Fic: "A Halpert Family Christmas" (The Office, P/J)
“A Halpert Family Christmas”
By: Bella Lumina
Fandom/Pairing: The Office, Pam/Jim
Rating: PG
Canon: Up to and including “A Benihana Christmas”
Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit gained.
Thanks: to austin360 and carrielh for being awesome betas!
Summary: Good, clean holiday fluff -- Jim, Pam, lots of Halperts, and a baby on the way...
As the gravel of Jim’s parents’ driveway crunched under her shoes, Pam couldn’t help but be excited and nervous all at once. She paused and leaned against the car, squinting against the bright yellow lights strung through the garland on the porch.
“You okay?” Jim asked, ducking out from the backseat. He stacked two plastic containers of cookies, cupcakes, and brownies - Pam had craved sugar and sweets just a little bit over the previous two days - on the top of the car and reached back inside to grab the shopping bags full of presents.
Her hand went instinctively under the folds of her coat to the swell of her belly; she rubbed slow circles over the taut skin. The silky fabric of her shirt was cool against her palm, and she closed her eyes when she felt the baby’s tentative kick against her fingers. She was so absorbed that she barely noticed Jim moving beside her. “Seriously, you okay?”
“Hm?” she asked, reaching for two of the dessert containers that he was juggling. “I’m fine.”
“You look like you’re a million miles away,” he observed.
She frowned. “Everybody’s going to be staring at me.”
His brow furrowed in confusion, and she reached up to kiss him on the cheek. “I think I’m being moody,” she said. “It’s going to be weird getting all of the attention this year because of…” She shrugged and nodded toward her abdomen.
“Ah,” he replied, switching the bags to one hand and resting the other against the small of her back. “It’s cool, I’ll do all the talking. You just sit there and look pretty.”
“Pretty bloated. Pretty swollen. Pretty large.”
“Pretty delusional,” he added. “You’re gorgeous, and you know it.”
She sighed and started toward the house. “You don’t believe me?” he asked as he followed behind. “I’ll prove it to you later!”
“Oh, yeah?” she asked, tossing a grin over her shoulder at him. “How exactly are you going to do that?”
He pressed himself close to her as they reached the front door. “Well, let’s just say that Santa’s going to have some very big packages in his sleigh for you toni-”
The wreath on the front door clattered noisily as it swung open to reveal the entire Halpert clan in the foyer. “I thought we heard voices,” Jim’s father said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Come on in where it’s warm.”
Jim’s four-year-old niece, Maggie, stood staring at them in awe. Bouncing excitedly, she questioned, “Uncle Jim, what package is Santa going to bring Aunt Pam?”
Jim’s mouth dropped open ever so slightly, and Pam knew that they were both bright red.
“Um. Merry Christmas, everybody!”
***
“John drove the boys to visit their mother in Virginia, so he’s not going to be back until early tomorrow morning,” Larissa Halpert explained as she held court over a small audience in her kitchen. The room was small but warm; they had refinished the cabinets and repainted since last year. Maggie’s artwork adorned the refrigerator, and there was a little fiber-optic Christmas tree next to the sink. “And Amy had to work late at the hospital, but she’s going to be back before the program.” She paused and skeptically eyed Pam, who was leaning against the refrigerator. “Jim, you’re too busy to find your wife a chair?”
“Oh, my back usually feels better when I’m standing,” Pam replied quickly, but Jim shook his head and held up a hand.
“She’s right, she’s right,” he said around the candy cane he’d popped into his mouth a few minutes beforehand. “I’ll steal one from the dining room.” He stood and ambled out of the kitchen, giving Pam a stealthy wink before ducking around the corner.
This was the part Pam was nervous about. Everyone in Jim’s family was really nice and had quickly accepted her as just another one of the bunch. But her mother-in-law was still a bit of a wild card at times. She was kind, but Pam knew that she was also at times demanding and skeptical. And Jim, her baby, was her pride and joy, and Pam guessed that maybe there was an element of weirdness because Pam had taken her place as the most important woman in Jim’s life. Mostly, she had realized over the last few years that while the Halperts were great, she didn’t feel truly comfortable around them unless she had Jim with her. She’d often wondered if it would be easier once the baby was born, and she’d no longer be the new person in the house.
“Good,” Larissa said, clapping her hands together softly. “He’ll get distracted at least twice before he can find one. Now we can actually talk about things.”
“Things?” Pam’s eyes grew wide as saucers.
Larissa shook her head and smiled. “My grandchild.”
Pam nodded and pressed a hand against her belly. “Ah, I see.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Um, mostly okay lately. It moves around a lot, so it’s getting a little hard to sleep. And I feel like a whale.”
“Nonsense,” her mother-in-law admonished. “You look just the same.”
Great. “Um, thanks.”
Larissa smiled. “Do you know what it’s going to be yet?”
Pam frowned. “Besides a baby?”
“A boy or a girl.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, smiling and shaking her head. “Sorry. No, we decided that we want to be surprised.”
Jim’s mother nodded sagely. “That’s a good thing. We obviously didn’t have the option when we had the kids, but I’m glad. It was nice to be surprised. Especially with Jim, who was a big surprise in and of himself … but that’s something else. Anyway, Amy wanted to know with Maggie, so it was nice to be able to buy her all of the pink and the teddy bears and the ballerinas beforehand, but it’ll be exciting to try to find things that could work for either baby, don’t you think?”
“Uh. Yeah.”
Jim reappeared, hefting a wooden chair. “Sorry. Dad wanted to show me something.”
“That’s fine, honey,” Larissa said. “You should try to stay off your feet, dear.”
Pam nodded as she lowered herself carefully into the chair. Jim took up her previous leaning spot. “What are you bugging her about now, Mom?”
“I am not bugging her,” Larissa replied indignantly. “We were talking about the baby.”
“Ah,” Jim said, inspecting the point he had made on the end of the candy cane. “Oh, we brought you pictures from the last sonogram.” He opened up his wallet and pulled out a creased piece of paper.
“You’re at twenty-five weeks, right?” Larissa took it eagerly. “Did the doctor tell you how big the baby is?”
“They said about a pound and a half,” Pam interjected as Larissa inspected the picture carefully.
“Good,” she said. “The last thing you want is to end up with an enormous Halpert baby.”
Pam’s panicked eyes flew to Jim’s face, which was wrinkled in amused confusion. “Mom, ‘an enormous Halpert baby’?”
Absorbed in the picture, she held up a hand. “Just … okay, what?”
“Is this some kind of urban legend I never heard about … the ‘enormous Halpert baby’?”
“You weighed ten pounds, three ounces when you were born.”
Pam’s face dropped. “Ten pounds?”
Larissa nodded. “And three ounces.”
“But wait,” Pam said, gripping the seat of the chair. “Each baby is supposed to be bigger than the last, right? So John probably didn’t weigh nearly that much.”
“Nine pounds, twelve ounces.”
“I think I’m going to die,” Pam whispered.
***
St. Michael’s was already packed with church-goers by the time the Halpert family caravan showed up. Larissa shepherded Maggie, resplendently attired in her angel costume, to the Sunday school room to prepare for her big moment.
Jim craned his neck to find his sister and brother-in-law amid the crowd, finally nodding and urging Pam forward with a hand on her back. “About ten rows up on the right,” he explained, lacing his fingers through hers. Just being in such close proximity to him made her feel that much calmer.
Pam smiled apologetically at the couple who had to get up and move so that they could slide in beside Amy and Matt. “Sorry,” she murmured several times, wincing as she tried to squeeze through the tight space.
“Sorry,” Jim echoed. “This was a lot easier before she started strapping that beach ball under her shirts…”
“Don’t make me slug you in a house of worship,” Pam hissed as they finally made it to their seats. “Hi, Amy.”
“Oh, my goodness, you’re getting so big!” Amy exclaimed, reaching an arm around Pam’s shoulders to give her a quick hug. “How are you guys?”
“Good,” Pam said. “Maggie looks really cute.”
“She’s been practicing for weeks. She wanted to wear her halo to pre-school last week, but Matt fed her some story about how angels had to be invisible in the regular world.”
“Nice,” Pam grinned.
Jim leaned forward. “By the way, my name is Jim. Not sure we’ve met, but I’ve heard rumors that we might be siblings…”
“Shut up,” Amy said, reaching around and swatting him on the shoulder. “Fine. How are you, Jim?”
“See, now it’s not genuine, so I’m not interested. Also, please remember to tell Father Lawrence that you hit me and told me to shut up in church during your next confession…”
“Sometimes,” Amy mused, rolling her eyes, “it’s like no time has passed at all.”
The lights dimmed, and the youngest children began to toddle toward the nativity scene near the front of the church. Jim rested an arm on the back of the pew behind Pam, and she scooted closer so that she could rest her head against his shoulder. “Sleepy?” he whispered.
“Nah,” she replied softly, smiling as he rested a large hand on the swell of her belly. “The Enormous Halpert Baby is kicking like crazy.”
He grinned at her. “I feel it,” he murmured. “Maybe the baby knows it’s Christmas.”
Pam grinned and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. He smelled like soap and cologne, with just a hint of incense clinging to his sweater. “I hope so.”
***
“Okay, Maggie, your mom said we should look for the candy cane pajamas in your suitcase,” Pam said, one hand on the small of her back and the other on her forehead as she surveyed the room. “Can you maybe try to dig those out for me?”
Maggie bounced and bounced on top of the bed. “Aunt Pam, aren’t you excited? It’s almost time for Santa!”
“While that is true,” Pam said, “and you should be excited, you do realize that there’s only one way that Santa’s coming down the chimney, right?”
Maggie stilled for a moment. “Huh?”
Pam sighed and sat heavily on the bed, her head falling into her hands. “Santa won’t come until you go to sleep. It’s the rule.”
“What about Mommy and Daddy and Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Jim?” Maggie asked, her little face scrunching up in confusion. “Santa won’t come until they go to sleep, either?”
“Right. But they’ll get home a long time before Santa comes, so don’t worry about that.” Pam had volunteered to put Maggie to bed while the rest of the family went back to church for midnight mass. It had only been a little bit selfless, though, because Pam’s whole body ached, and she felt like she could fall asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. Maybe sooner, if Maggie didn’t hurry up and get tired.
She felt a little hand on her arm. “Aunt Pam, are you okay?”
“Hm?” Pam replied, lifting her head. Maggie had scooted up close to her on the bed and was looking up at her with concerned eyes.
“You look sad.”
Pam mustered a smile. “I’m just exhausted, Maggie. The baby makes me really tired.”
Maggie frowned. “Does it kick you a lot?”
“Mm-hm. I think it’s a dancer. Or a soccer player.”
“Can I touch it?” Maggie whispered tentatively.
Pam nodded. “Here, give me your hand.” Maggie obliged, and Pam pressed her palm gently over the roundest part of her stomach. “I don’t know if you can feel it kick … it’s been kind of quiet for a little bit.”
“The baby is going to be my cousin?” Maggie asked as she gently stroked her little fingers over Pam’s belly.
“That’s right. Next Christmas the baby will be here.”
“The baby will have to go to bed so that Santa will come, too.”
“Definitely. And Uncle Jim will have to make sure she doesn’t cry too much during the night and scare the reindeer away.”
“Good idea.” Maggie yawned. “Aunt Pam, where did the baby come from?”
“What?”
Maggie lay back on the bed and curled up in a little ball. “The baby in your tummy. Where did it come from?”
Pam’s eyes widened. “Um, well…”
“Because if the baby belongs to you and Uncle Jim, why is it just inside of you? How did it get there?”
“Wow. Well, okay, first off…”
***
Without warning, Pam’s little cocoon of blankets was cruelly pulled away from her, and a pair of freezing cold feet intruded on her warm haven. “Wha-” she asked incoherently, rubbing at her eyes.
“Sorry,” Jim murmured, wrapping the blankets back around their bodies and snuggling up against her.
“You’re cold!” she protested. “Why are you so cold?”
“It’s snowing again,” he said. “My shoes got kind of wet.”
She shivered. “Well, warm up already.”
He chuckled. “I’m trying, I’m trying…”
Yawning sleepily, she asked, “How was mass?”
“It was nice. It was nicer last year when I got to share my candle with you, but my mom was an okay substitute, I guess.” He buried his nose in her hair. “Did Maggie put up a good fight before she went to sleep?”
“Um. Well, I may or may not have accidentally told her where babies come from. Other than that, no problems.”
Jim pulled back just enough so that he could see her face. “Oh, my God, Beesley, you’re kidding me. I leave you alone with the kid for two hours…”
“Hey, she asked, okay? She is very persistent.”
“It runs in the Halpert family.”
“Oh, so along with the enormous babies, I have to deal with that? Great.” She huffed a little, then turned to him with pleading eyes. “How much is your sister going to hate me?”
“That depends,” Jim replied, gathering her back into his arms. “How anatomically detailed was your answer?”
“Oh, my God.”
***
“Santa came!”
“Huh?” her husband replied in his sleepy haze.
She felt a quick chill as he pulled back the covers and tucked them back around her. “Santa came, Uncle Jim!” Maggie’s excited whisper was so strained that Pam could tell that she was barely holding back from screeching.
“Come on, let’s let Aunt Pam sleep a little longer.” She was grateful. She’d barely slept at all, plagued by her constant back pain, a leg cramp that brought her to tears before Jim could massage it away, and the unfamiliar bed. Even so, she knew that if she really let herself get back to sleep, she’d miss Christmas morning entirely. She pulled her protesting body up out of bed, grabbing one of the blankets and wrapping it around her shoulders.
The entire Halpert clan was gathered around the Christmas tree. Jim’s older brother, John - whose facial expressions were so identical to Jim’s that it was more than a little disconcerting - had obviously returned at some point during the night; he was helping Maggie divvy out the presents. Jim was sitting beside his father, who let out an impressive yawn and earned a jab in the ribs from his wife. Pam padded over to the tree, dragging the blanket behind her.
“Hey, look, someone decided to join us,” Jim said, smiling at her over his shoulder.
“Funny,” she replied. “Merry Christmas, everyone.”
They all smiled and murmured similar greetings in return. Moving around the pile of presents Jim had stacked beside his spot on the floor, she nudged her way into his lap and wrapped the blanket around both of them. “Your back any better?” Jim asked softly, pressing a gentle kiss to her temple.
“It’s Christmas,” she replied with a soft smile. “I’m good.”
She was rewarded with one of her favorite Jim smiles - the slow one that gradually lit up his entire face, the one that she was pretty sure was just for her. “Good.”
For a moment, she let herself think about how differently her life had turned out than she imagined it would. Ten years ago, she could never have dreamed that she’d be as happy as she was now. Sure, she had never been miserable, but she’d always felt a little unsettled. And she’d definitely never been as radiantly happy as she was at that moment, nestled in her husband’s arms on Christmas morning with their baby doing enthusiastic cartwheels inside her belly. Really, everything was pretty perfect.
“Uncle Jim,” Maggie exclaimed, holding up a box wrapped in shiny gold paper, “is this the special package that you were going to give Aunt Pam for Christmas?”
Anyway, pretty close to perfect.
THE END
By: Bella Lumina
Fandom/Pairing: The Office, Pam/Jim
Rating: PG
Canon: Up to and including “A Benihana Christmas”
Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit gained.
Thanks: to austin360 and carrielh for being awesome betas!
Summary: Good, clean holiday fluff -- Jim, Pam, lots of Halperts, and a baby on the way...
As the gravel of Jim’s parents’ driveway crunched under her shoes, Pam couldn’t help but be excited and nervous all at once. She paused and leaned against the car, squinting against the bright yellow lights strung through the garland on the porch.
“You okay?” Jim asked, ducking out from the backseat. He stacked two plastic containers of cookies, cupcakes, and brownies - Pam had craved sugar and sweets just a little bit over the previous two days - on the top of the car and reached back inside to grab the shopping bags full of presents.
Her hand went instinctively under the folds of her coat to the swell of her belly; she rubbed slow circles over the taut skin. The silky fabric of her shirt was cool against her palm, and she closed her eyes when she felt the baby’s tentative kick against her fingers. She was so absorbed that she barely noticed Jim moving beside her. “Seriously, you okay?”
“Hm?” she asked, reaching for two of the dessert containers that he was juggling. “I’m fine.”
“You look like you’re a million miles away,” he observed.
She frowned. “Everybody’s going to be staring at me.”
His brow furrowed in confusion, and she reached up to kiss him on the cheek. “I think I’m being moody,” she said. “It’s going to be weird getting all of the attention this year because of…” She shrugged and nodded toward her abdomen.
“Ah,” he replied, switching the bags to one hand and resting the other against the small of her back. “It’s cool, I’ll do all the talking. You just sit there and look pretty.”
“Pretty bloated. Pretty swollen. Pretty large.”
“Pretty delusional,” he added. “You’re gorgeous, and you know it.”
She sighed and started toward the house. “You don’t believe me?” he asked as he followed behind. “I’ll prove it to you later!”
“Oh, yeah?” she asked, tossing a grin over her shoulder at him. “How exactly are you going to do that?”
He pressed himself close to her as they reached the front door. “Well, let’s just say that Santa’s going to have some very big packages in his sleigh for you toni-”
The wreath on the front door clattered noisily as it swung open to reveal the entire Halpert clan in the foyer. “I thought we heard voices,” Jim’s father said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Come on in where it’s warm.”
Jim’s four-year-old niece, Maggie, stood staring at them in awe. Bouncing excitedly, she questioned, “Uncle Jim, what package is Santa going to bring Aunt Pam?”
Jim’s mouth dropped open ever so slightly, and Pam knew that they were both bright red.
“Um. Merry Christmas, everybody!”
***
“John drove the boys to visit their mother in Virginia, so he’s not going to be back until early tomorrow morning,” Larissa Halpert explained as she held court over a small audience in her kitchen. The room was small but warm; they had refinished the cabinets and repainted since last year. Maggie’s artwork adorned the refrigerator, and there was a little fiber-optic Christmas tree next to the sink. “And Amy had to work late at the hospital, but she’s going to be back before the program.” She paused and skeptically eyed Pam, who was leaning against the refrigerator. “Jim, you’re too busy to find your wife a chair?”
“Oh, my back usually feels better when I’m standing,” Pam replied quickly, but Jim shook his head and held up a hand.
“She’s right, she’s right,” he said around the candy cane he’d popped into his mouth a few minutes beforehand. “I’ll steal one from the dining room.” He stood and ambled out of the kitchen, giving Pam a stealthy wink before ducking around the corner.
This was the part Pam was nervous about. Everyone in Jim’s family was really nice and had quickly accepted her as just another one of the bunch. But her mother-in-law was still a bit of a wild card at times. She was kind, but Pam knew that she was also at times demanding and skeptical. And Jim, her baby, was her pride and joy, and Pam guessed that maybe there was an element of weirdness because Pam had taken her place as the most important woman in Jim’s life. Mostly, she had realized over the last few years that while the Halperts were great, she didn’t feel truly comfortable around them unless she had Jim with her. She’d often wondered if it would be easier once the baby was born, and she’d no longer be the new person in the house.
“Good,” Larissa said, clapping her hands together softly. “He’ll get distracted at least twice before he can find one. Now we can actually talk about things.”
“Things?” Pam’s eyes grew wide as saucers.
Larissa shook her head and smiled. “My grandchild.”
Pam nodded and pressed a hand against her belly. “Ah, I see.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Um, mostly okay lately. It moves around a lot, so it’s getting a little hard to sleep. And I feel like a whale.”
“Nonsense,” her mother-in-law admonished. “You look just the same.”
Great. “Um, thanks.”
Larissa smiled. “Do you know what it’s going to be yet?”
Pam frowned. “Besides a baby?”
“A boy or a girl.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, smiling and shaking her head. “Sorry. No, we decided that we want to be surprised.”
Jim’s mother nodded sagely. “That’s a good thing. We obviously didn’t have the option when we had the kids, but I’m glad. It was nice to be surprised. Especially with Jim, who was a big surprise in and of himself … but that’s something else. Anyway, Amy wanted to know with Maggie, so it was nice to be able to buy her all of the pink and the teddy bears and the ballerinas beforehand, but it’ll be exciting to try to find things that could work for either baby, don’t you think?”
“Uh. Yeah.”
Jim reappeared, hefting a wooden chair. “Sorry. Dad wanted to show me something.”
“That’s fine, honey,” Larissa said. “You should try to stay off your feet, dear.”
Pam nodded as she lowered herself carefully into the chair. Jim took up her previous leaning spot. “What are you bugging her about now, Mom?”
“I am not bugging her,” Larissa replied indignantly. “We were talking about the baby.”
“Ah,” Jim said, inspecting the point he had made on the end of the candy cane. “Oh, we brought you pictures from the last sonogram.” He opened up his wallet and pulled out a creased piece of paper.
“You’re at twenty-five weeks, right?” Larissa took it eagerly. “Did the doctor tell you how big the baby is?”
“They said about a pound and a half,” Pam interjected as Larissa inspected the picture carefully.
“Good,” she said. “The last thing you want is to end up with an enormous Halpert baby.”
Pam’s panicked eyes flew to Jim’s face, which was wrinkled in amused confusion. “Mom, ‘an enormous Halpert baby’?”
Absorbed in the picture, she held up a hand. “Just … okay, what?”
“Is this some kind of urban legend I never heard about … the ‘enormous Halpert baby’?”
“You weighed ten pounds, three ounces when you were born.”
Pam’s face dropped. “Ten pounds?”
Larissa nodded. “And three ounces.”
“But wait,” Pam said, gripping the seat of the chair. “Each baby is supposed to be bigger than the last, right? So John probably didn’t weigh nearly that much.”
“Nine pounds, twelve ounces.”
“I think I’m going to die,” Pam whispered.
***
St. Michael’s was already packed with church-goers by the time the Halpert family caravan showed up. Larissa shepherded Maggie, resplendently attired in her angel costume, to the Sunday school room to prepare for her big moment.
Jim craned his neck to find his sister and brother-in-law amid the crowd, finally nodding and urging Pam forward with a hand on her back. “About ten rows up on the right,” he explained, lacing his fingers through hers. Just being in such close proximity to him made her feel that much calmer.
Pam smiled apologetically at the couple who had to get up and move so that they could slide in beside Amy and Matt. “Sorry,” she murmured several times, wincing as she tried to squeeze through the tight space.
“Sorry,” Jim echoed. “This was a lot easier before she started strapping that beach ball under her shirts…”
“Don’t make me slug you in a house of worship,” Pam hissed as they finally made it to their seats. “Hi, Amy.”
“Oh, my goodness, you’re getting so big!” Amy exclaimed, reaching an arm around Pam’s shoulders to give her a quick hug. “How are you guys?”
“Good,” Pam said. “Maggie looks really cute.”
“She’s been practicing for weeks. She wanted to wear her halo to pre-school last week, but Matt fed her some story about how angels had to be invisible in the regular world.”
“Nice,” Pam grinned.
Jim leaned forward. “By the way, my name is Jim. Not sure we’ve met, but I’ve heard rumors that we might be siblings…”
“Shut up,” Amy said, reaching around and swatting him on the shoulder. “Fine. How are you, Jim?”
“See, now it’s not genuine, so I’m not interested. Also, please remember to tell Father Lawrence that you hit me and told me to shut up in church during your next confession…”
“Sometimes,” Amy mused, rolling her eyes, “it’s like no time has passed at all.”
The lights dimmed, and the youngest children began to toddle toward the nativity scene near the front of the church. Jim rested an arm on the back of the pew behind Pam, and she scooted closer so that she could rest her head against his shoulder. “Sleepy?” he whispered.
“Nah,” she replied softly, smiling as he rested a large hand on the swell of her belly. “The Enormous Halpert Baby is kicking like crazy.”
He grinned at her. “I feel it,” he murmured. “Maybe the baby knows it’s Christmas.”
Pam grinned and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. He smelled like soap and cologne, with just a hint of incense clinging to his sweater. “I hope so.”
***
“Okay, Maggie, your mom said we should look for the candy cane pajamas in your suitcase,” Pam said, one hand on the small of her back and the other on her forehead as she surveyed the room. “Can you maybe try to dig those out for me?”
Maggie bounced and bounced on top of the bed. “Aunt Pam, aren’t you excited? It’s almost time for Santa!”
“While that is true,” Pam said, “and you should be excited, you do realize that there’s only one way that Santa’s coming down the chimney, right?”
Maggie stilled for a moment. “Huh?”
Pam sighed and sat heavily on the bed, her head falling into her hands. “Santa won’t come until you go to sleep. It’s the rule.”
“What about Mommy and Daddy and Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Jim?” Maggie asked, her little face scrunching up in confusion. “Santa won’t come until they go to sleep, either?”
“Right. But they’ll get home a long time before Santa comes, so don’t worry about that.” Pam had volunteered to put Maggie to bed while the rest of the family went back to church for midnight mass. It had only been a little bit selfless, though, because Pam’s whole body ached, and she felt like she could fall asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. Maybe sooner, if Maggie didn’t hurry up and get tired.
She felt a little hand on her arm. “Aunt Pam, are you okay?”
“Hm?” Pam replied, lifting her head. Maggie had scooted up close to her on the bed and was looking up at her with concerned eyes.
“You look sad.”
Pam mustered a smile. “I’m just exhausted, Maggie. The baby makes me really tired.”
Maggie frowned. “Does it kick you a lot?”
“Mm-hm. I think it’s a dancer. Or a soccer player.”
“Can I touch it?” Maggie whispered tentatively.
Pam nodded. “Here, give me your hand.” Maggie obliged, and Pam pressed her palm gently over the roundest part of her stomach. “I don’t know if you can feel it kick … it’s been kind of quiet for a little bit.”
“The baby is going to be my cousin?” Maggie asked as she gently stroked her little fingers over Pam’s belly.
“That’s right. Next Christmas the baby will be here.”
“The baby will have to go to bed so that Santa will come, too.”
“Definitely. And Uncle Jim will have to make sure she doesn’t cry too much during the night and scare the reindeer away.”
“Good idea.” Maggie yawned. “Aunt Pam, where did the baby come from?”
“What?”
Maggie lay back on the bed and curled up in a little ball. “The baby in your tummy. Where did it come from?”
Pam’s eyes widened. “Um, well…”
“Because if the baby belongs to you and Uncle Jim, why is it just inside of you? How did it get there?”
“Wow. Well, okay, first off…”
***
Without warning, Pam’s little cocoon of blankets was cruelly pulled away from her, and a pair of freezing cold feet intruded on her warm haven. “Wha-” she asked incoherently, rubbing at her eyes.
“Sorry,” Jim murmured, wrapping the blankets back around their bodies and snuggling up against her.
“You’re cold!” she protested. “Why are you so cold?”
“It’s snowing again,” he said. “My shoes got kind of wet.”
She shivered. “Well, warm up already.”
He chuckled. “I’m trying, I’m trying…”
Yawning sleepily, she asked, “How was mass?”
“It was nice. It was nicer last year when I got to share my candle with you, but my mom was an okay substitute, I guess.” He buried his nose in her hair. “Did Maggie put up a good fight before she went to sleep?”
“Um. Well, I may or may not have accidentally told her where babies come from. Other than that, no problems.”
Jim pulled back just enough so that he could see her face. “Oh, my God, Beesley, you’re kidding me. I leave you alone with the kid for two hours…”
“Hey, she asked, okay? She is very persistent.”
“It runs in the Halpert family.”
“Oh, so along with the enormous babies, I have to deal with that? Great.” She huffed a little, then turned to him with pleading eyes. “How much is your sister going to hate me?”
“That depends,” Jim replied, gathering her back into his arms. “How anatomically detailed was your answer?”
“Oh, my God.”
***
“Santa came!”
“Huh?” her husband replied in his sleepy haze.
She felt a quick chill as he pulled back the covers and tucked them back around her. “Santa came, Uncle Jim!” Maggie’s excited whisper was so strained that Pam could tell that she was barely holding back from screeching.
“Come on, let’s let Aunt Pam sleep a little longer.” She was grateful. She’d barely slept at all, plagued by her constant back pain, a leg cramp that brought her to tears before Jim could massage it away, and the unfamiliar bed. Even so, she knew that if she really let herself get back to sleep, she’d miss Christmas morning entirely. She pulled her protesting body up out of bed, grabbing one of the blankets and wrapping it around her shoulders.
The entire Halpert clan was gathered around the Christmas tree. Jim’s older brother, John - whose facial expressions were so identical to Jim’s that it was more than a little disconcerting - had obviously returned at some point during the night; he was helping Maggie divvy out the presents. Jim was sitting beside his father, who let out an impressive yawn and earned a jab in the ribs from his wife. Pam padded over to the tree, dragging the blanket behind her.
“Hey, look, someone decided to join us,” Jim said, smiling at her over his shoulder.
“Funny,” she replied. “Merry Christmas, everyone.”
They all smiled and murmured similar greetings in return. Moving around the pile of presents Jim had stacked beside his spot on the floor, she nudged her way into his lap and wrapped the blanket around both of them. “Your back any better?” Jim asked softly, pressing a gentle kiss to her temple.
“It’s Christmas,” she replied with a soft smile. “I’m good.”
She was rewarded with one of her favorite Jim smiles - the slow one that gradually lit up his entire face, the one that she was pretty sure was just for her. “Good.”
For a moment, she let herself think about how differently her life had turned out than she imagined it would. Ten years ago, she could never have dreamed that she’d be as happy as she was now. Sure, she had never been miserable, but she’d always felt a little unsettled. And she’d definitely never been as radiantly happy as she was at that moment, nestled in her husband’s arms on Christmas morning with their baby doing enthusiastic cartwheels inside her belly. Really, everything was pretty perfect.
“Uncle Jim,” Maggie exclaimed, holding up a box wrapped in shiny gold paper, “is this the special package that you were going to give Aunt Pam for Christmas?”
Anyway, pretty close to perfect.
THE END