Page 47 of The Holidays with Mr. Mitchell
The best part of all this wasn’t slowing Avery down; it was the fun of doing ridiculous stuff that let me ease my mind,forget about business, and just watch my wife laughing with our incredible girls and her friends.
It was festive, completely ludicrous, and somehow, it all made perfect sense.
NINETEEN
Avery
Once we finally made itback to the car—after the whole charade of hunting down the perfect treeandrescuing a brown one from the chipper to decorate the porch at our Malibu beach house—it was already dark and late.
We wouldn’t be able to get to the Malibu house until tomorrow, and with Cat having the construction and permits signed off by Jim this week, I was also looking forward to seeing real progress on our Dickens lot. There were just too many things to be excited about.
It had been a fun day, all in all, but tomorrow would be when everything truly started coming together, and tonight, we’d kick it off by bringing our Christmas Carol–blessed tree into the Hills house to decorate before heading to Malibu.
“Turn on Christmas carols, Dad,” Izzy giggled, still feeling the high from everyone blessing all the trees we picked from the lot today, which were currently being delivered to our houses.
“Absolutely,” Jim cheered.
I eyed my overly festive husband, who should’ve been beyond jet-lagged today, with a questioning stare. Something was up. I just didn’t know what.
While Jim turned on Classic Christmas tunes on Spotify, I finally reached for my phone to see if I’d missed any calls or texts from Cat. It was surprising how obsessed I’d become with our planning, hearing from Cat with extra ideas, and, of course, knowing that our fun Christmas party prank set for Jim was coming to life starting today.
When I opened my phone and saw multiple missed calls from Cat, followed by a voicemail explaining that my husband had postponed the signatures until today—and then never showed up—I knew exactly what was going on.
I glanced over at Jim singing along with our girls (aka: his littleTeam Jimscandalous partners in crime), and I knew precisely why I’d spent the better part of two hours singing damn Christmas carols for our trees to be blessed to come into our home. I also knew why we’d spent the entire day at that Christmas tree lot, and, more importantly, why I’d had to leave my phone in the car.
Jim was onto me. Once he realized I’d had a hand in sending him to Madrid instead of Spencer—slowing down his plans—my charming, ruthless shark of a husband pulled a full-on CEO move and threw a monkey wrench into my schemes, making sure my planning slowed right along with his.
If it weren’t such a perfect and sly retaliation that onlymyhusband could sneak in, I’d be pissed. But I couldn’t be mad. This was our little family Christmas planning war, and I would be a fool to bitch about it. In fact, I’m sure that’s exactly what he wanted.
His eyes scanning over to me multiple times while singing the wrong words to‘Jingle Bell Rock’told me he was waiting for me to lose it. But I knew my husband, and his victory nevertruly lay within the win…it was the victory of the pain endured by his opponent. And that’s what drove him to a Christmas tree lot today to do something I knew his jet-lagged and overworked ass didn’t want to do. But he was driven to do it for this exact moment: my reaction.
So, that’s why I started singing along with everyone, pretending not to care. I would let his ass squirm, wondering if his entire day out at a Christmas tree farm and staying up late all night tonight to decorate our newrealtree was worth it for his sly ass.
“No regrets leaving the phone in the car today?” Jim asked, lacing our fingers and kissing my knuckles.
“None.” I smiled. “Honestly, I want to do this every Christmas. Get everyone involved—our doctors, our CEO friends. Make it a thing.”
“Really?” He played along.
“Really. We should bring the shelter residents down to the lot and let everyone pick trees the same way.”
“That’s a grand idea,” he said.
“Maybe we can do that tomorrow,” I added.
“Tomorrow?” He frowned. “Aren’t we decorating the Malibu house?”
“I think that would be selfish,” I said. “Unless we’re spending Christmas in Malibu this year, we don’t need that house decorated too, do we?”
“What about the rescue tree?” he asked as if he really gave a shit.
“All Jake and Collin said was the rescue tree sits on the beach deck to enjoy its final sunsets before the chipper,” I said, repeating today’s sermon.
“And to enjoy the salty holiday breezes,” Jim added solemnly.
“Exactly. No other rules for a rescue tree,” I shrugged.
“They have to feel like it’s Christmas too, Mom,” Addy chimed in.
