"Deck the halls with b.. bo... with lots of holly, fa la la la la, la la la la..."

"Boughs, dear. It means branches." Elanor smiled over at where Ruby was putting chocolate eyes on a batch of gingerbread hobbits. There were several very lopsided faces in the regiment.

"If I'd been born at yuletime, do you think Mama would have called me Holly?"

"There's nothing wrong with your name, you silly gosling." Rosie, an uncharacteristically clean Tom bouncing on her hip and a row of clothespegs edging the length of her apron, kissed Ruby on the top of her penny-red hair. "Now, are those biscuits done? What about that pudding, El?"

"Just another minute, Mum. Is Fastred here yet?"

"Yes, he's in the front parlour with your dad and uncle, showing off that wee niece of his. He's got a good way with babies, I'll give him that."

Elanor blushed, ducking her head and wiping her hands on a dishcloth with a great amount of concentration. Ruby sighed.

"Annabel is a dreadfully romantic name."

"She'll be Anna all her life, which is as plain as a squashed turnip compared to Ruby," Rosie pointed out. "Hurry it up, lassie, we're running late as it is."

"No such thing at Yuletime." Sam took Tom from Rosie and gave her a kiss as payment. "Anyway, Mr Merry and Mr Pippin and their families know well enough what a task it is to get this rabble moving."

"I'm sure they've got enough mince pies to sustain them while they wait." Frodo added, joining them in the bright warmth of the kitchen. Elanor shot her parents an exasperated look.

"You've left poor Fastred and the baby all alone in there!"

"Haven't," smiled Frodo. "Bilbo and Prim are entertaining them."

Elanor threw up her hands in despair and rushed off to save her Fastred from her high-spirited and rambunctious siblings. Rosie, Sam and Frodo laughed at her expression as she stormed out, the way curls of her pale-flame hair escaped their elegant plait and wisped about her face.

"She's so like her mother, isn't she?" Sam said in wonderment. "I know that look on her face as well as I know my way around the flowerbed out front."

"Yes." Frodo nodded in agreement. "Elanor's got an Elvish cast to her, no doubt about it, and when she's older she'll be captured in graceful and heartbreakingly lovely paintings, you mark my words. But then she moves, or smiles, and it's like seeing our Rose as a tween again."

"Thankyou very much for nothing, Frodo Baggins, if you're saying I'm so different from Elves as all that!" Rosie smacked at his arm in mock outrage. "Oh, hullo Pip-lad, I didn't hear you come in. So, have you managed to find the lot of them?"

"Yes, Mum. Merry-lad, Frodo-lad and Hope are saying goodbye to the ponies, and giving the Rumble boys an earful of how to look after them properly too I'd wager. Goldilocks is down at the stile by the big field trying to convince Odo Dreppit that she doesn't like Farry Took more than she likes him, even though she does really." Pippin checked his brothers, sisters, friends and acquaintances off on his fingers as he went through the list. "Robin's halfway up the big tree on the Hill, and says that Rose went over to the Applegate farm but promised to be back very soon. Delphinium got back from visiting the Digg-Tooters half an hour ago, and Daisy and Sam haven't gotten tired of teasing her for her change of heart about that Aster girl yet. The three of them are making some kind of mathom to take for Meli and Molly-lass, it smells disgusting but they swear it's going to be edible and wonderful when they're done. Now who've I forgotten? Primrose and Bilbo are playing a pirate game with Fastred that seems to be mostly hitting him with some sticks from the garden and shouting a lot, and Ham went to see uncle Tom about next year's tea crop or something ridiculous like that, but his face was scrubbed clean as a baby's arse and-"

"Don't you use language like that in front of your mother and your sister, lad."

"Sorry, Dad. Anyway, he had a little string of green glass beads and he asked me if I thought they'd look good on a girl with red hair, so I reckon he's gone down to see the dairymaid that works with aunt Marigold."

"He could have asked me," sniffed Ruby. "It's not like us girls with red hair get much call to give beauty advice as it is, without their brothers stealing all their chances."

Pippin laughed and hoisted his little sister up onto his back. "And all the rest of us are in here. So that's that."

"And to think that I was saying just the other day that spending a fortnight's holiday away would be relaxing!" Frodo shook his head. "It's like catching water with a sieve, getting all of you at the same place at the same time."

"Yes, they're a good lot, aren't they?" Sam said with obvious pride in his voice, putting his arm around Rosie.

"I don't think that was quite the point he was making," she pointed out, but the smile on her face showed that Rosie obviously thought that it was the point exactly, and Frodo seemed to agree.

"What's Yule like at Brandy Hall, uncle?" Ruby asked, putting the last of her completed gingerbread family into their basket.

"You'll see for yourself soon enough, dearest. You'll have a wonderful time, that much is for certain," promised Frodo. "Can I try one of your biscuits, perhaps?"

Ruby considered the request for a moment and then nodded. "All right, you can have this one. I think it's a bit too strange to take, really."

It was, indeed, the most malformed gingerbread hobbit Frodo had ever seen, obviously the result of several more ordinary-shaped ones being put too close together on the baking tray. It appeared to have a lot of legs, some of which may have begun life as arms, and three heads.

"One for each of us, then," he grinned, offering bites to Sam and Rosie. "Mmm, most delicious, Ruby, you are quite the talented cook."

"Owwwwww! Bilbo! That hurt!"

"I think there's been some stick-related violence," Pippin pointed out helpfully, reaching out to get his own gingerbread treat. Ruby smacked his hand.

"You can wait, since you didn't tell Ham to come ask me about Aislin's present. And anyway, at this time of year you're supposed to call sticks and things boughs, you know."

Tom wriggled out of Sam's grasp and toddled after Ruby and Pippin as they went to find the source of the drama, leaving the three adults alone in the kitchen.

"Happy Yule, my dears," Sam said, giving them each a sticky gingerbread kiss. "Let's hope that this new year's as good as the last one, eh?"

"Of course it will be. They all are," Rosie replied with a smile. "Don't you agree, Frodo?"

"I suppose," Frodo teased. "Most of them aren't too intolerable, anyway. Some of them are pretty good."

Rosie smacked him lightly on the arm again and the three of them shared a few more gingerbread kisses before attempting to round up their family.

~

Pretty Good Year | email Mary