Have Yourself A Merry Little Meltdown

1

It started out small, like little reindeer nibbles.

Jordan Frost was talking with her new editor at Gem Publications about Jordan’s Christmas novel, Family Holiday. “This story is so much fun,” her editor raved. “It reads like one of those Christmas movies we all love with a whole cast of goofy characters, and I can’t help asking, who inspired the White family?”

My family. But they’d done more than inspire. Maybe she should have stuck with inspiration and left those real-life touches out of the equation.

“They’re a composite of people I know,” Jordan said. Like an entire family’s worth.

“So, not your family?”

“Well, every family has a few funny stories to tell,” Jordan hedged, determined to control the narrative.

“Let’s be glad this isn’t a memoir. You might not be welcome at Christmas dinner,” joked her editor.

Nibble, nibble. Jordan’s laugh had about as much ho, ho, ho to it as Santa on a diet.

Well, her Christmas story was fiction. Mostly. Pretty much. Sort of. Anyway, it would be in the fiction section. Nothing to worry about.

But, maybe, just to be on the safe side, she should adopt a pen name. In case someone in her family heard about the book. Yes, pen name. Good idea. Her editor was fine with it.

Except she couldn’t simply change her name and expect to not have her author photo recognized by those who knew her. She went wig shopping. Took a new photo and sent it to her editor. There. Problem solved. Anyway, it was a first novel. It probably wouldn’t have a large print run, wouldn’t make it into many stores. What were the odds of the book making it to her hometown?

Orders started coming in. The numbers were strong. Her editor gleefully informed Jordan that her book had legs. Every book needed legs, especially novels by first-time authors.

But where would those legs take Jordan’s? To her hometown? Nibble, nibble. There went more of her peace of mind.

The nibbling turned into a great big bite the day she was recording a podcast with Krissy MacMillan of the popular Krissy Kills It podcast. Their interview would be part of her Krissy Kills It at Christmas series and Jordan was slated to be the first.

“You’ll be featured in one of her Boomas episodes where she covers Christmas novels releasing in October,” Jordan’s publicist had told her. “You’ll love Krissy. She’s great.”

Krissy was great, friendly, and enthusiastic as she recorded her interview with Jordan for later release. There they sat at their respective laptops, smiling at each other from opposite sides of the country, Jordan making sure she looked exactly like her author photo and Krissy looking Christmas cute in a red sweater, a Santa hat perched on her long, brown hair.

“Want to know what I think of this book?” she asked Jordan playfully.

Jordan already knew. Krissy had told her before they started recording. She played along. “Do I need to be scared?”

“Let me sum it up with my Krissy Kisses,” said Krissy, and started throwing kisses. “Mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah, mmmmmwah! Five kisses, everyone. I love this book,” she told both her followers and Jordan, making Jordan feel like a little kid seeing the tree on Christmas morning.

How could an interview go wrong with a beginning like that?

“Is Christmas your favorite holiday?” Krissy asked.

“Yes, it is. I love it,” said Jordan.

“Do you have any special family traditions?”

Jordan could think of several. She zeroed in on one of her faves. “Oh, yes. All the women in my family get together before Christmas to bake cookies.”

“I imagine you have some good bakers in your family,” said Krissy.

“We do,” Jordan replied, skipping happily into the trap Krissy had set for her.

“Any who aren’t so good?”

There was one, but Jordan hadn’t consented to this interview to throw anybody under the sleigh. So how to answer that?

Krissy didn’t give her a chance. “The family in your book has someone who’s very challenged in the kitchen. What made you decide to write a character who was the queen of kitchen disasters? I’m thinking maybe, with all that family baking you do every year, there’s someone who manages to burn the cookies?” Pushing on the teapot, hoping to tip it and spill some tea.

Jordan’s heart rate picked up. “I think we all can identify with kitchen fails,” she said, hoping the conversation would turn a different direction.

“There’s one fail in Family Holiday that is pretty over the top,” said Krissy. “In fact, the whole family in the book is over the top. What inspired them?”

“I guess you could say they’re a composite of all those funny families we love to watch in movies,” Jordan said. Remembering her editor’s comment about her fictional family, she forced herself to smile. Wasn’t it time for this interview to be over?

Krissy was smiling, too, but hers looked puckish. “So, was this book inspired by someone in your own family?”

That was when Jordan could no longer deny the fact that she’d done something superbly foolish, get-on-Santa’s-naughty-list foolish, get-chased-by-Krampus foolish.

“They’re purely fictional,” she insisted.

“You had that family down so well. I just wondered if anyone who knows you would see a resemblance between your fictional family and your real one,” Krissy pushed.

“Oh, I doubt it,” Jordan said. Only my whole family.

“So, your real family’s not like the White family?” Krissy persisted.

“Not really,” Jordan lied.

“Well, that’s good to know because if they were they probably wouldn’t be buying you anything for Christmas this year,” Krissy joked. Chomp, went the reindeer. Chomp, chomp, CHOMP!

Yep, that interview was the moment denial left the party and fear pulled up a chair and got comfortable. If Jordan’s family read her novel they would tie her to the biggest fir tree they could find in Holly Bay and pelt her with lumps of coal. No rope needed. The Frost family always had plenty of strings of Christmas lights on hand.

“Maybe they won’t know,” said her bestie and old college roommate, Ember, when they met later that day for drinks at Blackbird Café and Bar.

The restaurant was in Shoreline, where they lived, and offered a great happy hour menu with lots of foodie bargains. On her teacher’s salary Jordan was all about bargains. When she sold the book, she’d envisioned upgrading to eating at high-end restaurants like Canlis in Seattle. Now all she could envision was being put in solitary confinement in an igloo in the frozen north with nothing to eat but her grandma’s fruitcake.

“That wouldn’t be all bad, teased Ember when Jordan shared her probable fate. “At least you’d be happy in your igloo. I’ve tried your gram’s fruitcake, remember? It’s fire. I got lit from just one slice.”

“So did the kids in the book,” Jordan said miserably. She and her brother, Logan, had snitched extra slices of Gram’s fruitcake and wound up with a holiday buzz and Mom had banned the fruitcake from family Christmas gatherings after the incident.

“But that’s a funny story,” said Ember.

“Gram won’t think so. She’s still embarrassed. And that’s not the worst.” That was nothing compared to the other incidents Jordan had mined and put in the book.

“There’s more?”

“Way more.”

“Uh-oh. You didn’t put anything in about that oven fire Gwinnie had when she was cooking her first turkey, did you?”

Jordan bit down on her lip and nodded. How could you pass up an opportunity to share about the fire department showing up for Christmas dinner? The fire was a lot bigger in the book. Did that make it okay? She’d thought so when she was writing the scene.

“Lots of people are bad cooks. That could be anybody,” Ember said, and bit into her mushroom quesadilla. Then her eyes got big and she gave a quick swallow. “Wait a minute. You didn’t put your aunt the witch in it.”

“She’s not a witch. She’s an earth mother.”

“Who cast a spell on your uncle when he left her.”

“It wasn’t a spell. It was a prediction.”

Of just desserts. Uncle Fred the cheater got his when he tripped over the cat on his way out of the house with the last of his stuff and broke his leg. Piwacket had been uninjured and had been rewarded with a generous helping of salmon every day for a week.

“So, is that in the book?”

Jordan nodded. “He deserved to be punished in print.” At least she hadn’t had her fictional uncle trip over a cat on his way out. She’d disguised that incident by having him trip over a nutcracker that had fallen in his path just as he was leaving with his box of collectible vinyl records.

That little sprinkle of magical realism had been fun and Jordan should have left it at that, but she’d included a winter solstice party gone wrong as well as the holiday version of her own experience with one of Aunt Samantha’s homemade natural skin care products. Anyone who knew her aunt would recognize her in the character of Aunt Calendula. Jordan was toast.

“Wow. You really did a good job of spilling the family tea,” said Ember.

Jordan shoved away her half-finished quesadilla. “I’m Scrooged.”

“I guess it’s too late to rewrite the book,” Ember ventured.

“At this point way too late. It comes out in a month. Anyway, I already spent the book advance money.” After all, what teacher didn’t need a second income stream?

Ugh. She’d sold her soul to Krampus for a measly book advance.

But it was a good book. It was cute. And fun. And so what if the family in it was a little out there? They loved each other, and in the end they all came together after the big kitchen fire and sang Christmas carols as they moved the sister to her mother’s basement apartment. A happy ending. Everyone loved a happy ending.

Her family would never make it to the end of the book without throwing it against the wall. Or at her.Available From

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