Scarlett stood in the spacious living room of her apartment. The teakettle whistled softly as it sat on the iron stove and soft Christmas music played over the radio. With a very loud "THUMP" the door swung open and the top of a noble fir was pushed roughly in. She could hear Duke cursing from the hallway as he shoved the rest of the tree into the house and slammed the door shut with his foot.

"You'd think" he said "that delivery service meant ALL the way into the house!" He sat down on a large cream colored chair and sighed, kicking off his expensive spats and throwing his head back.

Scarlet rolled her eyes and took the tea kettle to the kitchen to pour a cup of tea for Duke. She came back a minute later and set the cup down next to him before turning her attention on the tree stand. They made them damn near impossible to put together and then you had to fight to get the tree from looking like it was drinking whiskey. She fiddled with the legs and finally managed to get the pan set up and the tree into the ring that would hold the trunk.

"Duke be a dear and stand this damned thing up so I can screw it in will you?" Her cousin sighed as he stood up, making to veiled attempts to hide his contempt for the whole business. Another half hour and much cursing later, the tree was up, the trunk was straight, and the bowl filled with water.

They both sat down and sipped their stone cold tea in silence. It had been a long year and they hoped that the tree and the Christmas season all together would begin to signify that the worst was over and better days were coming. Outside the picture window, snow had begun to fall in Philadelphia. It came down softly, like tufts of dandelion fluff and stuck together in downy piles all over buildings, cars, and people.

Inside, Scarlett stood and opened a weathered wooden chest. Inside it were all the ornaments and decorations she had been given throughout her childhood. She removed the cards of tinsel and fairy lights from the trunk and began winding them methodically around the tree. As she strung the lights she sang along with the carols on the radio and smiled remembering the Christmases of years past.

Duke stood up and helped her finish when she found she was too short to reach the top of the 7 foot tall tree. He teased her for being so short and tousled her curls. He had always been like this as long as she could remember.

Scarlett thought about how things had changed since her childhood. She grew up in Georgia with her mama on a large plantation owned by her daddy's auntie Starshine. Her mama and daddy Ciaran weren't made for each other but they didn't discover that until Scarlett was born. Her mama moved back to Georgia and Ciaran stayed in New York. He visited her often and always came for her birthday which was Christmas Eve. Each year he would give her a new ornament to hang on the tree. There was the glass slipper that she got after her ballet recital of The Nutcracker, The tiny cardinal bird on top of a branch that she got after her Girl Scouts camping trip, and the tartan patterned glass ball to represent her Irish family history. Each year during Christmas, the whole Jamieson/Connor clan would descend upon the plantation. Her cousins would tease her mercilessly about being a Christmas baby and would complain in the worst way when she got more presents than the rest of them to make up for it. She wouldn't call herself spoiled, but she was the baby of the family and used it to her advantage. Even Duke, her closest cousin was a year older than she.

Before dinner they would pay a tribute to family members that had passed on by lighting luminaries and putting them all along the lane. Dinner came next and seated around the long table, they would give thanks for the year and the birth of the Christ Child before digging in. The last part of the meal, and always the most special was the flaming pudding. After dinner they would all gather around the piano and sing carols until bedtime when the children would all hang up their stockings around the fire place, give their parents goodnight kisses, and run upstairs to the rooms where they would snuggle under the covers and wait for Christmas morning to break. It never came soon enough and the adults all grumbled at having to come down stairs before the crack of dawn. Breakfast was always mandatory before presents and stockings and the cook always seemed to stretch it out as long as possible before the kids would bolt from the table and run to the place where their stockings stood filled to the brim with nuts, ribbon candies, a few toys, and always a large round satsuma orange at the toe, it wasn't a stocking without the orange.

Scarlett came out of her reverie as she hung a shimmering glass ball from the tree. A tear fell from her cheek and she hastened to wipe it away before Duke noticed it but his keen eye caught it.

"Thinking about your dad huh?" He said, a sad look in his eyes. Scarlett nodded and reached for another ornament. Her father and Duke's were not only cousins themselves, but they were best friends. This would be the first year celebrating Christmas without their raucous laughter or their lewd jokes. They were always the jokesters of the family and brightened up every bodies lives. Scarlett had come to live with her father at the age of 16 when her mother fell ill with consumption. Not much could have been done to save her mother but to send her to a sanitarium and hope for the best. Her mother had died a short 8 months later, just after the holidays.

Scarlett wiped another tear that rolled down her cheek and sat down. She missed her parents, it just didn't seem the same. Sure she was with Duke but the other family had moved on, there would be no big holiday dinner this year. Duke sat next to her and patted her shoulder.

"I have an idea," he said, rising from the couch and grabbing his jacket. He waited till she rose and helped her into her heavy red coat. They turned off the lights and locked the door. Duke ran down the hall towards the elevator and Scarlett couldn't help but feel a bit giddy as she followed. When they got downstairs he pulled out a scarf and tied it over her eyes before parading her out the door. They stopped in a shop for a moment and then went on through the cold night air. Before long they stopped and Duke slowly took off the blindfold. She turned to look at him for a moment as he handed her half a dozen red roses and a bottle of Dr. Pepper. She understood then as they walked silently through the graveyard. Approaching the markers where their fathers lay, the only sound was the rustle of the trees and the soft crunch of their shoes in the snow. Scarlett bent down and wiped off the snow with her gloved hand. Laying the roses and the bottle of soda, she began to cry in earnest. The tears came fast and her shoulders shook. Nearby she could hear Duke stifle a sob as he also honored his father. They stood motionless for a moment longer before turning to leave. "This isn't how it was supposed to be daddy, but Merry Christmas. I love you." She whispered, blowing one last kiss before walking away. As they left the graveyard, Scarlett laid her head on Duke's shoulder for warmth.

"Happy Birthday" he said, his voice cracking through the tears. She smiled wistfully as they walked down the street, the lanterns casting warm halos of light. "Merry Christmas Scarlett."