The Christmas House

This is the first chapter of the sequel to The Christmas House. This book is The Christmas House II, Martha's Return. The story continues.

It was a cold day in March, even for Chicago, but the sky was a bright blue, and the frigid winds embraced the city as it has done for hundreds of years. A brisk 18 degrees above zero was not the best day to be house hunting, but this family of five huddled into a luxury Mercedes sedan, braving the cold to find a much-needed new home.

      “Yes, that’s it up ahead. East Townline Road, route 60. Take that exit and go east toward Lake Forest,” said the adult woman sitting in the passenger seat.

      “Aunt Susan, this is far from our school and all of our friends. I don’t think we should look this far out,” stated a cute 10-year-old redhead girl with freckles.

      “Rose, we all decided that we cannot stay in your current house. There are just too many memories of your parents." Susan replied, we have to find a new home and have a fresh start,” Susan replied.

      “This is a load of crap! I hate this area of the city. Every year, we play against Lake Forest in football, and they are so stuck up. The girls here think they are better than anyone else. I can’t go to Lake Forest High School. I won’t go,” said a cocky young man of 16-years old.

      “Victor knock it off, or you can walk home, you little piss ass. You will do what we tell you to do. You are lucky you aren’t in jail after that stunt you pulled, taking my car out for a joyride. You don’t have a license yet, you idiot. Then to sideswipe another car on Washington Street downtown and run from the police, thinking you would be safe if you made it home. What the hell were you thinking?” asked the man driving the car.

The story doesn't end with this chapter. To listen to the sequel, The Christmas House II, Martha's Return, visit www. minicooperproductions.com for options to download the book. Thank you for investing some of your time to explore the lives of the Carter's and Martha Kennedy. A prequel is under development called, The Christmas House 1845 - 1997. Experience the exploits of Martha as a young girl and then as an old maid as she navigates tragedy, love, and challenges before meeting the Carters.



8:00 a.m.
148 Festive Lane
Lake Forest, IL

     As the sun peered through the open draperies in the main bedroom, Michael slowly opened his eyes to see the clock on the nightstand. 

     “Wow, 8:00 already. We have to get up. Only 10 hours left.” 

     He turned to feel for Arianna but felt nothing except the coolness of satin sheets beneath his hand. He sprung up into a sitting position and frantically looked around the room. The fireplace continued to burn, and the music was still playing from the night before. He jumped out of bed and ran over to the bedroom door. As he swung open the door, he ran out of the room and into the hallway. The door to the guestroom next to the main bedroom opened as well. Uncle Wally walked out of the guestroom with a cigar hanging out of his mouth. As Wally turned to close the door behind him, he noticed Michael standing a few feet away.

     “Ha! And you talk about me. At least I wear a sheet when I cruise the hallway looking for babes. Really Michael,” he said.

     Michael suddenly realized that he was standing in the middle of the hallway, stark naked. As he tried to cover himself with his hands, he explained to Wally.

     “I was looking for Arianna, but she wasn’t there when I woke up and… ”

     “Spare me the gory details, Michael. It’s painfully obvious that you are looking for Arianna, you goofy humans. Go get some clothes on and come down to breakfast,” he replied. 

     Michael continued to plead his case when Arianna’s mother suddenly exited the guest bathroom. 

     “Michael! Did you forget something this morning?” she asked.

     “Oh my God!” shouted Michael as he ran bare-bottomed to the main bedroom and slammed the door behind him.

222 East Pleasant Street
Apartment 326
Evanston, IL

10:30 p.m.

      Sharon slid her key into the lock of the eggshell-painted door with the number “326” displayed at eye level as Michael stood behind her. 

     “This is a pretty nice building for being so old. You can tell a lot of renovation work went into keeping it up to code. I like the ornate trim and cove molding at the ceilings. It’s very distinguished,” he said.

     “Yes, I looked for an apartment in this area because I like older buildings. There are more problems to contend with, but you can’t beat the old-time construction quality for warmth and quiet,” Sharon replied.

     As she opened the door to her apartment, she reached around the corner and flipped on the wall switch that lit a table lamp sitting nearby. The apartment was very nicely decorated, but that was expected, considering Sharon was a decorator. The door opened into the living room area, which boasted hardwood floors covered with custom-designed area rugs. 

     The walls were painted a light gray with dark and light beige accents ruled lines toward the top of the walls. The furniture featured a modern set of dark green leather pieces, including a couch, a love seat, and an oversized chair. Glass tables could be found throughout the area and very modernist works of art and oil paintings.

     “Wow, you have very modern tastes for yourself. I can’t believe that you were able to suggest the Victorian-style furniture that you did for my house,” Michael said.

     “Decorating is based on the person that lives in the environment, Michael. I have to judge the person and then make a recommendation. I have different tastes for different rooms. Excuse me. I need to use the bathroom. I will be right back. Make yourself at home,” she replied.

May 2nd

148 Festive Lane

10:00 a.m.

          As Sharon drove up to the front of the house and parked across the street, she noticed Michael’s red pickup truck was parked in the driveway. A smile came to her face as she pulled down the visor and checked her makeup in the vanity mirror. As she opened the car door and placed her long bare legs on the street, several male workers at the job site couldn’t help but notice her allure.

     Sharon exited the car, grabbed her briefcase from the back seat, and strolled toward the house like a peacock performing a mating dance. Her sensuality was ever-present and turned the head of every man within view.

     She greeted many of them by name. 

     “Morning Joe, how are you doing, Kenny? A beautiful day isn’t Bob?” she said as she walked through the house's front door. The men acknowledged her greetings. A few added “come on” phrases such as, “Looking good today, Sharon,” and “Hey, if those legs were any longer, we wouldn’t need ladders around here.”

     Sharon just smiled, for she knew she was beautiful. She could lure almost any man into her lair, but her sights were set on a challenging man who ignored her advances.

     Michael was leaning over a worktable covered with blueprints in the middle of the dining room. Sharon walked up behind him and purposely rubbed her briefcase across Michael’s right leg as he talked with the electrical contractor.

     “Morning, Michael; did your appointment go well yesterday?” she asked as she set her case on the floor and took a seat on a sawhorse a few feet away.

     Michael, startled by the brush against his leg, turned swiftly.

     “Oh. Hello, Sharon. Yes, my appointment went just fine.”

     Sharon crossed her bare legs and let her high-heeled shoe dangle off her toes on her right foot. 

     “I have some fantastic ideas for you, Michael,” she said.

     The electrical contractor replied under his breath to Michael, “I’ll bet she does.”

     Michael dismissed the man’s comment.

April of the Following Year
Lake Forest, IL

     Over the last four months, Michael struggled with many challenges. His faith in life, love, and God was still uncertain. He tried to focus his energies on rebuilding the house, hoping his faith would come along in time. With every wooden two by four that was nailed and every brick laid, Michael rebuilt the house and his faith simultaneously. He stopped drinking and started to eat again on a more regular schedule. Although he acted as the general contractor for the house's construction, he decided to work side by side with the other workers, swinging a hammer and ripping floorboards.

     The process of the reconstruction of the house had been lengthy. The cleanup alone took two months. Although still intact after the explosion, the home's foundation needed significant repairs. The foundation planners argued with Michael repeatedly about knocking down the old foundation and starting fresh. They just couldn’t imagine why Michael would want to limit the construction of a brand new home to the existing foundation's footprint. There was more than enough land to expand the layout of the house to be four times the size of the original. Michael insisted that the old foundation be utilized.

     Springtime arrived, and the structure of the house was in place. Michael and his fellow contractors were now working on the interior, putting up drywall, taping walls, laying floors, etc. 

     Michael tried to design the home's interior to match the original house as closely as possible. In many cases, this task was impossible due to the modern-day building codes in force. All in all, the house closely resembled the original 150-year-old mansion that once stood at this location.

May 1st
148 Festive Lane
8:00 a.m.

     Carpeting and wallpaper installers arrived at the house on this bright and sunny day. May's warmer temperatures were a welcome change from the bitter cold that seemed to have lasted forever.

     Michael was walking to the job site with a cup of coffee in one hand and rolls of wallpaper under his other arm when a workman approached.

     “Morning, Michael, is that the paper we’re hanging in the main bedroom?” asked one of the wallpaper hangers.

     “Morning Jimmy, yes, this is as close as I could come to what was originally there. Sure hopes she likes it,” Michael replied.

     “Sure hope who likes it?” asked Jimmy.

     Before Michael could answer, a voice came from the foyer area of the new house. 

     “Hoping I like it, Michael?” a female voice asked.

     Michael turned to see Sharon White, the newly hired in-house decorating consultant for the construction company. 

     “Sharon, good morning,” Michael said.

     Sharon walked into the house, stepping over loose floorboards and buckets of plaster. 

Early December

Evanston, Illinois

     A few weeks passed since the demise of Michael’s friends and family. The funerals were held a few days after the explosion and attended by many of Arianna and Michael’s friends. Most were work-related associates who paid their respects to Michael as they passed five closed caskets in the Lake Forest Funeral Home.

     Since the accident, Michael had not been back to work and was not planning on returning anytime soon, despite numerous calls from his boss urging him to come back as quickly as possible. Michael was not ready to face life again, much less the everyday challenges of his job. He wasn’t concerned about the money he was losing by not working. The one thing Michael did have was a considerable sum of money. The trust fund he put away for the kids’ education was now fully available. The house was insured for the appraised amount of $4.8 million, and the life insurance policies on Arianna and the kids amounted to over $1,300,000.00. Michael decided he could afford to take a leave of absence from work, a very extended leave of absence.

     He moved into a small, one-bedroom furnished apartment in nearby Evanston. For the last several weeks, he spent most of his day crying and the other part of it drinking. He seldom left the apartment and had lost a considerable amount of weight.

     He counted the days until Christmas Eve. He would travel back to the burned-out site once his home and wait for Arianna and the kids to arrive. He prayed that God would allow him one more day with his loved ones.

     Michael contemplated suicide almost continuously since the explosion but remembered Uncle Wally's statement about how suicides were treated in heaven. He did not want to jeopardize his eternal soul by taking his earthly life at this time. He didn’t even know if he would be allowed into heaven. After the way he cursed God for what happened to him, he had his doubts.

     Day after day, Michael wasted away in the small East Side apartment, drinking, crying, and sleeping. Garbage filled the small rooms, for Michael had no incentive to clean up after himself. Empty half-eaten containers of carry-out food were turning green with mold as they lay on the floor near a couch Michael called his bed. He spent every waking and sleeping hour on this couch, waiting for the time to pass. Empty bottles of whiskey were scattered about the apartment. Michael only left this poor excuse of existence to take a short walk to the nearby liquor store or to pick up the occasional Chinese dinner.

     As the days passed, Christmas Eve was fast approaching. Michael was convinced that Arianna and the kids would still visit him at 6:00 p.m. that evening, even though the house was gone. He lost all of his faith in God and was concerned that his punishment was far from over. He continually asked the question, “Why?” 

Festive Lane

Thanksgiving Day

Three years later

     Several years passed, and the Carters were very fortunate during this time. It had been five years since they first purchased the magical house on Festive Lane. David grew by leaps and bounds as he quickly approached his sixteenth birthday. Nicole had become a beautiful young lady with a very proficient vocabulary for a five-year-old.

     Michael had been promoted to management in the same construction company and was now a building inspector. Arianna was the dispatch supervisor for the local Lake Forest Police Department. Their lives were relatively uneventful over the last three years. Accept for the Christmas holiday celebration and the annual visit of Tony Cesario trying to purchase the Festive Lane property, life remained steady.

     Every Christmas, the guests arrived and visited with the Carters. Dennis joined the celebration all three years but would not be attending the upcoming holiday gathering due to accepting a new job in California. He still considered the parents who raised him to be just as much his parents as Art and Marie. He felt being closer to them geographically would be beneficial. 

     Since last year, Michael has been busy at work and home. He liked his new management position because it gave him more flexibility to be with the kids and Arianna. At home, he finally installed a new furnace in the house's basement. Unfortunately, the unit wouldn’t stay lit for more than a few minutes at a time. He had to keep shutting it off and re-adjusting the gas flow. He just tried to fix it again yesterday, but the problem persisted. 

     This morning, Michael left a note on the thermostat to warn Arianna not to turn on the furnace until he came home. He would stop at the hardware store before they closed early for the holiday. He needed to get a few parts that he felt would resolve the problem with the furnace. He placed the sticky-backed note on the thermostat cover in the front foyer so Arianna would be sure to see it. 

     It was Thanksgiving Day, and as usual, Jack and Wanda were invited over for Thanksgiving dinner. It was early afternoon, and Wanda watched the kids while Arianna worked at the police station. Michael had to approve some job sites for last-minute inspections before the weekend and ran late. The kids helped Wanda make cookies for dessert as Jack was up in his office, working on some investment paperwork. While laying out clumps of cookie dough, Wanda ran out of cookie sheets and decided to borrow a few from Arianna’s kitchen.

148 Festive Lane

Christmas Eve- One Year Later

6:00 p.m.

      “Chime, chime, chime, chime, chime, chime.” The grandfather clock announced that it was once again 6:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve, exactly one year later.

     David ran to the front door and swung it open.

     “Merry Christmas, David!” yelled a group of eight people.

     “Merry Christmas,” David shouted back to the people entering the house.

     The first to arrive this second year of Christmas were Michael’s parents, his brother Billy, Arianna’s parents, Uncle Wally and his wife, who now joined him, and Dennis Kowalski from down the block.

     “Mom, Dad, Billy!” Michael said as he came to the door from the kitchen. 

     “Merry Christmas and welcome back; God, it’s great to see you!”

     Uncle Wally being the proverbial wise guy, said, “God? Yes, I am mistaken for him frequently, but no, it’s just me, Michael, just old Uncle Wally, and my lovely wife, Louise.”

     “Aunt Louise! Sorry to hear of your passing, but we’re glad you are here with us! Come on in,” Michael replied. 

     As Wally took off his coat and handed it to Michael, Michael asked in a hushed voice. 

     “So, how’s Aunt Lucy taking the arrival of your wife, Uncle Wally?”

     “Michael, she was agitated at first. I thought she was going to kill me, but then I realized, too late! I’m already dead! Ha! Ha!” Wally said.

     Michael just laughed.

     “You will never change, Uncle Wally.”

     As Arianna entered the foyer, she greeted her parents. 

     “Mom, Daddy. Merry Christmas!”

     “Merry Christmas, honey!” responded Art and Marie.

     They hugged their daughter, and as she looked over her father’s shoulder, she saw Denny Kowalski.

Christmas Night

6:10 p.m.

148 Festive Lane

     Michael and Arianna stood on the step in front of the house, shivering and calling out to David. Arianna’s tears froze on her face as she openly wept. Michael yelled out at the top of his lungs, “DAVID!”

     Suddenly, a small image appeared from out of the darkness and moved toward the house. 

     “Wow! It was so cool. They all just kinda walk into the darkness and then disappear!” said the familiar voice of David.

     Michael and Arianna ran to David and dropped to their knees as they embraced him.

     David, not realizing what was happening, started to apologize. 

     “I’m sorry, Mom and Dad. I didn’t mean to worry you. I stayed right out front as you told me to.”

     Michael picked up David in his arms, and they walked back into the house.

     As Michael put David down in the kitchen, Arianna leaned forward and unzipped his coat.

     “Now, why don’t you tell us what happened to you when you were lost yesterday? And start from the beginning,” she said.

     “I was waiting for you to come back to get me by Santa’s Workshop, but you never came. Santa left, and a man told me I had to leave the area because it was closing. I remembered you saying you were going to the Men’s Department, so I went there. I couldn’t find you there, so I thought maybe you went back to the toys to look for me, but you weren’t there either. Then I heard this loud voice come over the speaker system saying that the store was closing. I ran out of the store and tried to find my way back to the car. I guess I got turned around cause after I had walked for about 20 minutes, I ended up at the lake,” David replied.

     “Then what happened, David?” Michael asked.

     “I got scared, so I started to run back in the direction I came from, but I guess I got lost. I was freezing and hungry. I saw some men standing around a garbage can on fire, so I went over to them. They asked me where I was from, and I told them I was lost. They said they couldn’t help me find my way home because they didn’t want to get involved with the cops. They let me share the fire and made me a hot dog. It was really cool, Dad. This one guy put the hotdog on a stick and then held it over the fire. It was the best hot dog I ever had!”

     “That’s because you were so hungry. Go on, then what happened?” Michael asked.

     “Then I got sleepy and laid down on some cardboard boxes. I guess I fell asleep because the next thing I remember was that some other kids were trying to take my coat off. I woke up and started yelling at them and fighting to keep it. They were dragging me through the snow and the slush. That’s how I got all wet.”

     David continued. 

     “Then they all stopped and ran off. It was as if they had seen a ghost, but it was only Martha. She picked me up, and then we started to walk home. It was snowing hard, but we just kept walking. We finally made it home last night.”

Christmas Day-December 25th

148 Festive Lane

6:55 a.m.

      Michael was sleeping soundly, spooning with his lovely wife as they lay in their king-size bed under the warmth of a down comforter. His eyes opened slowly as the aroma of freshly brewed coffee titillated his nose. Still half asleep, Michael thought Arianna had gotten up and made breakfast until he realized she was still lying beside him.

     It dawned on him that yesterday was not a dream. It actually happened. The laughter and music he could barely detect from downstairs confirmed his thoughts. He sat up in bed and yawned as he put on his robe. He hoped that the guests had not wakened David or the baby. During all of the previous night's chaos, Michael forgot to place the Christmas presents by the tree for the traditional Christmas morning ritual of opening the toys Santa delivered while they all slept. He knew David would be very disappointed if he ran down from his bedroom and into the family room to find a tree without colorfully wrapped presents surrounding it. 

     “Poor kid will think Santa left his toys in Florida instead,” Michael said to himself.

     As Michael walked out of the bedroom, he shut the door softly not to wake Arianna. Toward the winding stairway, he heard laughter and giggles coming from the guestroom down the narrow hall. 

     He knocked on the 6-panel hardwood door. “Hey! You two better be of age in there.” 

     Michael started to walk away, laughing and then heard a response from the room. 

     “Don’t you worry about us, Mikey. We’re doing just fine.”

     “Uncle Wally?” asked Michael. “Who’s in there with you?”

     “Just little old me, Michael,” responded Arianna’s Aunt Lucille.

     “Aunt Lucy?” Michael asked. 

     “Uncle Wally, you should be ashamed of yourself. Wait until Aunt Louise hears about this.”

     The guestroom's door flew open and Uncle Wally, wearing only a white sheet, came running after Michael.

     “Mikey, hold on a minute, son,” Wally said in a shallow soft voice. “Let’s keep this our little secret, okay. I love my wife, and I know she will be joining me soon, but Mike, I’m dead. She’s in a nursing home a thousand miles away, and I can’t leave this house to see her. I promised at the altar, “Until death do us part.” I died, we parted, and now I’m doing Arianna’s, Aunt Lucy. Hubba Hubba!”

     “Uncle Wally!” Michael said. “Why don’t the two of you get dressed and come downstairs for breakfast before everyone knows what you, or should I say “who” you are doing up here!”

     “Relax, Michael. They already know. Hey, I haven’t been with a woman in over 20 years. Don’t you think I deserve a break?” Wally asked.

     “Well, I guess you’re entitled. Besides, by this time next year, your wife may be here, and you’ll have to be good again,” Michael replied.

     Wally’s smile turned to a frown. 

     “Wow, Mikey, you really know how to take the wind out of a guy’s sails.”