December 8, 2000
December 218AC
"I'm ready, Daddy! Let's go! Let's go!"
"Coming, baby, coming," Quatre laughed at the cherub child, picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder. She squealed. "Triton! Tristan! Come on! It's time to go!"
"Auh, but Dad, I don't really wanna go," a voice whined from the study.
"In the car. Now."
"Da~ad!" a second voice chimed. "We're fourteen! Can't we just stay home this year?"
"Five. Four. Three. Two--" The door to the study cracked open and two identical, pouting teenagers came out. Quatre held the front door open for them. "Thank you," he said.
"Daddy! Can I sit up front with you?" Calista sang, bouncing on the front seat passenger's side of the elegant town car.
"Of course, princess," Trowa said, sliding in behind the wheel. Quatre climbed in beside her. In the back, the twins were already buckling up. "Which way first?"
"Let's go left," Calista answered solemnly, snuggling up between the two. In the back, Triton and Tristan both sighed, their heads rolling back.
~~Twenty minutes later~~
"Oh, wow! Look at how they hung those!" Tristan cried, pointed to the eight arching raindeer that looked like they were flying between models of the colonies--each colony cluster was lit with five different colors.
"Oh, cool! Look at that!" An artificial 'ice pond' displayed dancing polar bears and penguins performing figure eight's and turns.
"Oh, Daddy! Daddy! Look! It's the Nutcracker!" Ten proud, ten-foot tall nutcracker soldiers lined the perimeter property outside the gates. Inside, sure enough, the theme was 'The Nutcracker'.
Down another street, it looked like a child's paradise full of sugar sweets in a rendition of 'Candyland'. Giant sugarplums and gumdrops. Five-foot tall lollipops and candy canes. A gingerbread man in a gingerbread house with a gingerbread wife and child. And (probably one of the neatest things of all) someone had put bubbles in their fountain and now it was all frothy. (Quatre didn't envy the person who got to clean that up after Christmas.)
Another street displayed a winter wonderland of white, with hints of colors here and there. The trees all in white lights with a bright red bow on each trunk. The houses all in white icicle and drape lights with huge fancy wreaths hanging over the garages or A-frames.
Two hours later, the town car pulled up to the Winner Estate.
"See? That wasn't so bad, now was it?" Quatre asked, shifting the dead-to-the-world weight in his arms.
"Yeah, sure, whatever you say, Dad," Tristan called, already out the door and up the front steps.
"Don't stay up late watching TV!"
Triton just waved before the door closed behind him. Quatre turned to look at his love, smiling sadly.
"What's the matter, love?" Trowa asked, leaning forward to cup Quatre's neck.
"I just get the worst feeling that soon, I won't be able to get them to come with us anymore," the blonde man whispered hoarsely, looking sheepish. "Silly, huh?"
Trowa smiled and brushed his lips over the others. "They don't have a choice. It's tradition."
End of Part 7: Looking at Houses
Andrea Readwolf
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