A crackling blaze roared in the hearth, and Jonathan’s face, illuminated by its ruddy light, showed a relieved smile. When he finally straightened he felt that he’d accomplished something, and grinned as he bowed to the company’s loud cheers and applause.
“That’s a relief. Your face when it just sat there smoldering, Rexford!” Cousin William said. “A study in frustration. Can’t blame you, indeed I felt for you. You did far better than I did. Remember the night I tried to light it?” he asked the company.
There was much laughter. “Not your fault, old fellow,” Kit said, clapping William on the back. “Don’t you remember? No one realized the log had been sitting in the damp for weeks. Couldn’t have lit that blasted thing with a torch!”
“Well, how was I to know the window the log had been stored under had been broken and the rain the night before had got in and made the thing damp as a moat?” Pamela’s father asked. “We were lucky. We used another and no harm befell us. This year we have nothing to worry about. It was touch and go there for a while, but the log is lit, and burning brightly.”
Jonathan felt relief and amusement as he realized his own story was now doubtless part of the family chronicles.
“Yes!” His wife suggested, “The Yule log is lit. Come, let’s move on!”
Jonathan’s new relatives burst into song. He went to stand by his wife, put his arm around her, and joined in. He knew the tune. It was a traditional one. Pamela looked up at him and smiled as he added his deep, true baritone harmony to her clear soprano.
The front door was opened and the neighbors who had been waiting on the steps trooped in, singing the same song, as they did every year.
The wassail was brought in by a pair of beaming servants, straining under the weight of the great basin filled with hot punch that they carried. It was carefully placed on an ancient trundle table. Cups were dipped in and toasts were raised to good health, good luck, and happiness. The house smelled of fresh pine and wood smoke, candle tallow, rum, cinnamon, and the various heady scents of roasting meat, poultry, and pies, the whole laced with gusts of cold clean air from the opened door. Then the door was closed and more toasts made, more food brought in, and more carols sung.
His father-in-law introduced Jonathan to the neighbors. Pamela’s brothers whispered the latest, as well as the oldest gossip about each one of them to Jonathan after each passed along to greet other guests. Jonathan soon knew that Mrs. Tansy liked the rum punch a jot too much, or at least she had last year. Mr. Fairbanks liked his dinner too much too, because he was at least a stone heavier than he’d ever been. And his wife liked that too little, just get her started on the subject—or rather, don’t, Jonathan was warned.
Jonathan learned that the vicar was afraid of dogs and the baker’s wife, of thunderstorms. He heard stories about every member of the increasingly merry party, and by the time the neighbors and townsfolk trooped out again, he felt as though he’d known them for years and, moreover, was interested in them and their future as well as their past.
Jonathan realized he was actually enjoying himself.
Was it that he was now ready to meet his new family? he wondered. Or was it that they realized it was time to truly admit him to their ranks?
He never knew.
He only knew that the dinner was sumptuous and the company warm, welcoming, and delightful. When he finally went to bed, and at last was able to hold his dear wife close in his arms, he went to sleep with only one wish in his heart for the holiday: that every one from now on would be as merry and bright as this one had been.
Pamela smiled in her sleep, and curled closer to him with a sigh. She’d made the same wish, and believed it would come true.
It did. For them, at least.
The story of their first Christmas, when suitably edited, made a wonderful story with which they regaled their increasingly enormous family on every Christmas Day. Of course they were to fight again on each and every one of those holidays, but always with as much joy and zest as love and laughter. Which was to say, a very great deal of it, for all their happy Christmases ever after.
Let Nothing You Dismay
by Carla Kelly
It was obvious to Lord Trevor Chase, his solicitor, and their clerk that all the other legal minds at Lincoln’s Inn had been celebrating the approach of Christmas for some hours. The early closing of King’s Bench, Common Pleas, Chancery Court, and Magistrate’s Court until the break of the new year was the signal for general merrymaking among the legal houses lining Chancery Lane. He had already sent his clerk home with a hefty bonus and a bottle of brandy from his stash.