Aunt Santa

Epilogue

20 years later ...

"We're going to be late!" Sam called up the stairs. He paused, waiting to hear some kind of flurry of activity in response. Nothing. "Okay, fine. I guess I'm going by myself then."

Still nothing. Sam shook his head and opened the front door. He waited a beat and then shut it loudly.

From upstairs, he finally heard his husband's voice call back, "Nice try." There was a grunt and a muffled swear. "Maybe if you come up and help me," Oliver called down, "we can get out of here faster."

In their bedroom, he found his husband frowning down at the overstuffed suitcase and their twins sitting on top of it, their legs dangling over the sides. "This is sad," Sam said. "This is a sad sight."

"If you hadn't said," Oliver replied, trying to cram the sweaters back behind the confines of the zipper as their six-year-olds squealed and tried to not slip off the top, "that we were allowed just one bag per person, this wouldn't be taking so long."

"Because we're only going for four days!"

"Four days means four sweaters! Sweaters take up a lot of room! I don't make the rules!"

"Mikey, Nina, get off of there." Sam reached out and helped them both hop down off the bed. He put the full weight of his body down on the suitcase and shook his head. "If you can't zip it now, one of the sweaters has to go."

Twenty minutes later, they had all managed to get into the car and out of the driveway when Mikey asked, "Papa, why do you always call Dad the Christmas Police?"

"Because Dad has a lot of rules about Christmas," Oliver replied from the front seat. "And if you step out of line, he tries to put you in jail."

"But it's Christmas Jail so it's festive." Sam frowned at the map on the screen as he steered them toward the highway entrance. "Does this really say we'll be there in three hours?"

"Looks like there's a slowdown on the bridge, big surprise." Oliver put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "We just need to get past the city and it'll open up. We've got plenty of time."

"I know, I just like to get there early. I don't want my parents to beat us there, that's all." He navigated the car onto Queens Boulevard and laid on the horn as someone cut them off. "Don't you know the Christmas Police isn't messing around? Back off, buddy!"

"Yeah, scram, pal!" Nina crowed from the backseat.

"Beat it, ya wisenheimer," Mikey added and Sam laughed.

As usual, Oliver was right and as soon as they got out of Queens and had the New York skyline in the rearview mirror, traffic seemed to disperse. There were benefits to leaving the borough at the crack of dawn, even just two days before Christmas.

With any luck, and a little extra speed from their used minivan, they'd make it to Christmas House in no time at all.

Sam felt his mood lift as soon as he saw the signs for Harpshead. "There's the train station," he pointed out, as he did every year.

"And the library," Oliver parroted before Sam could say it himself.

"Wisenheimer."

"Already losing signal," his husband noted, checking his phone. "Your parents still haven't texted so they must not be there yet either. See? Timing worked out fine."

Sam chose not to point out that they would've missed the twenty minutes of traffic on the bridge if they'd left on schedule. He'd save it until after Christmas when this exact argument would present itself on their drive back to Queens. They would probably be leaving later than planned that day, too.