That Blue Gibson

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

A/N: Just a little Christmas bit for you guys. Thank you all for being here, reading my stories, and for encouraging me to go on. I've had several requests to continue this story and I'm absolutely considering it. I hope you all have a great holiday filled with everything you love. You guys rock -Kate

"This one."

"Liz, it's like 30 feet tall."

"Yeah, that's why I want it. If it's too big, we'll just start cutting from the bottom."

Dave looked over at Violet for back up, but her blue eyes were as wide as her smile as she gazed up at the enormous spruce tree.

"... so I guess we're getting this one then," he muttered to himself and readied the saw in his hands.

Harper, Jack, Phee, and Owen ran around the base of the tree like lunatics while Liz and Violet held it steady so Dave could saw it down. He swore from underneath the bottom branches when his arm cramped and glared at Liz's boots when she giggled.

"Want me to take over for a bit, babe?" she called down to him. "Give your arms a rest?"

"If you weren't pregnant I'd have stayed at home and made you do this whole thing yourself," he shot back at her.

"God, we're so festive I can hardly stand it," Liz murmured to Violet, who giggled in reply.

"We're the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse," she whispered back and Liz was suddenly gone, backing up into the rows of trees and laughing so hard that it echoed around them.

"Violet May, I heard that... and hold the goddamn tree up!" Dave yelled back at them, laughing just as hard as they were.

*

"Will you please let me do all the ladder stuff?" Dave asked for at least the hundredth time that night.

"Absolutely not," she replied yet again and continued to wrap the lights around each branch as Rosemary Clooney sang about jilted love in the background. "You can turn the TV up, though. I can't hear it all the way up here."

"You know there's other, funnier Christmas movies we could be watching," he said as he searched for the remote.

"Yeah, but I have a crush on Bing Crosby so we're watching this."

"He's like a hundred years old in this movie!" Dave cried.

"He was 54 when this was made, David," she laughed. "Or do you need a little reminder that I'm into older men?"

A low hum escaped the back of his throat when she bent over the top of the ladder to reach the back part of the tree and he busied himself with a tangled pile of lights to take his mind off of her, "I can't touch you for another four days, Elizabeth. I'm already dying here."

There was a quiet pause as she finished with the lights in her hands then carefully backed down the ladder. "No one said a word about me touching you, though..."

"My mom's gonna be back with the kids soon," his voice was a strangled whisper as he watched her cross the living room and turn off the lights and TV, leaving the candles she had lit, the fireplace and the tree as the only light.

"We'll be quick," she promised, gently taking the tangled wires from his hands and tossing them to the other side of their big grey sectional couch.

He fucking loved that couch. It was huge, big enough for their entire family to spread out comfortably to watch TV, positioned around the big stone fireplace and now their Christmas tree. But he especially loved that once he let her push him back into the cushions they were hidden from the entryway, giving them enough time to put themselves back together if his mom and the kids came back early.