The Season We Built

Chapter 1 - Don

The house was quiet in that soft, holy way it only got at night. Not silent, never silent, not with twin infants in the picture, but still. Silent enough that I could hear the creak of old floorboards beneath my socks and the faint hum of the furnace trying its best to keep our bones warm through another Massachusetts winter. 

I stood in the kitchen, leaning against the butcher block counter Reese and I had stained by hand, the menorah sitting in front of me like it had every year since I was old enough to light it myself. The brass was worn, one of the arms slightly crooked from a fall during college that I never bothered to fix. It wasn’t fancy, not like some of the ones you saw in Judaica shops. But it was mine. Had been for decades. And this year, it felt heavier in ways I hadn’t expected. 

I struck the match and watched it flare, that little hiss of fire sharp in the quiet. The shamash caught quickly, and I held it steady, watching the flame settle into a constant dance. 

I didn’t say the blessings loud. Just a whisper, the Hebrew brushing against my lips like a memory too sacred to be casual, too private to shout.

 “Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha’olam...” 

I hadn’t said them out loud in years. Not since Austin. Not since the last Hanukkah before everything went sideways. Before my girlfriend at the time hooked up with my youngest brother and shattered what little trust I had in miracles. Forgiving him hadn’t been easy, but he’d been young and dumb, and she’d been using us both. And eventually, I realized holding on to bitterness was like swallowing glass and waiting for someone else to bleed. 

So, now here I was in a fully remodeled Victorian house that once barely had working plumbing. A wife upstairs, probably pacing with Leo in her arms while humming some off-key Christmas carol, and a son who’d only sleep if my flannel shirt was in his bassinet. And this menorah. Still crooked. Still mine. 

I lit the first candle. 

The single flame next to the shamash was small but steady. It cast warm gold light over the tiled backsplash and danced along the shadowed lines of the cabinetry Reese insisted we paint deep navy. I’d fought her on that one. Lost, obviously. And now? I loved it. 

I stayed there for a moment longer, holding the match till it singed my fingers. Letting the scent of burnt wick and hot wax pull me into the weight of it all. Not grief. Not anymore. Just... memory. And maybe something else. Something new. 

This was the first night of Hanukkah in the house we’d built. Not just remodeled, not just restored, but built. With midnight feedings and drywall dust and her laughter echoing off century-old rafters. 

I blew out the match, watched the smoke curl and vanish. 

She didn’t grow up with this, I reminded myself as I turned off the lights and left the flickering flame to glow alone for now. Reese had Christmas trees, carols, and stockings over fireplaces. And I had this crooked old menorah and the memory of my grandfather’s brisket and my mother’s guilt-trip phone calls. 

But we had the twins now. And this house. And eight nights to figure out how to make it ours. 

I headed for the stairs, already hearing Leo fuss and Reese’s voice murmuring in the hallway. 

One night down. Seven to go. 

Reese met me at the top of the stairs with Leo cradled against her shoulder, all long limbs and sleepy sighs and that soft, tired smile she only gave me when the day had wrung her out, but she didn’t regret a second of it. At 7’1”, she made the hallway feel smaller, like the house bowed around her. She whispered something about Leo refusing to settle, and I eased our daughter into my arms, feeling her tiny body melt against my chest like she’d been waiting for the handoff. 

“Go lie down for a minute,” I murmured, kissing Reese’s temple. “I’ve got her.” 

She gave me a grateful look and brushed her fingers along my jaw before heading toward our room. Leo let out one weak protest, then another. I swayed with her, slow and steady, humming the same quiet tune I’d hummed since she was born. Her head tucked right under my chin, warm and perfect. Within minutes, her cries softened into tiny hiccup breaths and then into nothing at all. 

The nursery glowed faintly from the night-light shaped like a crescent moon, the wallpaper’s cream damask catching the warm spill of it. The refinished hardwood floors gleamed softly under my feet, the same stain I’d used downstairs, the same one I’d used in the master. Reese said it made the whole house feel tied together. I’d done it because I’d wanted our kids to grow up in something solid. Something built to last. 

Carefully, I lowered Leo into her crib, one of the pieces I’d carved back before she and Nik were even born. Light maple rails, soft curves, smoothed edges. Her tiny fingers curled once, then stilled. I adjusted her knitted blanket and watched her chest rise and fall, slow, steady, sure. Across the room, the heirloom rocking chair sat in its usual corner, dark ebonized wood with delicate gilt edges catching the dim light. It had belonged to generations of Nikolaidis women, and something about that anchored the room with a kind of quiet history. 

When I was certain Leo was out for good, I crossed to the wardrobe. Inside, behind folded blankets and a ridiculous number of spare burp cloths, sat the wooden box I’d built from leftover walnut scrap. My heart pulled tight as I lifted it out. 

Tonight mattered not just because it was Hanukkah. But because this was our first one as a family, our family traditions had to start somewhere. 

I carried the box downstairs and found Reese already curled on the sofa, hair braided back, eyes still soft from exhaustion. She straightened when she saw what I held. 

“Don,” she whispered, “what did you do?”

 I sat beside her and opened the lid. 

Three menorahs, each wrapped in linen cloth. c

I lifted the first, hers. 

Carved from olive wood, sanded smooth until it felt like silk under my fingers. Delicate burned vines wrapped each branch, and a subtle Greek key pattern edged the base. Across the front, one word, carved with slow intention. 

Ελπίδα. 

“Hope,” I said quietly. “Because that’s what you’ve been for me.” 

Her breath hitched, hand flying to her mouth. 

Next, I unwrapped Nik’s. Dark walnut, sturdy and warm, with a proud little lion carved into one side. Beneath it, his name in Hebrew letters. One day, he’d grow into its weight. 

And then Leo’s. Maple, light and bright, with a carved peacock curling in elegant sweeps along the side. Her name was hidden in the feathers, subtle, feminine, strong. 

Reese didn’t speak at first. She didn’t have to. Her eyes said everything. 

“This is our first Hanukkah together,” I said softly. “I wanted it to mean something. For you. For them. For us.” 

She leaned into me, her forehead touching mine, her breath warm and trembling. 

“It already does,” she whispered. 

She didn’t say anything at first. Just stared into the box, eyes flicking slowly from menorah to menorah like she couldn’t settle on one. Then her hand shot out, fingers twitching, and she traced the olive wood branches of her menorah like it could vanish if she blinked. 

“You made these.” She whispered. 

It wasn’t a question. 

“You don’t think I would buy hand-carved anything when I’ve got a whole garage full of tools and opinions?” I tried for a smile, but it faltered against the gravity in her eyes. 

“No.” She said quietly. “Of course not.” 

She raised hers from the linen and gently flipped it over, holding it like a newborn. Her thumb traced the Greek key etching at the base of it, and when she saw the word at the front, Ελπίδα, her breath caught. 

I watched her swallow hard, blinking rapidly. 

“I don’t even know what to say, Don. This is….” She looked up at me, voice just a whisper. “It’s the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever given me.” 

I shifted uncomfortably under the light of something so intimate. “It’s just tradition,” I murmured. “In my family, when someone joins the family, you give them a menorah for their first Hanukkah. It’s normally just something you buy in the store. But….” I gestured to her. “You and our babies are too good for something from the store.” 

Her smile came then, shaky and wet-eyed. She set the olive wood menorah gently on the coffee table and curled into me, her face pressed to my neck. 

“I didn’t grow up with this.” She whispered. “Not the candles, not the prayers, not the stillness. But I think… I think I was always meant to find it. To find you.” 

I held her closer, the menorah flames still glowing behind us. 

“This isn’t just tradition.” She murmured. “This is love.” 

Reese pressed against me, still clutching the side of her menorah like it might drift away if she released her grip. Woodgrain dusted her fingertips, and the tracks of tears down her cheeks were already beginning to dry. 

“I should’ve asked,” she whispered, voice thick with something more than just exhaustion. “About Hanukkah. About what you wanted this year to be. I didn’t want to mess it up, you know? I second-guessed every idea I had for decor, worried that maybe a Christmas tree was going too far. Or stockings felt… dishonoring?” 

I snaked my arm around her shoulder, drawing her tighter until we fit together again. We always did. In the most ridiculous angles sometimes. Me at six-foot-one, and her a full foot taller. It had never not felt like home. Just… right. Puzzle pieces formed by the same creator’s hand. 

“I should’ve brought it up too,” I replied. “I feel like we both sort of just dove into ‘just make it through’ mode when the twins got home. We haven’t had a full night of sleep in three months. Hell, I don’t even know what day it is sometimes unless there’s a diaper in my hands.” 

I earned a chuckle that one, just a little one. But it was enough to melt some of the tension out of her shoulders. 

“I want them to know both,” I continued after a moment, nodding toward the nursery upstairs. “Nik and Leo. I want them to grow up lighting candles and hanging ornaments. I want them to know what latkes taste like when they’re fresh off the skillet and what it feels like to fall asleep under a tree glowing with a thousand colors. I want them to know both halves of who they are.” 

Reese’s eyes locked on me then, red-rimmed and fierce. “So do I.” 

We stayed like that for a while, watching the menorah flames sputter low on the coffee table, their glow lighting the living room in golden hues. No tree. No garland, tinsel, or anything yet. Just the light of a tradition she didn’t grow up with, and the spark of the tradition we were building from there. 

“I was thinking,” she said at one point, “maybe we can put the tree in the front parlor. Gets the best light during the day, and I won’t feel like it’s overpowering the menorahs in here.” 

I nodded, already seeing it. 

“And maybe,” she added with a sleepy smile, “we can make one ornament a year that ties into the menorah themes. Something handmade. Like a lion for Nik. A peacock for Leo.” 

“God, I love you,” I grumbled, kissing her hair as she sighed against me. 

Later that night, with the house finally quiet and our arms around each other, the holidays really began. 

No expectations. No performance. Just love, and the promise to honor our roots, while building something new. Something better. 

Together. 

Chapter 2 - Rees

I didn’t sleep much. Not because of the twins, bless them. Both of them slept after midnight feeding and didn’t make a peep until the pre-dawn five-to-seven-o’clock hour, when they’d happily wake up and declare that it was, in fact, 7:30 a.m., and we should get the day started. No, I was awake because the second Don kissed my forehead and told me he wanted the twins to grow up with both halves of us, my mind shifted into High Gear Frost-Nikolaidis Capstone Thought Mode, which translated into gallons of coffee, next-day delivery, and a mission on a warpath through every store within twenty miles of Lincoln, Massachusetts. 

If I decide to do something, it gets done. That’s a Frost quality. Combine that with a Greek cussed streak and the knowledge that this was our first Christmas as a family? Yeah. This house was not going to sit in decoration no-man’s land. 

7:04 a.m. = dark roast coffee on. 

I consumed it while standing in our drafty kitchen, barefoot, and scrawling a list across three sticky notes and half of the fridge’s white expanse. By the time Don came back in from taking the twins out for a stroll in their stroller around the neighborhood. Because, bless his heart, he knows better than to question or interrupt when I’m in process. I’d already ordered navy velvet ribbon and gold-accented garland, ordered a set of cream-colored poinsettia arrangements, and enough strands of LED fairy lights to make our parlor windows visible from orbit. 

But it wasn’t enough to just be pretty. 

I wanted our home to be meaningful. 

I dug out the box of Christmas ornaments I’d stored when I first moved in, rifling through textures that somehow reminded me of home. My first ballet slipper ornament. The little silver bell with Dad’s initials engraved on the side. The glass evil eye bauble Dionysia had sent when I passed the bar. I sorted and kept only the ones that felt like us. The rest could wait. 

Our mission control center was the bay window in our front parlor. The tree was already there, of course, a tall, full fir Don and I had selected and purchased together last weekend at the corner lot across town. I skipped the reds and silvers and wound a navy ribbon around the branches, interspersing it with gold-foil snowflakes and tucked-into-branches soft cream blossoms like little secrets. Each of the twins got a new ornament as well—simple wooden ones I’d found on Etsy as a last-minute purchase, pre-enameled with Leocádia’s First Hanukkah and Nikolaos’s First Christmas. 

Which then led to the menorahs. 

I set Don’s heirloom menorah on the lace-trimmed side table beside the fireplace, its dark bronze surface catching the dancing of the flames. Beside it, I arranged the three new ones he’d hand-carved—mine of olive wood, with vines hand-burned into the surface; Leocádia’s light maple, with a carefully-carved peacock; and Nikolaos’s dark walnut, with a proud lion as its motif. Each piece was distinct, different, but somehow, right together like they belonged. 

A cream-and-gold garland was wrapped around the mantel, finished with brass candlesticks and dried florals in white and blue. I’d found a wreath wrapped in navy velvet, which I hung on the front door, with small gold bells and little dreidels from a shop near Boston. 

By sundown, our home looked like a love letter to all we were building — warm and elegant, full of light and tradition — our traditions. 

And it was only the second night. 

I was smoothing the drape of the velvet ribbon around the tree when I heard the soft thump of footsteps on the stairs. Don came down a few seconds later with the twins in his arms. Nikolaos was asleep on his left side, while Leocádia was wide awake, kicking her feet on the right. 

He came down slowly, as if in slow motion, Olympian effort for every single step, voice low and soft. “You ready to see what Mama’s done?” 

I stood from where I’d been fluffing branches and considered them. The parlor was alight, its door open, brightening the hallway with candlelight catching on the waves of Don’s beard and the twins’ dark curls.

Don stepped through the threshold and scanned the room. 

Soft candlelight and layers of tradition met his eyes. It all came together in a last-minute frenzy. Overnight flowers delivered, a mad dash to the décor shop in Concord, and several Etsy purchases ordered with the two-day shipping that arrived only an hour ago. Layers of heritage and season all woven together: navy velvet runners on the antique tables, brass candlesticks with cream poinsettias, and gold ribbon tucked into the garland draped around the mantle. 

Four menorahs lined up on the side table between the fireplace and the bay window. Don’s had been his since childhood, polished and gleaming. The other three, hand-carved by him in the woodshop out back, had been made for the twins and me. The twins had their names carved in Hebrew at the base of the menorah. 

And in the window, rising straight and elegant, the tree. 

It was hung with navy and gold ornaments, filigree stars, and three new additions at the center. One for each twin and one I had bought for Don that said ‘First Christmas as a Dad’ in swirling script. 

“Holy hell,” he whispered, eyes wide. “You did all this today?” 

“Stores and one favor called in to the florist on Milestone.” 

Don chuckled, but there was something caught in his smile as he moved toward the fireplace. “The menorahs used to be on the mantle.” 

“They still can be,” I said cautiously. “But I thought with them being out of reach like that, and more space for the babies to play when they’re older…” 

He pushed his forehead forward in a frown. “It just feels like the tree took over.” 

I blinked. “The tree is the centerpiece. That’s how I grew up. The tree in the window with the lights glowing out into the night. It’s not meant to replace anything.” 

“My menorah was front and center last year. This year it’s on the sidelines.” 

I crossed my arms. “It’s not on the sidelines. This entire room is blue, gold, and cream. There are Stars of David woven into the garland on the mantle. I made sure to coordinate everything to make sure it had both.” 

Don moved the babies in his arms closer to his chest, voice quiet. “It’s beautiful, Reese. I mean that. I’m just… working out where I fit in it.” 

That was harder than I thought it would be. I inhaled, then slowly exhaled. “Okay, what if we angle the tree back just a little, draw it in closer to the curve of the bay, and move the menorah table closer to the hearth? That way, both are framed by firelight.” 

He nodded. “Deal. As long as you don’t go buy one of those motion-sensor Santas.” 

I smirked. “Never.” 

The twins blinked up at us with round brown eyes, warm in their fleece pajamas, and I knew this was the beginning of something we would all build together. 

We didn’t get it all right. Of course not. We never would. But that wasn’t the point. Not this house. Not this season. Not this family. It wasn’t about the doing. It was about doing it together. 

Don pressed his mouth to my temple and whispered, “We’re getting good at this.” 

“We are,” I said, pressing my palm briefly to his chest. “Even if your spacing of garland is a felony.” 

He smiled at me, and I knew he would let that one go, for now. 

Dinner dishes were cleared, and the twins had consumed their bottles to satisfaction by the time the sun had slipped behind the tree line, sending pools of amber light slanting across the snow outside. I wiped sticky hands and flushed cheeks while Don wrestled pajamas and bedtime resistance. We had two freshly bathed and pajama-clad bundles in our arms by the time we returned to the parlor. 

The tree was tall and golden in the bay window, wrapped in navy ribbon and sentimental ornaments. The menorahs sat on the parlor side table, directly between the fireplace and the tree. Don’s childhood one was a little tarnished but heavy with memories. The one he’d made for me last year, when I was still feeling like a fish out of water, saying chag sameach without checking behind me. And now there were two new ones, each carved by hand, waiting for our children to grow into them. 

I held Leocádia in one arm as she clutched my hair in the other, her little hand balled into her chubby fist. Don shifted Nikolaos to his hip and brushed his thumb against his son’s soft curls. 

I lit the shamash and moved with confidence. I’d done this. I’d practiced. I’d read transliterations, watched videos, and triple-checked my pronunciation. I would not botch it. Not this time. 

Yet as I cradled the flame and opened my mouth, the importance of it filled me. Not nerves. Not insecurity. Reverence. 

Don stood quietly by my side as I began the blessing. 

“Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha’olam…” 

I did not stumble over my words. The syllables were sure and strong, even if the emotions behind them welled up inside of me unbidden. Don joined me after the first words, not to correct or guide but to share it with me. The second candle caught, and a soft light reflected in our daughter’s eyes. She blinked. Transfixed. 

I looked over at Don and found his eyes on me already, not the flames. 

“You were good,” he said in a quiet voice. 

I swallowed the thickening in my throat. “It matters.” 

“I know,” he said. “That’s why I love you.” 

We both just stood there for a moment after, breathing, holding our babies close as the candles flickered behind the glass. The past was full of expectations I could never live up to. But this? This was the life I had chosen. And I would never give back a single flawed moment of it. 

Later, after the twins had gone down for the night in their cribs and the house was quiet in that rare space between wails and midnight feedings, we sat, side by side, on the battered velvet couch in the parlor. The fire was low, and the muffled crackle of flames and ember against brick was a gentle accompaniment to the navy and cream that I’d half-heartedly hustled to hang just before bedtime. A half-finished mug of black coffee sat on the side table near my elbow—now tepid, but satisfying. The menorahs cast flickering reflections behind the glass, and the tree lights blinked in the reflection of the bay window. 

I crossed my legs under Don’s as he lay out long, and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close in a familiar, settling way that he always had when I couldn’t quite put my finger on the storm inside me. 

“You’re quiet,” he said, thumb rubbing in slow circles along my upper arm. 

I stared at the fire a few moments longer than was necessary. “Just thinking.” 

“About?” 

I exhaled, slow and heavy. “About everything. The tree. The menorahs. The dinner that we got on the table with our hands full of wine glasses while wrestling the twins into their pajamas. Tomorrow, and how it’s going to be chaos all over again, and how I want to be everything to everyone.”

He looked down at me, eyes sharp in the firelight. “Everything?” 

I nodded, voice dropping lower. “Christian and Jewish. Mother and lawyer. Frost and Hunter. Nikolaidis. All these parts of me that don’t always fit together quite right, and how I keep trying to make them anyway. And I wonder sometimes, if I’m going to break something, trying to be all of this at once.” 

Don was silent for a long moment, but it was a comfortable one. He didn’t rush to make it better, didn’t stuff it with platitudes. He just let it be. 

Then, softly, “Reese… there’s no blueprint for this.” 

I looked up at him, studying his face. 

“There’s no rulebook for how to celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah in the same house,” he continued. “No guide on how to raise twins while juggling court dates and diaper blowouts. And, seriously, no script for what happens when a gorgeous Christian lawyer marries a bald Jewish shop teacher.” 

I smiled against my better judgment. “You forgot wildly in love.”

 “Right,” he said, grinning. “And wildly in love.” 

I tucked my head under his chin, drinking in that warmth. 

He shifted, voice soft. “You’re not failing, Reese. You’re building. With intention. With love. That’s more than enough.” 

My throat constricted. “My mother would say I’m doing everything wrong.” 

He kissed the crown of my head. “Your mother doesn’t live here, thank fuck. You do. We do. And the only thing that matters is that these kids grow up knowing that they’re safe, that they’re loved, and that their parents chose a life that honors every single one of them.” 

I exhaled slowly, pressing the palm of my hand over his chest, right over his heart. 

“Thanks.” 

“Anytime.” 

We sat like that for a long time, until the fire died down to embers, swaddled in something more beautiful than the glow of holiday lights swaddled in us.

Chapter 3 - Don

I should’ve known it was a bad idea to try to make latkes by myself with a baby on my chest. Nik was already upset before the first potato made contact with the grater, tiny fists clamped into fists of fury over the entire holiday of Hanukkah. 

“It’s just shredded potatoes, buddy,” I grumbled, bouncing slightly as I grated. “Not a war crime.” 

He screamed louder, thrashing around in the baby carrier like I’d told his great-great-grandbubbie that we were out of rugelach. 

“Okay, okay,” I sighed in exasperation, narrowly avoiding losing a fingertip to the grater. “You win. I’ll grate an extra onion.” 

The kitchen was already a disaster. Potato peels stuck to the counter, flour covered the floor in a fine white dusting, and I was fairly certain I’d poured the wrong oil in the pan. The cast iron skillet made a suspicious crackle as the first mound hit the surface, and the smell—it was burning, slightly oily, definitely not the buttery crisp I remembered from my youth—rose in an acrid cloud of betrayal. 

“Shit,” I muttered. 

Nik started screaming. 

“I know! I smell it too!” 

Soft footsteps padded behind me. “Need a hand?” Reese’s voice was dry, but amused. 

I turned, sheepish, as she took in the situation. Her hair was up in a loose braid, cheeks flushed from feeding Leocádia, and she was barefoot, which was already a very bad sign. Barefoot usually meant some serious business. 

“I had it under control,” I lied, waving at the whole state of our kitchen. 

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? This ashtray of a potato statue? Very post-modern.” 

“It’s… countryside chic.” 

She huffed a laugh and moved in closer, thumbing a smear of flour off my arm. Nik quieted the second she leaned in to kiss his head, the traitor. 

“I was going for ‘rustic,’” I added, as the latke under the grill made a puff of black smoke. 

She pushed me away from the stove, adjusting the dial with practiced efficiency. “Rustic doesn’t smell like a guilty conscience.” 

We fell into a rhythm. I peeled, she grated. I seasoned, she scooped, with inhumanly critical sampling. Nik gurgled in my chest like he was passing inspection, and it was such a damn mess of a thing that it was all the way back to perfection in a loop. 

Eventually, Leocádia woke up, and Reese had her on one hip and a spatula in the other, flipping like a seasoned veteran. Oil sizzled, both of us laughing, and I snagged her mid-smile, hair coming loose around her face, baby on one side and spatula on the other, and just… glowing. 

“Hey,” I said, pausing in the middle of transferring a bowl of batter. “You’re beautiful.” 

She glanced over, rolling her eyes but smiling all the same. “You’re just saying that because I rescued your latkes.” 

“That too,” I said, coming closer to press a kiss on her temple. “But also because you make a mess look like home.” 

She leaned into me for a moment, the kind that makes the whole day better. 

And then the fire alarm went off. 

“Shit!” we both shouted, jumping around as smoke billowed out of the oven. 

Nik started laughing, and Leocádia gurgled with giggles. 

Total disaster, both of us agreed, laughing at the pile of what was going to be dinner. But it smelled like love. 

The fire alarm stopped shrieking, retreating into the quiet. A hint of charred oil hung in the air like a punchline. Reese cracked a window and switched on the fan. I wiped at my chin with a baby wipe, trying to swipe a stray smear of batter away. Our latkes had turned out a little crispier than planned, but we still ate every last one, perched on barstools with our elbows knocking, laughter spilling over nothing and everything. The twins stayed in their bouncers by our feet, swaddled in matching onesies, tiny stars on the feet, gumming their pacifiers with sleepy half-smiles that made all the mess worth it. 

We were cleaning up as the last angle of mellow December sunlight dipped below the horizon. Reese glanced at the clock, raised her eyebrows at me like an unspoken question. I nodded. 

“Go ahead,” I said, low voice. “I’ll warm their bottles.” 

She picked up Leocádia in her arms and shifted toward the living room, where the menorahs waited on the table. 

I stood in the doorway, Nik pressed against my chest as he dozed lightly in the carrier, just slightly limp from a full belly. Reese’s back curved in the warm candlelight, fingers steady as she lit the second night’s flame. Her hand didn’t shake. Her stance was confident. The blessing came from her lips with quiet reverence, and I found myself surprised by it. By how different this year was from every Hanukkah that had come before. 

Hanukkah, for me growing up, had been defined by structure. A set script of what we were supposed to do, and when. At least one big gathering each year at my parents’, hosted with brisket and kugel and a stack of gelt for the cousins and, of course, a lot of yelling. Not the warm fuzzy yelling. Just yelling. Competitive, laughing, yelling. I didn’t hate it. But I wouldn’t have called it peaceful. It was tradition codified, wrapped up in formality and in what we were supposed to do, and never, ever anything that was ours. 

The menorah, back then, had been a trophy on the mantle. We took turns lighting it, but there had been no intimacy to it. No softness. No laughter over burnt potatoes or pacifiers left on the table. Just routine. 

But now? 

Now I watched my wife muttering prayers under her breath, my daughter in her arms, voice soft but steady. Now I felt the rise and fall of a sleepy son on my chest, each breath warm against my skin. Now our menorahs stood alongside ribbons and bells and the faint smell of sugar cookies on a rack nearby. And it didn’t feel like a compromise. It didn’t feel like checking a box. It felt like ours. 

I hadn’t even realized I was smiling until Reese swiveled toward me, finding my eyes across the room. 

“What?” she asked, brow quirked at the corner. Leocádia pressed warm against her shoulder. 

“Nothing.” I took a step closer. “Just… this is the first real Hanukkah I’ve ever had here, you know?” 

Her smile stretched across her face, slow and quiet like candlelight. “Mine too.” 

The menorah behind her cast a pool of light over the dip in her cheekbone, fingers of gold in the crook of her elbow as she rocked Leo closer against Reese’s chest. Nik was in my arms, his head lolling a little to my chest with the milk-drunk sleepy heaviness that only a three-month-old baby can have. It was quiet and warm and holy, the way the room seemed to hold our three children against us as if we couldn’t bear to let them go. I’d had a near-constant sense of bursting heart all evening, but in that moment it overflowed. 

“I have something for you,” I said quietly. 

She blinked at me, one eyebrow raised. “I thought we agreed, no giant gifts until the twins are old enough to understand gifts.” 

I grinned and stood slowly, shifting Nik in one arm to keep him asleep against me. “It’s not giant. Just… little.” 

She softened into a smile. “You’re starting a tradition now?” 

I picked the little velvet box from off the sideboard and walked it over to her, nudging it in her free hand as she gave Leo a few small, swaying rocks to comfort her. “Maybe. If you’ll let me.” 

She popped it open, slow and delicate as her face. I could see her eyes widen, and then they went glossy at the sight of the gold pendant nestled within, the spiral pattern holding a single soft pearl at its center. Her hand hovered over it like she didn’t want to smudge the metal. 

“It’s beautiful,” she said in a whisper. “What does it say?” 

I knelt in front of her, supporting Nik’s back with one hand and the other coming to rest on her knee. “It’s from Proverbs,” I said softly. “Eshet Chayil. Woman of valor. The full thing is, Mi yematza et-chayil, al-margim arecha.” 

She leaned forward a little, eyebrows meeting mine. “What does that mean?” 

“‘Who can find a woman of valor? Her worth is far above pearls.’” I let it sit for a few moments, then murmured, “I think I never really understood that quote until I met you.” 

Her breath hitched in her throat. Her mouth opened and closed, opened and closed as she blinked away something big and still and sparkling that was there in her eyes and just below the surface of everything. “Don—” 

“I know,” I whispered back. “I didn’t grow up with merged traditions. My mom always told me that Hanukkah was never about gifts; it was about light, miracles, and family. But if I’m going to start this new tradition, it’s one I want to be about thanking you for being mine. For being our kids’. For being everything.” 

She swallowed thickly and reached out, careful not to rock Leo, and cupped my jaw in her hand. “You’re getting laid tonight.” 

I chuckled and leaned into her hand. “Not the original intention.” 

She grinned and then whispered in my ear. “Definitely the result.” 

We didn’t speak further. We both knew where this was going. In silence, we carried the twins up to their nursery, carefully transferring them to their cribs and stealthily crept out of the room. 

Without a word, she reached out, curling two fingers into the front of my shirt and walking us slowly back into the hallway, her head tipping to kiss the corner of my mouth before murmuring, “Bedroom. Now.” 

We barely made it through the door before she was tugging my shirt off, then pressing me back against the edge of the bed. Her hands were everywhere, and mine weren’t much better, pulling at the hem of her sweatshirt. It joined my shirt on the floor, her bra following quickly after. Her breasts, full and inviting, pressed against my chest as she leaned into me, her breath hot on my ear. 

“I need you,” she whispered, her voice laced with desperation. 

I ran my hands down her spine, feeling the curve of her back and the flare of her hips. I trailed kisses down her neck, tasting her, breathing her in, my hands cupping her ass to pull her flush against me so she could feel how hard I was for her. 

When she straddled me, her thighs framing mine, I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. I reached up, cupping her breasts, teasing her nipples with my thumbs until they were hard peaks. 

“I missed this,” I said, my voice low. 

Her hands came to my jaw, guiding my eyes to hers. “I missed you,” she echoed. “I missed every inch of you.” 

Then she kissed me, hungry now, all soft lips and sharp teeth. I flipped us over, letting her fall back against the sheets with a laugh that caught in her throat when I dragged my mouth down her neck, her collarbone, lower. I took one of her nipples into my mouth, sucking and biting until she was arching off the bed, her hands fisting in my hair. 

She was wet and ready for me, and I slid a finger inside her, then another, curling them to hit that spot that made her cry out. I withdrew my fingers and brought them to my mouth, tasting her, before replacing them with the head of my cock. I pushed inside her slowly, inch by inch, feeling her stretch to accommodate me. She wrapped her legs around my waist, urging me deeper, and I obliged, filling her. 

The way she moaned when I slid inside her lit me on fire. Every movement between us was a conversation, every touch an answer to the questions neither of us said aloud. Are we still us? Yes. Do we still know each other like this? Yes. Are we okay? More than okay. 

I moved faster, harder, chasing the edge with her. Her nails dug into my back, a sting I welcomed. I reached between us, finding her clit and rubbing it in tight circles, feeling her body tense, her inner muscles clench around me. 

“Come for me,” I growled, and she did, her orgasm ripping through her, her cries filling the room. I followed her over the edge, my own release tearing through me, leaving me breathless and spent. 

And when we finally collapsed together, breathless and tangled in each other’s arms, her head tucked beneath my chin, I realized I’d never felt more whole. She didn’t need to be everything to everyone. Just this. Just mine.

Chapter 4 - Reese

The dining table looked like it had lost a fight with a very determined elf. Wrapping paper was everywhere. Metallic gold crumpled in one corner, rolls of deep navy and cream ribbon unspooled across the floor, and a half-used roll of double-sided tape stuck to my forearm like some festive battle wound. A glittery bow clung to my sock, and I was ninety percent sure I had a tiny pair of scissors buried somewhere under the tissue paper avalanche. 

I hadn’t meant to make this much of a mess. I just wanted to get a head start on wrapping the presents I’d stashed weeks ago. The twins were finally napping in sync, a rare miracle I wasn’t about to waste, and Don was in the parlor, pen in hand, outlining spring semester’s goals for his shop class at the high school. I had an hour, maybe. Two if the universe loved me. 

I hadn’t even been sure we’d be here for Christmas when I’d bought everything. Back then, in late October, I was still assuming we’d end up at my dad’s house for the holidays, or maybe the Frosts’. I’d over-prepared, like always, because I didn’t know what kind of traditions we were starting. What our family would look like when the time came. So I bought everything, just in case. 

Now, with our menorahs in the next room and a lit tree twinkling near the parlor archway, I sat cross-legged on the dining bench, organizing gifts into loose piles. A stack for Don’s family. A few for Mãe and Dad. One slightly over-the-top package for Clay, because I still owed him after he fixed the leaking bathroom pipe without judgment or payment. And then there were the others, the ones I wasn’t sure how to label.  

They were for us. 

For Don. For Leo. For Nik. 

For our tree. In our home. 

I stared at the little tower of presents meant for this house, wrapped in navy paper with delicate golden stars and hand-lettered tags, and felt something catch low in my chest. It was the first time I’d wrapped gifts not to be transported or handed off. These would be opened right here. On our rug. In front of our fireplace. Under a tree, we decorated with more ambition than symmetry. That hit harder than I expected. 

There was a time I would’ve killed for a moment like this. A house filled with warmth. Laughter. Crying babies and burnt cookies and Don humming in the next room. And I had it now, not because I earned it by being perfect, but because I’d let go of the lie that I needed to be. 

A shadow crossed the archway. I looked up to find Don leaning against the doorframe, watching me with that soft half-smile that always gave me butterflies. His eyes scanned the chaos. 

“Looks like a Macy’s exploded in here.” 

I laughed and chucked a velvet bow at him. It bounced off his shoulder and landed in the tangled ribbon pile. “Shut up and kiss me.” 

He did. Right there, in the middle of my mess. 

And for the first time in days, I felt completely, blissfully settled. Chosen. Home. 

Don’s lips barely skimmed mine, just long enough to suck the air from my lungs and disarray my thoughts like the crumbs on the table. He leaned back, thumb carding over the curve of my cheek, fingers in my hair. 

“I’ll go wake the twins,” he said, voice low and hot. “Sun’s almost set.” 

I nodded, holding on to that for dear life before he melted away down the hall. I straightened up and stretched, groaning as my knees popped like a damn glow stick. My whole back ached, but I smiled and shook out my hair, flinging stray bits of ribbon to the side and picking my way into the living room, where the menorahs were already set out on the low coffee table by the window. 

By the time Don came back, lifting Nikolaos onto his shoulder and swaying slightly to balance Leocádia in her bassinet against the hearth, the sky outside had fallen that velvety shade of blue, the deep blue you see when the sun is all but gone—the blue of ancient, story-filled skies. I struck the match in one fluid motion, inhaled the faint, sulphur smell, and lit the shamash first before moving down the row, wick to wick. 

Don balanced Nik carefully in his arms while I murmured the blessings, barely more than a hum, and when I finished, he surprised me by humming along to the tune, just a murmur, a little off-key but full of love. Leo stared up at us with enormous, sleepy eyes, and for a moment, the house felt as though it had been bathed in something soft and holy. Not perfect. Not curated. Just… 

Us. 

After the candles burned steadily, Don shifted Nik to his other shoulder and tilted his head in the direction of the tree in the corner. Tiny, twinkling white lights bobbed, like they knew something we didn’t. 

“So,” he said, slowly, the way he always did when he was about to propose something completely and deliciously out of left field. “Technically… It’s already Christmas Eve in Greece.” 

I blinked. “What?” 

“Time zones. Very real. Very important,” he said, deadpan, lips quirking. “So maybe… we should open like one gift tonight. For the sake of international equilibrium.” 

I looked at him, holding in a smile. “International equilibrium?” 

He nodded seriously. “The respectful thing to do.” 

I chuckled and shook my head, reached under the tree, and plucked a small, square box, wrapped in plaid, from the pile. 

“Fine. But just one. I’m still wrapping half of these tomorrow.” 

We exchanged boxes, sat cross-legged on the rug, and opened them carefully, slowly. I handed him the mug I’d found weeks ago, and hadn’t been able to pass up on Amazon, a new one for our kitchen coffee station. The message was perfect for Don, ‘If Dad Can’t Fix It, No One Can.’

He grinned like a kid and kissed the rim. “Accurate.” 

Then I opened mine. 

The box was small. Jewelry-store small. 

Inside, carefully arranged in velvet, was a pair of gold, teardrop earrings, sculpted like the tiniest aster flowers. 

I gasped. 

“You saw me looking at these,” I whispered, hand shaking slightly. 

He nodded. “Last October. You didn’t get them. But I saw your face.” 

Aster. The birth flower for twins. 

It wasn’t about the earrings. Not really. It was that he remembered. That he had noticed. 

Mixing the holidays, mixing our lives… it didn’t have to look like anyone else’s iteration of that. 

It just had to feel like this. 

Don offered to wash the dishes, but I shook my head and told him to take a shower. He narrowed his eyes at me like he wasn’t fooled. I just wanted some quiet time with myself, but he kissed me anyway and disappeared upstairs with Nik still squished against his chest, the two of them humming some bullshit bedtime song about ducks or pirates or both. 

Leocádia had started squirming before they made it to the landing, and I knew she was hungry again. Growth spurts didn’t care who the parents were, and that definitely included the parent who dared to sit down after 9 p.m. 

I lifted her gently from the bassinet, bundled her in the fuzzy pink blanket my mãe had crocheted last spring, and padded into the nursery. The warm lamp glow cocooned the room, made it feel almost underwater in its hush. I eased into the rocker, pressed a kiss to Leo’s soft head, and held her close as I offered the bottle. 

She latched eagerly, her tiny fingers curling against my wrist like they were taking possession. My heart ached at the feeling. 

The menorah’s light from the hall glowed faintly through the cracked door, like a little whisper of all the rituals we’d just gone through and the ones that still waited for us. Tomorrow would be Christmas Eve brunch with my cousins, their wife, Riko, and their kids. Then there would be more candles. Then stockings.

I exhaled slowly and dragged my knuckles lightly along Leo’s cheek. 

Two religions. Two worlds. One house. One heart, trying to stretch to hold it all. 

It wasn’t that I didn’t love the traditions. I did. I loved the candle-lighting prayers, the spinning dreidels, the songs Don mumbled, half-understood, and fully believed. I loved the tinsel and pine needles, the hymns I knew by heart from childhood, the cinnamon-sweet smell of my dad’s French toast on Christmas morning. 

But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about screwing it all up. 

What did it mean to raise children in both faiths? Did we confuse them? Would they feel like they fit everywhere, or nothing at all? 

I didn’t know, and I hated not knowing. I’d spent my life building plans and timelines and safety nets. I knew how to win a court case. How to work a midnight crisis call. How to be a wife, a mother, a woman with goals and dreams. But this? This was parenting in its gutsy, unscripted, unfiltered glory, and there was no case precedent to study. 

Leo blinked up at me, milky-eyed and half-asleep, and I smiled through the knot in my throat. 

Maybe we didn’t need a perfect answer. 

Maybe this was the answer. 

A mother, rocking her daughter in the quiet dark. A house where both prayer and carols could live together. A family, doing their best with open hearts and tacky gift wrap and uneven candles. 

I hummed, low and low, and let the old Hebrew tune of Erev Shel Shoshanim fill the nursery like a lullaby. 

Then I kissed her forehead and whispered against her skin. “I hope you always know who you are, baby girl. And never feel like you have to prove it.” 

The nursery was silent when I finally rose, arms loaded with a warm, sleeping baby. I set Leo down gently in her crib, tucked the blanket around her legs, and stayed just a second longer than I needed to. Just watching her breathe, just reminding myself that we were okay. 

I didn’t get back to our bedroom until the early hours. By then, the soft creak of the floorboards didn’t disturb Don. Or so I thought. 

I slipped into bed as quietly as possible, not wanting to rouse him, but when my head hit the pillow, he rolled into me and wrapped me in his chest without a word. His body was warm, his breath slow and even on my temple, and his hand had moved to my back without my permission to rub small, grounding circles there like it always did when I couldn’t sleep. 

I didn’t mean to speak. I hadn’t meant to speak. I’d planned just to let the thoughts recede along with the dark. But wrapped in him, his heartbeat underneath my cheek and the faint smell of soap and cedar on his skin... It was like someone had pulled out the plug. 

“I’m scared sometimes,” I said instead. “Like I’m gonna screw it all up. That I’ll try to be everything for everybody, and I’ll end up being not enough for you. Or for them.” 

His hand paused on my spine. Then he pulled me closer, tucked me more completely against his chest as if the simple act of that could make me safe from my own mind. 

“You’re not meant to be everything,” he said into the back of my hair, voice rough and drowsy. “You just need to be you. That’s all we’ll ever need.” 

I closed my eyes. Let it settle over me. 

It wasn’t poetic. It wasn’t profound. But it was Don. Simple. Direct. Exactly what I needed when I forgot how to be soft. 

I found his hand beneath the covers and twined our fingers together. His thumb rubbed over the back of mine, slow and absent-minded. 

Held in his arms, I didn’t need to shoulder it all. Just me, tired, messy, stumbling through as I went, was enough. 

I fell asleep wrapped in him like that. Still holding on.

Chapter 5 - Don

It was at that moment, during my second sip of coffee, that pandemonium descended. 

First, there had been pounding on the door. Screams. Bells. High-pitched giggles. A shuffling noise that might have been someone dragging a dead tree across the porch. I opened just in time to spot a flash of pink and purple streaking into the foyer. Saki and Aiko, our four-year-old twin nieces, are whirlwinds of tutus, sparkles, and poor life choices. 

“UNCLE DON!” they screamed in unison, already halfway to the dining room, screaming over who could find the “spinny top things” first. 

Fore-followed behind, wheezing and glittering. 

“WHY are they sticky already? We’ve been in the car for eleven minutes,” he grumbled, blinking as he spotted powdered sugar footprints already peppering the hardwood. “Saki! Aiko! I swear by all that is holy, Otōsan needs ten fucking minutes of peace…“ 

“Did they find the sufganiyot?” Reese called from the kitchen, busy making latkes. She sounded calm. Serene, even. As if this were just another Tuesday and not an existentially fraught Christmas Eve survival operation. 

“Clearly,” Forrest muttered, beaten. 

Next came Hikari, who at six years old was the oldest and already more mature than I was at twenty, snow boots neatly removed at the door and carrying a small box labeled For Baby Nikolaos & Leocádia. He held up one finger for silence and gave me a grave nod. 

“I brought books for the twins. Mama said they chew on Aunt Reese’s books.” 

“You’re not wrong,” I said, clearing a path for him. 

Riko followed next, baby Ryū on her hip, yawning as she bent down to press both of her cheeks against mine in a kiss. 

“Sorry, we’re late. Saki had to change dresses because Aiko said hers was ‘a different pink.’” 

Ryū gave me a cranky eye from over her shoulder as she clutched a plastic lion teether like he was the worst friend in the world. 

Last came Darius and Elijah, both of them towing three oversized bags like Santa’s Dustan-hipster-inspired sidekicks. Darius was in black, as usual, and imperturbable. Elijah, in his red, was already sweating. 

“Whose idea was it to buy for everyone again?” Elijah grumbled, catching his toe on a spinning dreidel and watching it zip past his boot. 

“Yours,” Darius and Riko replied in perfect unison. 

I closed the door behind them and leaned back, already on jet-engine decibels from a growing fight over the location of the dreidel fortress near the tree and someone having spilled cocoa with sprinkles all over the floor. 

Reese offered me a fresh cup of coffee, and I took it as I paused in the doorway to watch our lovely, turn-of-the-century manor become a Frost family jungle gym. 

“Still breathing?” she asked, and her eyes were dancing. 

“Barely.” 

But she smiled, and it was that smile, that calm-in-the-storm, hair-half-up, flour-on-her-shoulder kind of beautiful, that made something in my chest squeeze. She juggled the baby monitor in one hand and coffee in the other, sidestepping spinning bows as though she’d trained for it. She was at home in it. In all of it. 

We fell back and let the holiday typhoon into the parlor, where already the dreidels were thudding underfoot, and sprinkles puffed around the floor like shredded confetti. The dining table sagged under pancakes, lox, bagels, kugel, fruit, and a few things I hadn’t made but would happily claim credit for later. 

Forrest finally corralled the twins by the tree, where he crouched next to a small wooden box and popped the lid. 

“I stayed up last night painting these,” he said, drawing out handmade ornaments, one for each of us. Leocádia’s was a placid peacock, Nikolaos a fierce lion. Reese and I had ours twined in an ornate, snow-dusted Victorian house, fancy and homey at the same time. 

“Dude,” I said, carefully taking mine. “You could sell these.” 

Forrest shrugged. “Art’s only good if it makes someone feel something. Yours belongs on this tree.” 

Reese stepped next to me, her coffee in one hand, monitor still tucked under her arm, and her hair half-up, soft curls spilling around her shoulders. She kissed my cheek and then stepped in to help Hikari pry Ryū away from the ornament he was determined to eat. 

I looked around at everything, the chaos, the noise, the laughter, and saw her smiling like this was how it should be. 

And I couldn’t help it. 

I fell in love with her all over again. 

The twins had just finished a lap around the dining table with Aiko riding a plush reindeer like a prize-winning steed and Saki shouting “FOR HANUKKAH AND JUSTICE!” when Forrest finally wrangled them toward the living room. Reese, with a calmness I would never stop admiring, passed out mugs of cocoa and coffee like we weren’t living inside a Christmas card gone feral. 

By the time Ryū was nestled into a soft blanket on the rug and Hikari had sorted all the gelt into perfect stacks beside the tree, the sun had dipped low, casting long shadows across the frosted windows. The golden glow of our parlor warmed the corners where laughter still echoed, and I knew it was time. 

“Alright,” I said, pushing myself up and adjusting the baby monitor on the sideboard. “Let’s get ready to light the fifth candle.” 

That got the kids’ attention. 

Saki immediately shouted, “FIRE!” and then asked if she could do the honors. Hikari calmly explained that it was Uncle Don’s turn, while Forrest scooped both girls into a pile of couch cushions with the promise of chocolate coins after the prayer. 

I picked up Nikolaos, who was mid-giggle, his tiny fists tangled in the hem of my sweater, and walked over to the menorahs on the sideboard. 

Reese already had Leocádia in her arms, her curls bouncing as she squealed and patted her mama’s face with sticky hands. I caught Reese’s eye and felt my breath stutter, just for a second. 

She looked like peace wrapped in candlelight. 

“Ready?” I asked, holding the shamash in my free hand. 

Reese nodded, smiling gently. “Always.” 

The Frost family gathered behind us in a loose semicircle. Darius held Hikari in his arms so he could see better. Elijah tapped softly at a keyboard app on his phone, adjusting the sound until it mimicked a piano. Riko brought Ryū to her lap, humming something soothing while he gnawed on the corner of a wooden block. Forrest was behind Riko, rubbing her shoulders absent-mindedly, his gaze drifting from the menorahs to the girls to ensure they stayed out of trouble. 

I lit the shamash and bent slightly, holding Nikolaos just close enough for him to see without becoming a tiny pyromaniac. One by one, I lit the five candles for the fifth night, starting from right to left, but lighting from left to right. The glow rose slowly, the soft hiss of wax catching fire the only sound for a few reverent seconds. 

Then, I began the blessings. 

“Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha’olam…” 

My voice wasn’t perfect, but it was steady. The words felt like stepping stones across something ancient, timeless. Reese whispered them softly beside me, her voice low but sure. Elijah played a matching melody, quiet and reverent, filling the space with something that felt older than memory. 

The flames flickered. Nikolaos watched, mesmerized. 

Saki and Aiko, now quiet for once, sat on the floor beside a bowl of gelt and a stack of coloring pages Forrest had printed last night of dreidels, menorahs, snowflakes, even a cat in a kippah. Crayons rolled across the table as they scribbled with impressive focus, giggling every few seconds. 

Reese leaned into me slightly, brushing her shoulder against mine. In the firelight, with our family singing the prayers and our children in our arms, I felt something shift inside my chest. Something sacred and grounding, like a gear locking into place that I didn’t even know had been loose. 

Maybe it was memory. Maybe it was faith. 

But I knew this was ours. This tradition, this moment, this light. 

And I’d never take it for granted. 

By the time we’d waved goodbye to the Frost crew, after the twins had been kissed a hundred times, Saki had to be bribed with half a cookie to give back Reese’s phone, and Forrest had carried a giggling Aiko out under one arm like a football, the house was quiet again. 

Not silent, not with two infants upstairs and pine needles crunching underfoot, but quiet enough to breathe. 

Reese lit a candle on the mantle while I tucked the monitor under my arm, double-checking the twins on the screen. Leo had one hand flung dramatically above her head like a Broadway star mid-final bow. Nik was curled in that soft, serious way he always slept, as if dreaming required concentration. 

We didn’t say much as we settled on the floor, legs crossed, the tree casting soft golden light across the room. Her cheeks were a little flushed, her curls pulled back in a clip, and she was still in her leggings from brunch. Perfect. Real. Mine. 

I passed her stocking over with a little grin. “Ladies first.” 

She rolled her eyes, but her smile tugged to one side as she reached inside. “Ooh. Spicy cocoa. Planning to seduce me with sugar and heat?” 

“Worked once,” I said, nudging her knee. 

She pulled out the book next. Poetry, the kind she always left bookmarked on the coffee table, spine cracked in all the right places. But it was the wooden bookmark that made her pause. A little longer. Her thumb brushed over the carved shape, where a tree and menorah arched together, roots and branches tangled like our lives. She didn’t speak, just leaned into me. 

I gave her mine in return, laughing when she pulled out beard oil and the nap coupon. She kissed my cheek anyway. 

Right there on the floor, her head on my shoulder, I realized this was it. My forever. 

Reese nuzzled against me after stockings and sleep talk had worn off. When the lights on the tree blinked in slow, sleepy code, I could have fallen asleep there, sprawled out on the rug with her warm breath against my neck and her fingers lazily kneading the fabric of my shirt. But the baby monitor buzzed once, then went silent, and she slipped from my arms, kissed my cheek, and mumbled something about wanting cocoa before bed. I let her go, because I knew she wouldn’t take long. 

Still, ten minutes had passed by, and the distant clink of mugs against a counter had made me leave the bed in the way I always did, trailing behind her. 

She stood barefoot on the tile, one arm crooked below her chest and the other wrapped around two mugs on the stove, stirring. Her hair was down, loose and tousled from the day, and her pajama shorts hung low on her hips, and her sweater bunched to one side like she had yanked it over her head too quickly. She was beautiful and silly, like someone out of a Hallmark holiday movie, but only for me. 

“You have a thing for cocoa and privacy now?” I asked, voice low as I took my place behind her. 

She smirked, but didn’t turn around. “You have a thing for hovering like a lovestruck jerk.” 

“I plead guilty,” I replied, wrapping my arms around her waist and pressing a kiss just below her ear. “But you like it.” 

“I suffer it,” she quipped, though she leaned back into me like it was her second nature. “I just didn’t know if this was going to feel empty. If the twins were to grow up thinking they belonged in two places, or if it was all going to be mixing the two and losing everything.” 

I tucked my chin to her shoulder, and she shook her head slowly and surely. “No. It doesn’t feel empty. It feels like ours. Like we built something… real.” 

I twisted her to face me, one warm hand on the small of her back, the other lifting the mug of cocoa from her hand and putting it down on the counter. A small sprig of mistletoe hung from the doorframe just above us. 

“You put that up,” I murmured. 

“I’m innocent.” 

I kissed her anyway. Slow, complete, promise-laced. 

“This is just the first,” I murmured against her lips. “Of a thousand messy, perfect, ours holidays.” 

And this time, she didn’t argue.

Chapter 6 - Reese

It wasn’t jingly bells or enchanted notes that woke us up. It was a fart. A big, booming fart that you could hear even over the baby monitor, and two glorious peals of baby laughter as they’d just hit the punchline. 

Don groaned into the pillow. “I think Nik just crop-dusted his sister.” 

“Merry Christmas,” I muttered, hauling myself out of bed. My robe was in a heap on the floor. One of my boobs was probably still out. It was still only 7:30 in the freakin’ morning. 

By the time we trudged to the nursery like a pair of zombies in oversized plaid pajamas, both of the twins were fully awake and grinning like pint-sized gremlins from Hell. Leocádia had tossed her blanket to one corner and was squirming around half-naked, while Nikolaos was smacking the side of his crib with delighted giggles like he’d just been awarded the largest lollipop in the world. 

“You’re three months old,” I said, picking Leo up into my arms, “and you’re already in a tag-team match to beat us. That’s against the rules.” 

Don scooped up Niko and started rubbing his back as the baby immediately launched an assault on his shoulder with his mouth. “You’re supposed to be the chill one of the twins.” 

Niko blew a spit bubble. Time’s up. 

We changed diapers, opened a bottle, and made it to the living room with only one spit-up casualty. 

RIP, Don’s pajama top. 

The tree lights were already twinkling, like tiny, colored stars. The stockings still hung empty. The menorahs we’d lit for last night’s eighth candle were both sitting on the windowsill, the wax cooled and quiet. 

There were gifts, of course, but mostly soft rattle blocks and baby books and cat-shaped teething rings and latkes and candy canes. The real Christmas miracle was that we were standing, coherent, and on our second cup of coffee before 9 AM. 

And then there was the knock. 

I didn’t even make it to the door before Clay had let himself in, arms laden with lumpy, amateurishly wrapped packages and sporting a sweatshirt with a print that said Santa’s Favorite Deadlift. 

“Merry Christmas!” he called, dropping everything with a dramatic grunt. “Where are my favorite niece and nephew? Let me hold the little monsters!” 

“They’re in cuddle mode,” I warned, but Leo immediately flung her arms out towards him with a gurgling squeak. 

Clay melted. “Okay, rude. I didn’t agree to love them more than anyone else, but here we are.” 

One second later, the front door was kicked wider, and Dad came in, right behind Mãe in her braided hair and coat that was flecked with snow. She was already sniffing. 

“I know they’ve seen us a hundred times,” she said, voice thick with emotion as she yanked off her boots. “But to be here, all together, today is different.” 

It was. 

Dad strode to the room with the quiet strength that I’ve always found comforting. He kissed the top of my head, then planted a warm clap on Don’s back. “Morning, sweetheart. You surviving?” 

“Barely,” Don said. “But they’re cute, so I’ll give it.” 

Mãe cooed in Portuguese as she sank onto the couch with Niko in her arms, kissing his chubby cheeks between verses of an old lullaby. Leo had commandeered Clay’s Santa hat and was gnawing on the pom-pom. 

And as for me? I just stood in the middle of our living room, part chaos and part rapture, and knew that I was the luckiest damned woman on earth. 

For the first time in too long, my family was whole. We were all here, no strained smiles or polite silences or absences and excuses. 

Just warmth and laughter and love. 

And spit-up. Oh, god. Always spits up. 

But that’s what Christmas looked like now. And honestly? I wouldn’t change a thing. 

Clay was still dramatically narrating the twins’ reactions to his gifts, “Leocádia just gave my teether block a solid B-minus on taste, but an A-plus for throwability!”, when the knock came. Again.

This one wasn’t casual. 

It was clipped. Controlled. Sharp as patent-leather heels on marble. 

Don stiffened beside me before I even opened the door. Mãe glanced up from Nik, her smile faltering. And Dad set down his mug with the kind of slow, practiced calm that only made my stomach churn harder. 

I already knew who it was. 

Sophia. 

She didn’t wait for an invitation. Just stepped inside like she still had the right. Winter coat pristine. Dark hair in an updo that probably took half the morning. Perfume too floral, too heavy. A smile that didn’t reach her eyes. 

“Well,” she said, glancing around like she was judging a poorly staged magazine shoot, “it’s certainly… festive.” 

Her gaze landed on the menorahs. Then the tree. Then the stockings. Her mouth twisted. 

“Confused, but festive.” 

My hands curled into fists before I could stop them. Don moved closer, casual but solid. I could feel the heat of his body at my back. 

Clay looked up and muttered, “Shit,” under his breath. 

Mãe didn’t say a word, just held Nik tighter. 

Dad stepped forward, voice even. “You weren’t invited, Sophia.” 

She smiled at him, saccharine, almost smug. “I thought I’d drop by. It’s Christmas, after all. Family time.” Her eyes snapped back to me. “Though apparently, some of us are confused about which traditions to teach their children.” 

Don said nothing, but his arm wrapped around my waist. I could hear his teeth grinding. 

“I’m not confused,” I said, cool and steady. “I’m raising them with love. And with truth. You’re not welcome here.” 

Her nostrils flared. “You’re raising them in chaos. This…”, she gestured to the tree, the menorahs, the card Clay’s dumb ass had propped up with baby spit on it, “This is what happens when you try to please everyone. You lose your spine. And they”, she pointed at the twins, “they grow up lost.” 

“Enough,” Don said, his voice low. Firm. 

Dad didn’t raise his voice either. He didn’t need to. “Reese told you to leave.” 

Sophia scoffed, turning on her heel with all the grace of a pageant queen mid-meltdown. Her purse clipped the side table on her way out, knocking the Hanukkah card to the floor. 

She didn’t stop. Just slammed the door behind her with a sharp crack that made Nik flinch in Mãe’s arms. 

The silence afterward was thick and brittle. 

Until Mãe stood, still humming, and crossed to the card. She bent, lifted it, and gently set it back in place beside the menorahs and the soft, flickering glow of the tree lights. 

Then, quietly, she said, “Olive branches don’t work when one side gets set on fire.” 

No one spoke. 

The sixth candle danced beside the tree, light flickering across the parlor walls. No one rushed to fill Sophia’s void. The silence between us was still deafening. But the pressure, so oppressive before, slowly eased—slow as snow sliding down the roof. 

Dinner helped. 

It was nothing fancy, plated by white-gloved servers. No place cards or fancy chargers. Just Don’s hand on the small of my back as we passed mismatched dishes and overfilled wine glasses. The kitchen smelled of our childhoods pieced together and somehow whole: herbed stuffing and sweet kugel, buttery turkey and crisp-edged latkes. Clay kept sneaking right out of the pan. 

We crowded around the dining room table, a table Don had spent weeks refinishing last year, his hands sanding the grooves. It was warm, imperfect, and real. I’d taken the middle seat between Dad and Clay, but kept glancing across at Don and Mãe at the far end of the table. They were both doubled over laughing so hard at something in that sunken pie they nearly knocked over the cranberry sauce. 

“You used a blowtorch to fix it?” Don asked, his wine mouth. 

“It needed support.” Mãe was deadpan. “And we were out of gelatin.” 

Clay snorted so loud he nearly choked on a latke. “This is why I never leave you two alone together.” 

It shouldn’t have worked. None of it. The different faiths. The blended family. Sophia’s ghost is haunting somewhere behind my ribs. But when Don slipped his hand under the table and squeezed mine, I stopped waiting for things to fall apart. 

There was forgiveness in this. Maybe not the big kind. The noisy kind with declarations and tears. But the quiet kind, baked into sweet potatoes and passed over chipped plates. The kind that didn’t ask for perfection. Just presence. 

Later, when the dishes were packed up and Dad and Clay had retreated to the guest rooms, I snuck upstairs with the twins cradled in my arms. They were heavy with sleep, cheeks flushed from too much input, soft breaths puffing across my neck. I laid Leo down first, then Nik, brushing kisses across both foreheads and smoothing curls away from their faces. 

I didn’t need all the answers. Didn’t need Sophia’s blessing. Or the picture-perfect holiday. 

I just needed this. 

A home. A partner. A table surrounded by people who had chosen each other. Who stayed. 

I closed the nursery door behind me gently, heart full and steady. 

For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like I was living two lives. I felt like I was living one. Whole. Messy. Ours. 

I didn’t go to bed. 

Not right away. 

The house was finally still after a full day of celebration and chaos. Mãe’s lingering kiss still warmed my cheek, and Don’s hands had just swaddled me in a throw before he left to go upstairs and check the locks. I curled into the armchair in the parlor with the fire low and the menorahs unlit but still proudly on display, throwing long shadows next to the tree. Warmth vibrated in my bones. 

I fished out two small cards and the memory boxes I’d bought and labeled back in September when the twins were just days old. Nik’s had a little lion sticker on the lid. Leo’s a peacock. 

Tonight felt like one of those nights I didn’t want to forget. 

I opened Nikolaos’s first.

My sweet boy, 

Tonight we lit the sixth candle. You watched the light with those big eyes, the way you watch your daddy’s face, full of wonder. You were asleep in your avó’s arms while your Uncle Clay kept trying to make you giggle by dancing a wooden dreidel across the table in front of you. It worked. You have the brightest little laugh, soft and surprised, like you’re still getting used to joy. 

It snowed this afternoon. Just a dusting, but your sister stared out the window like the sky had split open just for her. You fell asleep in my arms, smelling like gingerbread and sage. 

There was a fight at the door today. Someone who didn’t deserve your attention came to shake what we’ve built. She lost. I stayed strong, for you, for your sister, for the family who showed up with full hearts and open hands. You won’t remember it. But maybe you’ll feel it one day. The strength it took to draw a line and say, “Not in this house.” 

We will teach you to honor where you came from while building where you want to go. 

Love,

Mom

Then I reached for Leocádia’s.

My brave girl, 

You wore the tiniest navy bow tonight, and your curls would not stay put. Your avó said you look like me when I was your age. You were passed from lap to lap during dinner, cooed at, and loved on by everyone in this house. 

I watched you stare at the tree lights, as if memorizing their pattern. You gripped my finger during candle lighting, calm and alert, while your brother snored softly against my chest. 

There was tension in the air earlier. You won’t know the details. You don’t need to. What matters is that we didn’t let bitterness win. We didn’t let pain speak louder than joy. And tonight, the joy was louder than anything else. 

We will teach you to honor where you came from while building where you want to go. 

Love,

Mom

I folded the cards and slipped them into their boxes, kissed each one before closing the lids. 

Then I turned off the tree and climbed the stairs toward everything I loved most.

Chapter 7 - Don

I did not set an alarm. 

I didn’t need one. Leo’s sleepy grumblings from the nursery and the languid unfurling of Reese’s arm across my chest was a wake-up call enough. Morning light seeped in past the curtains in milky gold stripes and spilled on the floor, creeping with the kind of tender quiet that knew today it was not its day to be loud. 

We did not hurry. 

Thank God, because for once we did not need to. No last-minute packing of the car. No scrubbing of the floor before guests arrived. No anxious texting of family members, waiting for them to act like all was well. Just us. Our girl. Our boy. Our small family holding the other side of the frantic tightrope. 

Reese yawned as she sat up, hair sliding off one shoulder and cheeks pink and splotchy with sleep. “Let’s take them out to get some fresh air before the snow’s gone,” she said, already reaching for one of the twins with smooth efficiency. 

I nodded because the truth of it was, I needed it, too. 

We swaddled them in fleece and knits and all the extra layers new parents liked to add, no matter what the weather app said, 39°F. Leo in the gray hat with teddy bear ears. Nik in the cream hat with little navy antlers. Reese in her long coat over sweats, and me in boots, and then we were out into the chilly quiet of the morning like it was a clean slate. 

Sidewalks still held patches of snow that had melted just enough to puddle into slush along the curbs. Christmas lights drooped just a touch lower today, like the houses were finally exhaling. Wreaths had started to brown along the edges. The inflatable reindeer across the street was half-deflated and lolling like it’d had one too many cups of eggnog and no one to call it a cab. 

And it was…quiet. 

Just the rhythmic ratcheting of stroller wheels and the soft inhalations of the twins snuggled under their blankets, and Reese humming to herself under her breath. No one watching. No need to perform. No tensions knotting in my shoulder blades. 

We meandered without a plan, just following the street as it curved around us. 

At the corner, we stopped at the brick house with the big magnolia tree out front. Their nativity scene was still set out in the yard, Mary and Joseph snuggled in together, and a star was burning bright above them. But it was not the manger that made Reese stop in her tracks, but the menorah set out in their front window. Electric, of course, but glowing like a warm, yellow sun behind the glass. Not separate. Not competing. Just…there. Together. 

Her gloved hand closed around mine. Pressed once. A squeeze that needed no words. 

I looked at her and felt it in my chest. That precious, weightless quiet. No defenses up. No history between us that we hadn’t already dragged into the light and mucked through. Just this shared stillness. This pocket of nothing-feeling-too-much. 

“I want to do this every year,” I murmured. “Walk off the noise. Just us.” 

She nodded, still watching the window, and her voice was soft. “Yeah. Let’s make that a tradition.” 

And just like that, we turned toward home. Toward coffee and baby giggles and messy couch naps. Because sometimes the best kind of celebration is not the loud kind. It’s simple. And slow. And exactly what you didn’t even know you needed. 

The moment we closed the door behind us, the house became quiet. Reese slipped off her jacket and hung it on the doorknob, then she gave me that slow smile of hers that I’d come to love more than my daily espresso. The twins were half asleep in our arms, warm and soothed, their little knitted caps askew from the bumpy ride in the stroller. 

No guests. No dishes in the sink. No reheated leftovers. 

Just the two of us. 

Silently, we made our way through the apartment. I tightened Leo’s swaddle as we entered the living room, barely lit but for the soft golden bulbs still aglow on the tree. Outside, the neighborhood was quiet, bathed in an eerie, powdery white sky that made every rooftop glow with the moonlight. In the front window, our menorahs waited next to the tree, wax from last night’s candles hardened and curled. Reese bounced Nik gently and kissed his cheek. 

“Want to light them tonight?” 

I nodded. I already knew that my chest would constrict, that no one would hear us, no one would yell or throw a fit or make a scene. We’d have our little family in our arms and the relief of letting ourselves sink into something honest.

I laid Leo down in her swing by the window, and Reese produced a slim felt pouch from under the tree. “Made these on Christmas Eve,” she whispered. “Mãe made them while they were napping. I was gonna surprise you.” 

Inside were two little felt stars, one pale blue, one cream, stitched with sloppy lines and a tiny pair of initials on the back. N for Nik, L for Leo. 

“They won’t be able to hold them yet,” she continued. “But one day, they’ll know.” 

We lit the shamash together. I said the Hebrew prayer in a low voice, my thumb holding the match steady until the candle flared and took. Reese hummed quietly next to me, matching my pitch low and constant, my grounding rod. We lit the seventh candle and stepped back. The twins swaddled in our arms, we stood staring at the flames on the windowsill. 

We placed the felt stars one by one beneath the menorah, our hands careful. Nik’s landed askew to the side. Leo’s star slanted forward. Perfect. 

I said nothing at first. I didn’t need to. Reese glanced up at me, eyes glassy in the reflected light, and I could tell she knew. 

It didn’t have to be loud. It didn’t have to make a statement, be for anyone, or make an impression. It didn’t have to be enough. It was something smaller. Something sacred in a way I couldn’t name, not in the ritual, but in what we lit between each other. 

A small candle. A big light. 

More than enough for tonight. 

Once the candles were low and the stars stowed away by the menorah, it was time to unwind into bedtime. Reese brought Leo upstairs for a diaper change and a lullaby. I sat in the rocking chair, Nik curled against my chest, tiny fists clutching my t-shirt as if I would disappear if he released me. His eyes were heavy but open, lashes splayed across soft cheeks, and he looked up at me with all of the answers apparently somewhere inside of me. 

I didn’t. But I could at least try. 

I grabbed one of the picture books from the basket at the foot of the rocker, reclining into the cushions with Nik in the bend of my elbow. It was thin and well-loved, well-read in a hundred elementary classrooms before I retired it to private service. On the cover was a gaggle of cartoony Maccabee boys in oversized sandals and superhero smiles, and a blazing oil lamp in the background. 

“Okay, kid,” I cooed, thumbing the cover open. “Time for a little story. No pressure, but this one’s important. Gotta have that legacy.” 

Nik blinked slowly at the pages, completely quiet. He watched intently as I read, voice hushed and monotone. It was a simple book, designed for early readers, full of art in primary colors and a watered-down retelling. The battle for the temple, the miracle of the oil, and the general message of standing up for what’s right. Nik probably didn’t understand any of it yet. He was probably just entranced by the scarlet robe on Judah Maccabee, or the golden gleam of the lamp. But I believed it didn’t matter. 

This was the thread. The beginning of a long, winding string of tradition that he and Leo would one day pass down to their own children. It wasn’t about learning the story right now. It was about feeling it, feeling us, feeling safe. 

“You come from brave people, Nik,” I whispered, tucking back his wispy curls from his forehead. “And kind people. You’ll learn the rest as you grow.” 

The bedroom door groaned open, and Reese walked in with Leo, changed and blinking up at her as if she suddenly remembered the world was around her. She smiled when she saw me in the rocking chair, still with a book open. 

“Your turn?” I queried. 

She nodded and crossed the room to trade babies, hands fluent in movement and accustomed to the tasks. I pushed myself out of the rocker as she nestled into her place, Leo now in my arms, her body warm and relaxed against my shoulder. 

She reached for a different book, The Polar Express, and as she opened it, something about her entire bearing seemed to soften. She didn’t read it like a story. She sang it like a secret. Her voice undulated and meandered, encasing each syllable with a sense of awe. And when she got to the line about believing, she stopped, just briefly, as if that part had more weight this time. 

I watched the way Nik’s tiny form quieted in her arms. The way her thumb absentmindedly traced circles across his back. 

Belief, I thought, wasn’t something you were taught. 

It was something you felt. 

The last page snapped shut under Reese’s hand. The room stilled. Nik’s eyes were already closed, long lashes dark commas against his cheeks. Leo emitted a huff-snuffle of mild protest before surrendering utterly to my shoulder with a soft, happy sigh. Reese pushed herself up from the rocker slowly, careful not to disturb Nik, and we worked in concert to tuck and fold each twin into their crib, our movements as silent as we could manage and our goodnights as soft as prayers. 

She paused an extra beat, running her fingers down Nik’s cheek. I smoothed the blanket over Leo’s chest and hit the power button on the white noise machine, a soothing simulation of ocean waves lapping over the sudden stillness like grace. Then we retreated from the nursery in step, dragging the door nearly closed behind us but not quite sealing off the room entirely. 

The house downstairs had quieted as well. Lights dimmed. Tree twinkling. A smattering of cookie crumbs on the counter from earlier, when Reese had attempted to replicate her mãe’s almond snowballs and cursed in Portuguese, French, and English when the dough kept crumbling to bits in her fingers. I’d kissed the flour off her cheek while she insisted that she was done trying to bake and would stick to law, leaving confections to Elijah. 

There was nothing left to do now. No dishes to clean. No guests to herd or traditions to get exactly right. Nothing. Just us. Just this. 

Reese collapsed on the couch with a long sigh of relief, kicking off her slippers and hauling the fleece throw over her knees. I slipped down into the chair beside her, sliding an arm around her shoulders as she folded into my side and the throw draped itself over both of us. The TV came on automatically, cycling to some nature documentary that neither of us had the attention for, but the narrator’s voice was soothing and slow, like an adult lullaby. 

She was asleep before the first commercial. 

I didn’t move. 

Her cheek pressed right against my chest, warm breath warm through the thin cotton of my shirt. Her hand came to rest lightly over my ribs, the way even in sleep she didn’t quite want to let go. I shifted just enough to rest my chin on top of her head and let my eyes drift shut halfway. 

The only sounds were the low buzz of the television, the occasional pop of the fireplace, and the slow, steady breaths of the woman I loved more than I ever thought I had any right to. 

The air smelled like pine and melted sugar, with a faint hint of vanilla from one of Reese’s candles she’d lit earlier and then snuffed out with two fingers. The lights from the tree cast lattices of light and shadow across the walls, off my brass menorah on the side table, and catching subtle glimmers of ribbon on the tree. 

There was no crescendo. No great moment. Just warmth. 

Just Reese. Breathing safe and steady beside me. 

And for the first time in years, I felt like maybe I could finally do that, too.

Chapter 8 - Reese

The doorbell jangled. Twice. Then again. Then came the knock that could only have been Ron Hunter. That man knocked like the house was rented from him. 

“Prepare yourself,” I hissed, leaning down as Don fiddled with Leo’s pacifier like a surgeon. 

“I am prepared,” he said, and it was a lie, but it was a lie laced with love, and something underneath that, and it was probably peace. That piece of mind that comes from finally letting go of old memories, from just leaning in to something so much worse, and louder, and better. 

I opened the door to a chorus of “Happy Hanukkah!” and “You weren’t answering your texts!” and “Where’s the wine?” Michael was first, tall and beaming with a still-sleeping Immanuel half-slumped against his shoulder. “You look good, Reese. Where can I put the baby?” 

“Living room’s fine,” I said, pulling away as Leah breezed in after him, cheeks pink from the cold. 

“Oh my god, it smells incredible in here. Caleb’s already eyeing your brisket like it owes him money.” 

Caleb was right behind her, laughing and holding up a foil container. “I brought kugel. Don’t let him stick this in the ‘polite bites only’ pile.” 

“Depends,” Don called from the kitchen. “Did you actually follow the recipe this time?” 

“Define ‘follow.’” 

They came in, all of them, swarming. Donna in glittery tights and Elizabeth Taylor sunglasses, way too dramatic to be thirteen. Andrew immediately tripped over his own boots and crashed face-first into the coat rack. Jessica, shrieking with excitement at the menorah arrangements and Robert stomping in to announce, very loudly, that he needed to pee “right now or I’ll explode.” 

I led him toward the bathroom and came back just in time to watch Jordan walk in. 

We made eye contact. It wasn’t uncomfortable. Not like it had been. 

“Hey,” I said, smiling as I took his coat. 

“Hey,” he replied, eyes softening. “You look good.” 

“Thanks. So do you.” 

Elaine was behind him, dragging along baby Griffin, who was chewing on a rubber giraffe, both of them in matching cable-knit sweaters. I helped her get Griffin’s little puffer jacket off, and she handed me a tin of homemade cookies she’d decorated herself. 

Ron swallowed me up in a bear hug that smelled like peppermint schnapps and aftershave. He didn’t let go for a long moment. “You gave me my son back,” he whispered. 

My heart clenched. “He came back on his own. I just got lucky.” 

“No,” he said, voice low and certain. “You made this home worth coming back to.” 

Ela came in next, and the tears. She saw the twins, both in tiny blue onesies with silver dreidels embroidered on the front, and let out a series of quiet sobs. 

“My sweet babies,” she whispered, scooping Nik up with surprising grace. “My precious, precious babies.” 

I looked at Don. He was looking at me, eyes glassy, the way he tried not to let them be. The room was noisy, the couch was full, and someone had just asked where the backup wine opener was. It was loud, unruly, and far from perfect. 

But it was ours. 

And I loved it more than I ever thought I could. 

Dinner was noisy in that way only big family meals could manage. Plates clinked. Someone laughed too hard at a joke that wasn’t that funny. A kid dropped a fork and declared it like it was a disaster. The table was full of elbows and overlapping conversations, and I kept bouncing Leo on my hip while Don bounced Nik gently beside me, both of us now on autopilot. 

We’d done the song-and-dance of who sits where twice before it finally clicked into place. Kids at one end of the table. Adults at the other. Ron at the head like a kind grandfather with a kingdom to survey. Wine glasses were already half-empty, even though we hadn’t even started eating. 

It was Connie who said it. 

She leaned back in her chair, fork halfway to her mouth, eyes surveying the table, the menorahs in view from the doorway mingling in the glow of the tree behind us. She sounded light, almost teasing. 

“I’ll be honest,” she said, her gaze flicking to me with a crooked smile. “I didn’t think you had it in you to make Christmas and Hanukkah work together.” 

The table fell quiet in that split-second way that made my stomach clench. 

“But damn,” she added, cutting it off before it got too heavy. She lifted her glass. “You made it look easy.” 

I blinked. 

Easy. 

I thought of all the spreadsheets I never told anyone about. Of the late-night talks with Don about what was most important and what was negotiable. The fear that we’d get it wrong. Of disappointing someone. Of being told, again, that I just wasn’t enough. 

Easy wasn’t the word I would’ve chosen. 

But Connie wasn’t wrong in the way that mattered. 

“It wasn’t,” I said, because that was the truth. My voice came out even. “But it was worth it.” 

She nodded, like she understood exactly what I meant. 

Conversation resumed after that. Someone asked for more potatoes. Andrew tried to convince his cousins that gelt was totally a dinner entree. Elaine laughed while Griffin smeared sweet potato across his tray with ferocious determination. 

I studied Don’s parents across the table. Ela was still wiping away tears with a napkin every few minutes and smiling through them. Ron was leaning back in his chair, hands folded over his belly, looking content in a way that I knew he had fought hard to feel. 

And then he stood. 

The scrape of a chair on the floor was all it took to break through the din. He picked up his fork and tapped it against his glass, once, twice, until the table had fallen quiet. 

“I’m not a man for speeches,” Ron said, which was met with a collective snort from his sons. “But this feels like one of those nights where you don’t let the moment pass.” 

He looked around the table, lingering on the kids, on Don, on me. 

“I don’t know what miracle brought all this under one roof,” he said, his voice going thick just a little. “But I’m damn grateful for it.” 

He raised his glass. “To family. To second chances. And to finding your way back to each other.” 

They all echoed the toast, glasses clinking. Someone whooped, and something inside me finally loosened. 

I hadn’t even realized I was holding that breath. 

For the first time since this whole season started, I stopped worrying about being accepted. I wasn’t being judged, measured, or tolerated. 

I was already there. 

Right where I belonged.

After dinner, the ruckus relocated from the table to the living room. Coats were tossed, wine poured, toys excavated from the otherwise baby-free playpen area. Somehow, without anyone expressly making a motion, the entire clan drifted to the front parlor. 

The menorahs were already set out on the sideboard. Ours. The twins’. The three travel versions Don’s brothers had declared they couldn’t possibly attend a Chanukah party without them, even though no one had thought to bring matches. We had more candles than the local hospital had on standby for a disaster. 

I carried Nik, who was somewhere between gurgling and half-asleep, his cheek warm against my collarbone. Don lifted Leo out of the bouncer and pressed a kiss to her temple as the baby squirmed with a delighted gurgle. 

“It’s the last night,” Don said quietly, next to my ear. 

I nodded, my throat a little tight. 

It had gone by so quickly. 

Don’s mom circulated the candles, and Ron took charge of setting each one in place, a kind of reverence I hadn’t expected from the man who used to yell at the TV when his football team played like it was his personal bank account. The twins’ DIY felt stars remained on the sideboard, a bit askew but shining like beacons in the candlelight. 

And then the room hushed. 

Not perfectly, not with a gaggle of children, so there were still soft sniffles and one corner of the hall where a cousin was erupting in giggles, but close. Close enough to notice the change. 

We inched closer. 

I held Nik tighter as the first match sparked. Don sang the prayer quietly, and the Hebrew was warm on his tongue. The others murmured along, some warbling off-key, some muttering their way through parts they didn’t remember. I didn’t know all of it, but I hummed what I did and let Don’s voice blanket the room. 

He caught my eye as the final shamash candle touched the wick of the eighth light. And for a few breath-stealing moments, nothing else mattered. 

The room, the clutter, the noise, the looming concerns about what would happen next. 

None of it. 

Just this. 

Our babies blinking in the glow. Family voices humming behind us. Candlelight winking in the glass and glinting off the corners of eyes. Phones being raised to document the whole thing. Not to share with the world, but to archive. Because someone would want to remember the way Griffin toddled across the room, a drooly dreidel in his fist. Or the way Donna sniffled when Ela kissed her cheek. 

And I knew, with a heart-wrenching certainty, that this was the image I would carry. 

When the babies got sick. When Don had to work late again. When the nagging whispers in the back of my head got too loud. 

This. 

Nik’s small hand pressed against my chest. 

Don’s eyes locked with mine. 

The gentle heat of a hundred tiny flames finding its echo in the space between us. 

This wasn’t just a holiday. It wasn’t even just a tradition. 

It was evidence. 

That we’d made it. 

That messy, chaotic, glorious love had a place in this house. In this family. 

And here we were, in the middle of it, bathed in candlelight, surrounded by the kind of magic you didn’t have to understand to believe in. 

The last of the wax puddles had long since cooled to nothing, their light only a memory now, a burnished reflection on the menorah’s shining arms. Wrapping paper was strewn in bins. Folding chairs we’d borrowed from friends leaned expectantly against the wall. Somewhere upstairs, the sleepy white noise of the baby monitor kept time like a lullaby. 

The house was quiet again. 

Empty. 

And for the first time all night, it was just us. 

I snuggled into Don’s side on the couch, both of us barefoot and bone tired and so full of love it nearly ached to contain. The fire in the fireplace had been banked low, popping lazy embers, flaring and falling like fiery sparks shooting from a comet on its way out, rather than in. Don pulled the fleece blanket over both our legs, and I sighed for the first time that night that felt like a real sigh, given in gratitude and not exhaustion. 

There was cleanup to be done. Toys to be swept up. Wax on the tablecloth I hadn’t noticed until it was too late.

But it didn’t matter. 

Don pressed a kiss to the top of my head, silent, and I closed my eyes for a minute, just listening to the quiet, to the sound of our house breathing in tandem with the dying fire. 

“I don’t know what I thought today was going to feel like,” I said, voice low, in a room that needed no volume. “But I don’t know that I thought… this.” 

Don looked down at me. “This?” 

“This steady. This seen. I’ve never felt more like me, and more like… held.” I blinked. Fast. “It’s just going to sound so cheesy.” 

Don shrugged. “It is a cheesy night.” 

I laughed quietly then, turned my head a little so I could look up at him. “You know what I mean, though, right?” 

“I do,” he said, and he brushed my cheek with the back of his hand. “And Reese? This isn’t the end of anything.” 

He paused there, eyes still on me. 

“It’s just the first chapter of forever.” 

The tears came again then, but I didn’t care. Let them. I let them rest there in the corners of my eyes, bright and alive because this was a night full of feeling. Full of hope. 

We got up eventually, Don banked the fire, and I folded the blanket and tucked it over the couch arm. Our fingers found each other without either of us having to think. No need to rush. No need for noise. Just the quiet of a house that had bled love from every angle that day. 

We walked slowly, our steps in sync, padding our way upstairs as if we were both afraid to break the spell. 

Not because it would end. 

But because it finally felt real. 

At the top of the stairs, I turned for a second, still, and saw the pinprick glint of gold ribbon caught from the corner of a basket. The silhouettes of the menorahs on the sideboard. The way this holiday had claimed every inch of our home. 

Don squeezed my hand. 

And I smiled. 

Because we were here. Both of us. At the beginning of something that would outlast candles and seasons and even chaos.

Happy Hanukkah. חנוכה שמח 

From our home to yours—may your light burn bright, and your forever be full. We hope you enjoyed the season we built.