A Christmas Story

She loved Christmas. There was no denying it.  There was no logic to it, but it was a simple and pure truth.  She loved everything about the holiday, the glittery decorations, the carols, the charity, the time off, the family get togethers.  Well, almost everything, she did not take the time to enjoy the Christmas Mass - but then why would she, she was Muslim afterall.

She reflected on her joy of the season as she checked the turkey one more time. Nice, crisp and golden.  The entire apartment smelled of roast turkey and stuffing.  The heat of the kitchen and the crackle of the fire in the fireplace heated the small space well enough that she was able to turn off the heater.  Mariah Carey was belting "All I Want for Christmas," and Rania hummed along as she chopped the shallots for her deviled eggs.  Her sister would be arriving with 'the brood' as she liked to label the three children who always left hell in their wake as an absent-minded afterthought.  She smiled as she folded the root into the light yellow mixture and began spooning them into their homes.

The doorbell rang, signaling the first of her guests. It had been a bit of a struggle trying to decide where to have dinner this year.  The family usually gathered at mom's every year by default.  It just wasn't an option anymore now that mom had moved in with her older brother and his wife wasn't up to hosting the entire family after the last Eid fiasco that had landed her drapes ablaze.  The walls still needed another coat of paint and the faint smell of burnt and wet wood had not completely left the family room.  So after much discussion, the decision was made to come to her apartment/loft as she usually cooked the majority of the meal.

"Quick. Quick. Quick. This is HOT!" Shabana's oldest voiced through the closed door.  Rania wiped her egg yolk covered hands on a dish rag and pulled the chain off the door and let in a blast of wintery cool air along with the aroma of the hot macaroni as Atif held it out in front of him as if to dispell the heat.  He was quickly followed by his six year old brother and shadow, Safi.

"Don't put it there, put it in Khala's oven!" Shabana's voice followed her ten-year-old as she waddled up to the house with a hand on her abdomen and the second hlding a three-year-old in tow.  Rania squatted down and held out her arms to her niece, "Fatima!" she called. The toddler instantly let go and slammed into her, Rania lifted her up and swung her into the house. 

"Hurry up, slow pokes, you're letting out all of the heat!"

"Yeah hurry up, thlow poke mommy!" Fatima called out.

Shabana raised her eyebrow at her  youngest sister and youngest child and harumped as only a mother of soon to be four children could. "Yeah, Yeah. I know. I'm a terrible influence!" Rania laughed and blew a raspberry into Fatima's neck making her squeal with delight.

"As salaamu alaikum, kiddo" Shabana made the last few feet of distance, closed the door behind her and tugged playfully on her sister's scarf.  As expected, Rania rolled her eyes at the moniker- her only protest against being babied by her older sister.

"Walaikum as Salaam Baj, and Baj's munchkins!" punctuated with another raspberry on the other side of the captive munchkin's neck, purely for the sake of symmetry.  She released the bundle of energy who made a beeline to the study where the guys were already playing with the toys she had gathered over the years to contain and entertain the brood.

"Where's your darling hubby?"

"Samir got called in."

Rania tried not to roll her eyes once more.  She didn't have a right to label anyone a work-a-holic, but at least when holidays came, she put her pen down and came home and stayed home.  Her surgeon sister and her orthopedist husband were something else altogether. 

Shabana, knowing exactly what her quiet sister was thinking, reverted twenty years and pinched her arm, hard.

"Hey!!!"