re here. Gigi wounded my floor. I need some sort of emergency holiday repair estimate.”

Sam turned on his heel and walked back out to his truck.

“Did we break some sort of ‘friends of the contractor’ code?” I asked Tess, who was laughing into her apron.

“No, he expected this. But he left his tool box and estimate kit out in the truck. He figured waiting to be asked would be more polite.”

Sam returned with tools in hand, followed by Jamie and Georgie, Ophelia’s little sister. I’d only met Georgie a handful of times, as part of Jamie’s “socialize Ophelia’s somewhat scary little sister” plan. With her fat blond ringlets and sweet, doll-like features, Georgie would have been the cutest girl in the world, if not for the icy gray eyes that communicated her strangely adult “otherness.” When she looked at you, it felt like she couldn’t decide whether you’d be more useful as a hopscotch partner or a canapé.

“Georgie, it’s nice to see you again,” I said, resisting the urge to curtsy as she shrugged out of her black velvet coat. Her beautiful green party dress combined with what I was sure were vintage Mary Janes practically demanded some form of kowtow.

“Thank you for inviting us, Gigi,” Georgie said in what passed for her sweet tone. She handed me an elaborately wrapped fruit basket. “We don’t cook, but we order online.”

“It’s a very nice gesture.”

“Human enough?” she asked as I took her coat and hung it in the front closet.

“Almost Rockwellian.”

“Excellent.” She sighed. “Ophelia, do stop pouting on the porch and come in.”

Ophelia stepped through the door, her expression sullen. She was wearing an outfit so painfully demure it almost made my teeth ache. A white, green, and red plaid skirt with a white cardigan, pinned with an enormous Christmas-tree brooch. And yet she still looked like she could very easily rip my throat out without getting a drop of blood on that cardigan.

I cleared said throat. This woman was now my boss. And no matter how she intimidated me—or deeply, deeply annoyed me—I was going to welcome her into our home with what Iris would call some tiny measure of dignity.

“Ophelia, it’s lovely to see you.”

“Yes, Jamie said I simply
had
to come.” Ophelia sniffed.

Georgie cocked her hands on her little hips and gave Ophelia a scathing look. “Ophelia, you’re being very discourteous to our hosts.”

Ophelia’s severe look softened at her sister’s scolding. “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m not used to spending my holidays with underlings.”

The tiny vampire’s lips quirked downward. “I’m not sure that was much better.”

“It’s all she’s getting,” Ophelia informed her, and swept past us into the kitchen, where she gave Jamie a rather possessive hug.

“I’m sorry,” Georgie said. “She sees you as competition for Jamie.”

“What?” I hissed. “Why? We’re just friends!”

“I know, but Ophelia is very frightened of losing Jamie. He talks about you all the time, and he may be a little too open about his excitement about leaving for college. And so the perception of competition. The only reason she agreed to come tonight was that I insisted we participate in a traditional, almost human holiday celebration.”

“Not much Christmas spirit in the Lambert household?”

“Actually, Ophelia goes all out,” Georgie said. “She puts up trees in the living room, our bedrooms, the kitchen. Wreaths and tinsel and animatronic Santas as far as the human eye can see.”

“Does she have a little Christmas village?” I whispered.

Georgie nodded. “It’s horrifying.”

“You’re going to want to avoid our mantel.”

“I avoid fireplaces in general. I’m off to find Jane. It’s been months since the last time I saw her. I’m sure she’s come up with
lists
of new vaguely insulting nicknames for me.”

I snorted. “Your Yuletide celebrations are not like our Yuletide celebrations.”

“Well, we supernatural creatures must keep our dark rituals secret and obscure.”

With that, Georgie skipped off to the kitchen, where I heard Jane exclaim, “Pocket vamp! I’ve missed you!”

The following hours
were a blur of turkey and blood (in a festive, holiday manner) and a veritable orgy of gift unwrapping. Cal, Iris, and I would exchange presents on Christmas night, but the “extended family” was doing gifts tonight. We had tried to limit expenses by arranging a name-draw, but with the number of people involved, the amount of crumpled wrapping paper on the floor was dizzying. I had a hard time keeping up with who got what for whom, which was a shame, because some of the gifts were hilarious. Zeb got Jamie one of those awful beer-drinking hats, only it was set up for “sipping” from two helmet-mounted blood bags. Tess gave Iris several bottles of a blood-liquor mixture she promised would taste like German chocolate cake. Sam got Miranda a product he found on the Internet that claimed to remove any stain from any surface. Collin was more excited about that than Miranda was, considering the number of his possessions she had damaged with red wine and/or motor oil. The twins and Georgie got presents from everybody, because we couldn’t resist the urge to buy toys for children. (Or child-shaped vampires.)

When Jane was supposed to get her present from Dick, he grinned like a psychotic TV presenter and bounded off the couch, headed toward the front door. “Come on!”

“He’s been waiting for this for six months,” Andrea told Jane.

With a quizzical expression, Jane slid off the couch and led the rest of us to the porch. Dick was standing in the driveway in front of a hollow pink plastic ball, big enough that an adult could crawl inside the little hatch door and roll around in it.

“What the heck?” Tess exclaimed.

“You finally did it!” Gabriel hooted, bracing himself against his knees as he guffawed. Jane buried her face in her hands, but she was laughing so hard that faintly pink tear tracks fell down her cheeks.

“I don’t get it,” Cal said.

Jane wiped at her eyes. “Dick has been threatening to put me in a human-sized hamster ball for years. For my own protection, of course.”

“It’s more of a gift for Gabriel than for you, but I think it still counts,” Dick said.

Jane giggled.

Sam inspected the hatch door and gave the ball a little push. “How did you even find one?”

“I know a guy,” Dick said with a shrug.

Gabriel rolled his eyes but clapped his friend on the back. “Of course you do.”

“This is awesome,” Jane said, hugging Dick. “Who wants to climb in first?”

“You people are so weird,” Ophelia said, sighing.