vanilla 29 (or: HEY I'M BACK)

[hi_falootin]

vanilla 29. my favorite things
story: second chances ; high school. wordcount: 2614. rating: g.

"I'm giving this to you," she says, "with the caveat that you'll understand it was an experiment. And that I tried." How Darcy's, Mike's and Rayn's families manage the Christmas gift exchange. (With Black Friday, windshield wipers, and bad pottery of

Comments

[roisin_farrell]

Yay, you're back!

I loved this story. And I'm such a sap that I actually teared up at Anna when she got the earrings because she reminds me a lot of my mom, always putting herself last and everyone else first and the mother difficulties so yeah, I really connected to that one.

And I love Darcy meddling in her parent's gift giving but the result is so sweet.

[hi_falootin]

thanks so much! I'm glad you liked it. And I'm really glad you liked the Anna story-I had similar feelings about it :)

[shayna611]

YOU ARE MAKING ME CHOOSE?!?!

Mike & dad win. But I loved all of them. Darcy's parents cracked me up. And Rayn's family was so sweet.

So glad to see you back. Lots of awesome lines and bits throughout this whole thing. Now I just need to come back too.

Also, oatmeal raisin cookies are the best, but only if you know how to make them right ;)

[hi_falootin]

I am evil and like to make people choose! But thank you-I'm so glad you liked them all! And yes, yes you do.

And now I'm thinking too much about cookies and had to go eat a leftover thumbprint ;)

[nathskywalker]

Douglas and Eileen have to be my favorites though I love all of them.

I think Jim's problem is not that Mike knows him so well but that he wasn't very secretive at all! He said he was going to get all the presents and then asked where Mike's car was parked so he could check something out.

I also noticed Anna being a lot more likable in this than I remember from a lot of her adult pieces. She's mostly pushing Rayn, so this was a nice change :)

[hi_falootin]

aw thanks, I'm glad you liked them all! And yeah, Jim was super obvious...I don't think he's very good at surprises in any case ;)

And Anna's kind of a tricky character! I realize I could write a hefty paragraph about this, so I'll try to keep it short, but she does have a really loving relationship with her kids and I think her Tiger Mother-ing (love that there is a term for this now-ty, Amy Chua) comes from a well-meaning place. She also kind of expects Rayn to tell her when enough is enough even though she SHOULD know that kind of goes against how he is :P

But Anna holds herself to really high standards too. The only reason she's more lenient with Tina is because she sees Tina struggling with school like she is afraid to browbeat Tina (like her own parents did to her) to the point where she gives up and drops out of school too. Not particularly fair, but...yeah. (Relatedly, I think Anna is probably undiagnosed dyslexic and Tina might have a less severe learning disorder too.)

Oh look, I wrote a bunch anyway!

[ichthusfish]

Yay! Welcome back! Lovely trio of stories, all nicely tied in together. I love Jim's put-down of the nosey customer :)

[hi_falootin]

Thanks so much! And sorry for the late response, LJ hasn't been alerting me to comments <3

[kay_brooke]

Aw, the Eileen and Douglas sections are my favorite, but all of these were sweet and so telling about the characters behind them.

[hi_falootin]

thank you, I'm so glad you liked it! and sorry for the late response, LJ neglected to let me know you commented <3