Grant smiled as Patton slapped his hand. “Germany?” he asked as he began watching for their luggage on the conveyer belt.
“I don’t have trouble with that one!” Patton declared, offended.
“What are you going to tell General Gramps about your trip to Berlin?” Grant raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll tell him like this,” Patton smiled, breaking off into a string of unpolished German.
Grant corrected his son’s pronunciation of a couple words, and Patton repeated the sentence, pausing to emphasize the corrections, as was the drill.
“Baby, there’s one of our bags!” Hailey announced, pointing.
With Patton in one arm, Grant reached for the suitcase handle and easily jerked it from the conveyer belt.
“How will Santa know where we are?” Patton asked pointedly.
“I called him and told him,” Grant shrugged.
“You talked to Santa?” Patton asked, sounding impressed.
“Well, the man is busy this time of year, Patton, but I left a voicemail,” Grant quipped, handing his son to his wife before bending down to retrieve two more bags.
“I made a list; did you tell him everything I want, Daddy? Send him a text to remind him!” Patton called above the noise of the crowded airport, eliciting adoring looks from several onlookers.
Randy was glued to the Weather Channel as Jack tossed another log into the fireplace.
“Rachel, Wally and the kids are here!” Nora called from her perch in front of the window. “Come-on, Zach,” she grinned gleefully as she shuffled him out the door. “Let’s go get hugs and help them with their bags!”
Randy and Jack followed after them; Jack couldn’t stop smiling, knowing Wally had stopped to pick up Jessica and Emily at their apartment in Nashville on his way to Hope Hull.
“Hey, Mom!” Rachel exclaimed as Tori bolted from the Suburban, eager to begin playing with Zach. Nora stole a quick kiss from her granddaughter before the kids scampered off. Emily helped her youngest sister, Celia, from the car, and, her pigtails flopping, Celia ran into Nora’s arms, talking ninety to nothing about everything she was hoping to find under the Christmas tree.
Jessica threw her arms around her daddy! “Where’s my nephew?” she asked excitedly, her face radiating the joy Jack heard in her voice each time they spoke on the phone.
“He’s on his way!” Jack chuckled. “Y’all are the first to arrive!”
“Come-on,” Randy announced as he scooped Celia up, “who wants a cookie?”
“Cookies!” Celia shouted as Zach and Tori raced inside.
Wally and Rachel were still unloading their car when David and his crew arrived.
Nora rushed back outside in time to be greeted by the twins, Lucy and Lily, wearing matching red jogging suits with Santa Claus appliqués and their names monogrammed in white. Their red hair was pulled back into ponytails, one of them wearing a green hair bow with red polka dots while the other wore a red hair bow with green polka dots.
Lucy and Lily rang the jingle bells they wore around their necks. “Look at our Christmas bells!” they shouted in unison.
Nora pulled the girls into a hug, one on each side. “Leah won’t wear her bell,” Lucy announced. “She doesn’t want to.”
“We brought bells for Zach and Tori and Celia and Patton to ring too,” Lily added.
David winked at his father. “True story!” he laughed as he embraced Randy.
Leah stood next to her mother’s side, eyeing her grandmother and grinning when Nora approached. “Uncle Grant? Uncle Grant?” she repeated over and over.
“Uncle Grant will be here soon!” Nora assured her granddaughter as she took Leah in her arms. “I know he can’t wait to see his Princess Leah!”
Melissa hugged her mother-in-law. “Looks like we decided to arrive all at once on you,” she laughed as a rental car came to a stop on the dirt road, and Joanna and her husband stepped out.
“The more the merrier!” Nora clapped.
“More the merrier!” Leah repeated, and, rubbing her hands against her cheeks, she followed Nora to welcome her Aunt Jo and Uncle John.
Randy chuckled as he walked to greet them with Celia, cookie in hand, hanging from one arm and one of the twins dangling from the other.
Once luggage had been hauled in, and everyone had found their assigned sleeping quarters, the family was sitting around inside, chatting and eating cookies in front of the Christmas tree when the front door opened. “Got room for a couple more?” Hailey grinned as she stepped inside.
Grant followed her inside with Patton in his arms.
Randy and Jack both stood, then, eyeing each other, playfully raced toward their grandson, both calling dibs on the first hug.
Patton giggled as Grant lowered him to his feet to go and meet them.
“Wow,” Grant whispered to his wife, “check out Wally’s sweater…he’s taking that don we now our gay apparel thing quite literally, huh?”
Hailey elbowed Grant, never losing her smile. “It’s festive…I can appreciate it,” she said under her breath.
Nora threw her arms around Grant and Hailey and looked back at the rest of her family all gathered around the living room. “Merry Christmas to all!” she exclaimed.
