Old Things Anew

“Wait, hang on,” Meliss said, “how do you turn your camera on again?”

“Bottom left,” said her brother, Derrick. “The, uh, camera button.”

“Can people hear me now?” That was Aunt Maddie, heard by everyone even as they were shown a live feed of a ceiling. 

Meliss’ camera turned on finally and she waved at her family, straightening her shirt a little right after. And her hair. She wasn’t the only one, either. Many of the 20 little windows had people fidgeting with something to make their scene better. Andy was fixing his three-tier thing and apparently showing off what was to be his Christmas dinner. Mandy, his twin, was busy arranging a series of increasingly tiny and adorable reindeer so that they (and her elbow) were firmly in frame. Twyla was washing something off her baby, probably carrot puree. Or sweet potatoes, ‘twas the season and all. 

“We can hear you,” Andy assured his mom.

“Oh good,” she said, before launching into a tale of how hard it had been to find a microphone at best buy, and how the workers had all been stumped. Meliss tuned it out; she heard a story like that every time she and Aunt Maddie talked, and right now she had a slightly more pressing issue - her cat Tiramisu was trying to open her present. She extricated the box from the curious tabby’s claws and set it to the other side of her laptop.

“Are we all here?” her Dad, Matt, asked, cutting his sister-in-law off. 

“Um,” Derrick said, peering at the screen. “Yeah. Yeah, I think… Yes. Everyone’s here.”

“Should we start?” Meliss asked.

“How are we doing this?” That was Twyla, looking confused despite the fact that Meliss had sent out instructions three days ago. Meliss looked at Derick’s screen, wishing they could make eye contact and roll their eyes together at their older, scatter-brained sister.

“We could all open them at the same time,” Aunt Maddie said, holding her box in view now despite how she still wasn’t on screen. Her popcorn ceiling wasn’t really what Meliss wanted to see for the holidays but there it was.

“But then we miss everything,” Mandy protested.

“We only have an hour,” Rhodie said, speaking up for the first time. They were just barely an adult, gone off to college and therefore finally graduating from the kid’s table, and other than Twyla’s baby Halo they were the youngest there.

“I thought zoom calls went longer,” Matt said, frowning at his screen.

“If you pay,” Derrick said, “and no one, nobody, pitched in. So we didn’t pay.”

There was a short pause. Meliss figured everyone was probably blaming other people mentally in the group for not pitching in but honestly who wanted to pay for zoom? Not her. Probably not the people who were using it for the first time, like Uncle Grant who had yet to unmute. ...He might not have known how to unmute, she realized.

“All right, all right,” said Gramma Robinson, waving her hands as if she was settling down a crowd. “Derrick, dear, you said you could turn it into a video? We’ll all open at the same time and you’ll make a video and send it to all of us on the youtubes.”

“But we always open one at a time,” Twyla protested.

“It’s a pandemic, dear. We have to adapt.” Gramma Robinson didn’t sound pleased. She didn’t look pleased either. She had spoken.

There was another pause and then a flurry of activity as everyone got their presents up with them. Everyone had sent one gift and gotten one gift in an exchange dictated by Gramma Robinson herself, mostly because she knew all of the gossip and she knew who was at odds with who right now.

“And open.” Gramma said. Another flurry of activity broke out as wrapping paper was torn (on Mandy and Andy’s screens) or carefully peeled (on Derrick and Twyla’s.) Meliss didn’t have much say in how she opened hers because Tiramisu had to help, clawing at paper as it was pulled away and doing his own bit of pulling.

The box was for an EZ-Bake oven and Meliss frowned. Surely Andy hadn’t… A glance at the screen showed that he’d looked away from his gift to watch the screen, grinning. No, he hadn’t. She opened the box up and broke into a grin as well as she started pulling books out. That was more like it. Andy’s laughter confirmed who he’d been watching, the jerk. Or maybe not a jerk, because these were all on her Goodreads To Read list which meant he’d gone the extra mile instead of just using her Amazon wishlist.

Now it was her turn to watch Aunt Maddie open the fondue set she’d been wanting for ages. Rather, her turn to watch Aunt Maddie hold it up once it was unwrapped. Part of it. The lid.

“It’s just what I wanted!” Maddie exclaimed, and even though Meliss couldn’t see her face or most of the gift, that was enough.

Unfortunately, Mandy had been a bit right. It was over very quickly indeed, even with the chorus of ‘thank yous’ that echoed through the speakers. Then it was twenty faces all looking at screens as the distance sank in. 

“I miss you guys,” Twyla said, finally, speaking what they were probably all thinking.

“We’ll go bigger next year,” Derrick promised.

“I know a guy I can get fireworks from,” Andy offered, only to be scolded by several voices at once as Mandy laughed.

“We’ll have emotional fireworks,” Aunt Maddie said to the groans of many.

“Maybe I’ll allow actual fireworks, if it’s rained,” Gramma Robinson said, and that was that. There was another pause, and Twyla’s baby started crying.

“Maybe we just… go, for now? And we can keep in touch. We know how the zoom thing works now,” Matt said, and several heads nodded.

“Merry Christmas,” Meliss said quietly. It was echoed across the zoom, but nobody signed off. She figured she knew why, or she at least knew why she’d stayed on. This holiday was a little empty, but at least they did have these few moments.

“I should probably check on dinner,” Rhodie finally said, and that was enough to start the exodus. 

Meliss stayed until it was just her and Derrick left.

“Not quite what it, you know, could have been,” he said. “But it was something, yeah?”

“It was something,” she said, and that was when it became enough. “Merry Christmas, little bro.”

He snorted, shaking his head. “Merry Christmas. You don’t look half as old as you are.” Then, with a flash of a grin, he signed off.