This was a little something I wrote for my friend catrogue posted over on Tumblr. Now it's here!
Sarah followed Chuck up the stairs from the basement, both of them
loaded down with the Christmas presents they’d been wrapping for the
past hour. The second they walked into the family room, they were
serenaded with ominous sounds of thumps coming from upstairs, a crash
and then a serious amount of yelling. Chuck yelped, “I got it!”
sprinted to the sofa, offloaded his burden and bounded up the steps, his
long legs taking them two at a time. When Sarah heard a door open and
Chuck say sternly, “What’s going on up here? You need to keep it down.
The baby’s taking a nap,” she knew he had it covered. Setting to work,
she played Santa’s helper and placed the presents under the Christmas
tree.
As she worked, she heard what sounded like a laugh track coming from
the TV room. She scowled at that since it wasn’t exactly what she was
expecting. Carina had been charged with keeping an eye on Martie and
Megan while Sarah and Chuck were busy downstairs. It wasn’t Sarah’s
first choice, but when Carina had put on her most solemn face and
promised that she and the girls would only watch holiday DVDs, Sarah’d
agreed. As a result, she expected to hear the man with the wonderfully
deep voice sing, “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch,” for the four millionth
time that week. Of course she knew she shouldn’t have any expectations
of anything ever being close to normal when it came to Carina, so
really it was her own fault for not being specific enough about what was
acceptable holiday viewing material.
