Thanksgiving Reflections
With a side of Christmas Magic
Hello book besties,
Congratulations to A. Fisher from Mississippi, winner of the sea glass necklace from last month’s giveaway! Thank you to everyone who entered.
During this season of Thanksgiving, I’ve been thinking about what this holiday means. For some, it’s warmth and nostalgia. For others, it’s getting together with family you only see once a year.
For me, it means sitting down to write this note to you. I want to say thank you. The response to my October newsletter blew me away. The fact that so many of you opened that email and spent time with my words is truly a gift that I don’t take it for granted.
So this month, leading into the holiday season, I wanted to give you something special. I love a Santa origin story, so this month I’ve written a short story about a girl with mysterious symptoms, a grandmother who’s been keeping the world’s biggest secret, and a Thanksgiving dinner no one will ever forget. It’s cozy, chaotic, and filled with the kind of family love that makes the holidays magical—even when everything goes wonderfully, hilariously wrong.
BECOMING MRS. CLAUS
*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚ *ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚ *ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚
Somewhere between the mashed potatoes and the green bean casserole, it happened. The cold had been getting worse for months, but sitting at her grandparents’ Thanksgiving table in upstate New York—surrounded by family, wrapped in two sweaters, teeth chattering—Emma was ready to snap.
“I’m just saying,” her brother Jake explained to the table, “that if you’re cold all the time, you probably have a thyroid problem. Sarah had the same thing—”
“It’s not my thyroid!” Emma blurted out, louder than she meant to.
The entire table went quiet. Ten people—her parents, her grandparents, her two siblings, her aunt and uncle, and two cousins—all stopped mid-chew to stare at her.
“Emma—” her mother started, with a warning tone.
“No, Mom, I’m serious. I’ve been to three doctors. My thyroid is fine. My iron is fine. Everything is FINE, except I’m freezing all the time, I can’t stop thinking about Christmas, and yesterday I told a stranger at Target that she was definitely lying about returning that blender, and the woman admitted that I was right. So no, Jake, it’s not my thyroid. It’s something else, and nobody can tell me what.”
Her mother had gone pale. Her grandmother had stopped serving herself stuffing, the spoon frozen mid-air.
“Emma, honey,” her mother said carefully. “Let’s talk about this later—”
“Talk about what later? You’ve been weird for weeks. You keep giving me these strange looks. Just tell me what’s wrong with me.”
“You’re not sick, sweetie.”
“Then what IS it?”
Her grandfather cleared his throat. “Ida, I think the cat’s out of the bag.”
“We were going to tell her after dinner,” her grandmother said quietly. “Just her. Not... everyone.”
Emma’s younger sister Lily looked up from her phone. “Wait, tell her what?”
“Nothing, dear. Eat your peas,” her mother said quickly.
“It’s clearly something,” Jake said. “Emma’s having a breakdown.”
“I’m not having a breakdown. I’m just having weird symptoms.”
“Here we go with the symptoms again,” Jake muttered.
Her father, who had been silently eating this entire time, set down his fork. “Martha, what’s going on? Why would you need to tell Emma something after dinner?”
Her mother looked at her own mother with desperation. “Mom, a little help here?”
Her grandmother—white-haired, rosy-cheeked, wearing a cardigan with embroidered snowflakes—sighed deeply and set down her spoon. “Well. I suppose it doesn’t matter whether we wait until after dinner or do it now, because there really isn’t a good way to say it.”
Emma swallowed down the mouthful she’d just taken and chased it with a sip of wine. Then two more large gulps of wine. “Let’s get on with it then. How much time have I got?” Although why she was getting a terminal diagnosis from her grandmother and not a doctor was beyond her at that moment.
Her grandmother looked into her eyes. It was the most serious she’d ever seen her. “Sweetheart, you’re not sick. You have a genetic condition.”
Emma didn’t know if she should be more concerned or relieved there was an answer.
“It’s a recessive gene that runs through certain Nordic families,” Grandma continued. “It only passes through women, and it only activates in some of them. Your mother doesn’t have it. But you do, Emma.”
“A genetic condition that makes you cold?” Lily asked, lowering her phone for the first time in an hour. “That’s weird.”
“It’s not just the cold,” Grandma continued. “It comes with other symptoms. An obsession with Christmas. The ability to sense certain things about people. A draw toward winter, snow, chimneys—”
“Wait,” Jake interrupted. “What’s this condition called? Like, the medical name?”
Their grandmother straightened up, suddenly very professional. “Oh, the official designation is M.I.L.F. - the Matrilineal Inherited Lux Factor. It was first identified and named in the 1950s when genetic research was really taking off.”
There was a beat of absolute silence.
Then Jake made a choking sound.
“I’m sorry,” Lily said slowly, setting her phone down completely. “Did you just say—”
“The MILF variant, yes,” Grandma said matter-of-factly. “M-I-L-F. It’s quite rare, only appears in about one in every fifty thousand women of Nordic descent—”
Jake had his face in his hands. His shoulders were shaking.
“Are you alright, dear?” their grandmother asked.
“I’m fine,” Jake wheezed. “Please continue. Tell us more about the... the MILF.”
Her father had gone very still, his wine glass frozen halfway to his mouth.
“Well, as I was saying,” Grandma continued, completely oblivious, “Emma has the MILF variant. I have it too. My grandmother had it. It passes through the maternal line, hence ‘matrilineal,’ and it manifests with this beautiful luminescence—that’s the ‘lux’ part—when the magic is active.”
“Oh. My. God,” Lily whispered, her eyes enormous.
Grandma continued. “The literature on it is quite extensive. There are case studies going back to the 1800s, though they didn’t have a proper name for it then. Now we have the MILF designation, which makes everything much clearer.”
Her mother had her head in her hands. “Mom—”
“Yes, dear?”
“Maybe we could call it something else?”
“Why would we call it something else? That’s what it’s called. I have all the documentation upstairs if anyone wants to read about it. ‘The Matrilineal Inherited Lux Factor: A Study in Hereditary Magical Variants.’ It’s quite fascinating.”
Grandpa grinned into his mug, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter.
“So let me get this straight,” Jake said, his voice strangled. “Emma has the MILF gene.”
“Variant,” Grandma corrected. “We call it a variant, not a gene. But yes.”
“And you have it too.”
“Yes, I’m a MILF.”
Lily made a noise like a dying whale.
“I’ve been a MILF for over eighty years now,” Grandma continued serenely. Proudly, even. “And I have to say, it’s been quite wonderful. Your grandfather is very supportive.”
“I married a MILF,” Grandpa said, shrugging while raising his mug. “Best decision I ever made.”
“GRANDPA!” Emma and Lily shouted in unison.
He winked at them.
At the other end of the table, their cousins Ashley and Trevor—both in their twenties—sat near their parents, Aunt Linda and Uncle Tom. Ashley had her phone out and was clearly texting someone under the table. Trevor was staring at his plate like he was trying to will himself into another dimension.
“Linda,” Uncle Tom said carefully. “Your mother just called herself a MILF.”
“I’m aware, Tom.” Linda continued cutting her turkey with surgical precision, not looking up.
“Multiple times,” Emma’s father piped up.
“Yes, Charles,” her mother said.
“And she doesn’t seem to realize—”
“She doesn’t. She truly doesn’t.”
Trevor looked up. “I’m sorry, but can we acknowledge that Grandma has now said ‘MILF’ more times in ten minutes than I’ve heard it in my entire life? And I’m a senior in college.”
Ashley snorted into her wine glass.
“What don’t I realize?” Grandma asked, looking around the table with genuine confusion. “Why is everyone acting so strange?”
“No reason,” Emma said quickly. “It’s just—it’s a lot to process. The MILF thing. I mean, the variant. The M.I.L.F. variant.”
“Of course it is, sweetheart. I remember when I first found out I was a MILF. I was overwhelmed too.”
Jake had given up and was now laughing directly into his napkin. Trevor joined him, shoulders shaking.
“Trevor, are you alright?” Grandma asked.
“Fine, Grandma,” he wheezed. “Just really learning a lot about our family history tonight.”
“Oh good! I’m so glad. Family history is important.”
Honestly, it was a wonder that no one had choked to death during this conversation.
“The important thing,” Grandma continued, “is that you understand what being a MILF means for your future. It’s a responsibility, but also a gift.”
“I’m sure it is,” her father said weakly.
“And Emma, when you find your partner—your match—he’ll need to understand that he’s with a MILF. It’s important to be upfront about these things.”
“Oh my GOD,” Lily said. It seemed like it’s all she could say as their grandmother kept talking.
“I’m texting this entire conversation to my friend group chat,” Ashley muttered.
“Don’t you dare,” Aunt Linda said sharply, finally looking up from her plate.
“What, Linda?” Grandma asked. “I’m just saying, transparency is important in relationships. When your father and I started dating, I told him right away: ‘I’m a MILF, and this is what it means.’ And he accepted me for who I was.”
Emma glanced over at her grandfather, now fully laughing, not even trying to hide it anymore.
“What is so funny, dear?” Grandma asked him.
“Nothing, sweetness. Just remembering how brave you were, telling me you were a MILF on our third date.”
“It was important! I couldn’t let you get too invested before you knew the truth.”
“That’s beautiful, Grandma,” Trevor said, his voice strangled. “Really inspiring. I’m definitely putting that on my dating profile.”
“Hold on,” Uncle Tom said. “Can we establish right now that none of this leaves this room? Because I’ve been married into this family for twenty eight years without knowing any of this, and I’d like to continue living a normal life where people don’t know my in-laws run Christmas.”
“Agreed,” Martha said quickly. “The MILF gene, Santa—all of it stays in the family.”
“So we just... lie?” Jake asked.
“We don’t lie,” Linda said. “We just don’t volunteer information. I have lived by the ‘if they don’t ask, we don’t tell’ rule for practically my entire life.”
The table got eerily quiet again until Emma’s mother stood up abruptly. “I need pie. Anyone else? Pie?”
“I’ll help,” her father said, nearly tripping over his chair in his haste to leave the table.
“Me too,” said Lily.
“Wait, Mom,” Jake said. “Can we please talk about the fact that our grandparents are Mr. and Mrs. Claus? That you and Aunt Linda have failed to mention this to all of us kids and we’re just finding out about it now?”
Her mother and aunt exchanged glances and both shrugged. “No one ever asked,” her aunt said matter-of-factly.
“Normal families inherit china or furniture,” Jake called out as his mother headed to the kitchen. “Does this mean we inherit elves and property in the North Pole?”
“I wish that’s all that got passed down to me,” Emma added. “Consider yourself lucky you’re a guy and have no chance of getting the M.I.L.F. gene.”
“It’s a variant, Emma,” Grandma said with infinite patience. “A variant of a gene, not a gene itself. How many times do I have to say it?”
Aunt Linda stood with her now empty plate, and Uncle Tom glanced up at her. “You said they own an antique shop in Buffalo!”
“They do, in the off season,” Linda replied calmly, then made her way to the kitchen.
As half the table followed suit, Grandma looked at Emma with warm, understanding eyes. “I know this is overwhelming, sweetheart. Finding out you’re a MILF is never easy. But I promise, once you accept it, once you understand what it means—it’s the most wonderful thing in the world. Now tell me about the changes you’ve been experiencing.”
“The changes?” Emma asked.
“Yes, you said you have the cold sensitivity. The obsession with Christmas and winter. The knowing things about others. Are you also drawn to chimneys, or fireplaces, or—”
“Wait, how did you know about the chimney thing?”
Her grandmother smiled. “Because I had it too. When I was your age, I became completely obsessed with Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Saw it in the theater thirty-eight times.”
“Thirty-eight—”
“I know. It’s still embarrassing. My parents thought I needed help. But my mother finally told me that her grandmother had been the same way. That it ran in the family. That certain women just... get it. And the symptoms mean the variant is activating. And now that it has, things are going to get more intense until you understand what it means.”
“What? What does it mean?”
Her grandmother turned back to her. “It means you’re meant for something, Emma. Something bigger. And you need to find the right partner to do it with.”
“Partner? Grandma, I’m not even dating anyone—”
“I know, dear. But when you meet him, you’ll know. The variant will let you know. He’ll have a spark of his own. And when you find each other, everything will make sense.”
Emma put her head in her hands. “This is insane. You’re telling me that the, God I can’t believe I’m even saying this, the M.I.L.F. variant will also make me fall in love?”
“Not just fall in love. Find your purpose.”
“My purpose is to be obsessed with Christmas?” she asked flatly.
“Your purpose,” her grandfather said, “is to bring joy to the world.”
Emma looked up. He was smiling at her with such warmth and certainty that she almost believed him.
“I think,” Emma said slowly, “that I need you to start from the beginning. Because right now, this sounds like the weirdest family health talk I’ve ever had.”
Her grandmother laughed—that tinkling bell sound. “Oh, honey. It gets so much weirder. Let me tell you about the first time I realized what was happening to me. I was sixteen, it was the summer of 1964, and I had just seen Mary Poppins for the third time...”
Emma finished her wine and suddenly her father appeared behind her and filled up her glass again.
“It’s going to be a long weekend, Em,” he said, “drink up.”
Maybe it was the wine hitting her, but somewhere deep inside, in a place that felt like snow and bells and something ancient waking up, the first stirrings of understanding began.
Maybe her grandmother wasn’t crazy after all.
She looked closely at her. Like really looked at her. The sweet, oblivious woman who had just called herself a MILF at least seventeen times without a shred of self-awareness. Emma felt a rush of love so strong it almost hurt.
“Thanks, Grandma,” she said. “I think... I think I’m going to be okay with being a MILF.”
“Of course you are! You’re my granddaughter. We MILFs have to stick together.”
From the kitchen, they heard both Jake and Trevor completely lose it, their laughter echoing through the house.
She shook her head, “Why is everyone being so strange today?” she asked, genuinely puzzled.
As the family chaos continued around her—Jake and Trevor still laughing, her parents stress-eating pie in the kitchen, Uncle Tom demanding answers from Aunt Linda, Lily and Ashley staring at their phones like they’d been forbidden from using them (which they had)—Emma felt that strange warmth in her chest again. The one that felt like Christmas morning and snow and something magical stirring to life.
Somewhere out there, her grandmother had said, was a partner. Someone the gene, the variant, Grandma would correct, would recognize.
Emma just hoped whoever he was, he’d be less weird than finding out she was a MILF.
*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧
Will Emma find her partner? Stay tuned for December’s newsletter and a Christmas themed giveaway!🎄🤶🎅🏻
With love, until next time,
