The Christmas lights were impressive.

It pained Helene to admit it. It was was somewhat galling to have moved to an inter-species community where she expected the majority of the residents to not celebrate the holiday, only to find her street lit up with a brilliant display. The Gregor house had always been that house, the house the whole neighborhood would drive past slowly, marveling over the Christmas lights and admiring her generosity, stopping by the hot chocolate station set up on the sidewalk, which she would man with her youngest. 

“Oh, it’s for the festival of lights!” her neighbor across the street had explained cheerfully. Helene had approached the long-eared goblin with a wave as she unbuckled a struggling toddler from the backseat. Offering to give the young mother a hand with the backseat full of groceries, she casually made mention of her surprise to see so many houses with holiday lights. 

“We don’t celebrate Christmas, but the lights are so pretty! Sandi organized this a few years ago, and every year it seems like more streets participate. Have you met the Hemmings yet? They live a few doors down from you, such nice people…”

Sandi Hemming. Of course, Helene thought, smiling through gritted teeth.

Her family had been in town just over a week, but it seemed that everywhere she went, the residents of Cambric Creek were only too eager to sing the praises of the Hemming wolfpack, once they learned the Gregors were another werewolf family. 

Cambric Creek’s best mayors had all been Hemmings, didn’t she know, the old gorgon at the post office had lamented, and it was such a shame Jack didn’t seem to have ambition for the office, but maybe one of those handsome boys…Helene had heard all about the sons at the grocery store and the nail salon: the photographer, the fireman, the professor and several others, each more handsome than the next, according to the giggling nail tech; respectful and courteous, cooed the bakery counter attendant, as one of the dark-haired young men checked out in front of Helene, leaving with a wave, his arms full of pastry boxes. 

There at the center of the gushing over her new neighbors, was the matriarch, Sandi Hemming. Board member of the Cambric Creek community planning committee, chair of the spring fling carnival, founder of the Lunar Community picnic, organizer of the festival of lights, mother of six upstanding werewolf citizens.

Helene hated her on principal.

In their old town she had been the pack mom, the community planner, the organizer of the bake sale and the May Day picnic. She’d been a room mother long after her kids had left grade school, hosted a Halloween open house the whole neighborhood looked forward to every year.

“There’s room for more than one person on the planning committee,” her husband had laughed. “I’m sure she’ll be thrilled for the help.”

Moving to a new town over Christmas was stressful enough, and Helene was disappointed that they wouldn’t be able to do their normal display. A simple outline in colored lights was the best her husband and son had been able to manage, in between emptying the moving pod. She’d gone back to her own house grumbling that afternoon, glaring at the shining display on the peaked roof of the Hemming house, two doors down. It had been a whole container of salt dumped into the wound of her ego when she realized the sainted Hemmings were her neighbors. 

She’d watched that night, fuming at the window as perfect Sandi Hemming greeted a family of mothpeople with steaming drinks on the sidewalk outside of her house. It’s fine, she told herself, breathing deeply, trying to center her chi, the way her meditation coach advised. Next year…by next year you’ll be just as involved.

.

.

The blinking glow of the sweater’s twinkle lights reflected in the glass wall opposite the door of the community center: red, green, yellow, red, green, yellow…the green tinseled neckline irritated her throat, but Sandi grit her teeth, bearing the discomfort with a bright smile. It wasn’t just the neckline, after all; the whole sweater felt like it was infused with fiberglass, the lurex threading rasping at her skin despite the cami she wore beneath, and the battery pack inside the sweater’s front chafed.

The effect was worth it.

Green and sparkly with a foiled Christmas tree, replete with blinking, twinkling lights. It was gaudy and glitzy and absolutely perfect for the community Ugly Christmas Sweater Party, proudly celebrating its second successful year.

It had been her idea, introducing the secular fun of the Christmas holiday without the religious trappings to the members of the community who did not celebrate. 

The inspiration had come three years earlier from a young moth couple, as they strolled around the block. She’d noticed them as she returned from the store that evening: bundled in scarves and mittens, walking slowly down the street with two small children, oohing and aahing over the sporadic colored light displays. By the time they’d reached her driveway, Sandi had hot apple cider ready, greeting the bundled up children with a wave. When their parents confessed how much they looked forward to the lights every year, despite not knowing anything about the holiday, the idea for a secular community Christmas celebration was born.

The festival of lights had been her first idea, followed by the cookie exchange and the mitten tree. She’d cheerfully bitten the head off a cricket, baked lovingly into the tops of the cookies brought to the exchange by a beaming frog person, and collected hundreds of mittens for underprivileged children in the neighboring city. The crowning achievement of the mitten tree the year before had been the arrival of an old drider, donating dozens of matching hats she’d knitted over the course of the year, after learning about the event. 

The Ugly Sweater Party, held in the community center’s spacious banquet room, had been her idea last year: gaudy sweaters and a white elephant gift game, small toys and books for the kids. Everyone loved it. Everyone had fun.

She did not need help.

Helene Gregor had breezed into a community meeting just a few weeks after moving to Cambric Creek three years earlier, had twinkled that she was so excited to become involved in the planning committees, and she did have so much experience as the head of the party commission in the town her family had moved from, after all. 

The other members of the committee had been thrilled, but Sandi had sniffed Helene Gregor for what she was: a social-climbing usurper, intent on elbowing her way into already established events and getting her name on them.

First it had been the spring carnival. Sandi had started the community carnival years earlier, set to coincide with the equinox, a time when the local schools were closed for the week. Helene had made the suggestion of moving the date to culminate with May Day, touting her recycled idea of a May Day picnic, acting like it would be the fete of the year. Next it had been the bake sale to raise funds for improvements to the Main Street gazebo. Sandi reminded herself afterwards that she hadn’t really been interested in chairing such an event anyways, but had made damned sure that the peanut butter-flavored buttercream atop her double fudge brownies had been whipped to perfection, ensuring it would be the treat snapped up first.

The following year, when Helene had invited herself to co-chair the mitten tree, Sandi had gone rogue. Christmas in the community was her baby, dammit, and she was not about to let the conniving cur from down the street get her stink all over it. She’d solicited extra tables and chairs, had booked the room and printed the invitations herself, pressing her sons and their families into service to help put up the decorations…it had been a smashing success, and the interest had doubled for this year. 

The giant room was lit with colored lights, and half-a-dozen artificial trees dotted the space, wrapped parcels and gift bags crowded beneath each one. Grayson and Trapp had dutifully come round the morning before, pickups loaded with extra tables from the firehouse and folding chairs from the community church, setting up the room quickly and efficiently, each sporting their customary bright smiles. Sandi had been gushed at by the community center’s receptionist and custodian alike: how gracious her boys were, how pleasant and gallant and handsome, how proud she and Jack must be, and did she think Lowell would make it home for the holidays?

She’d beamed and thanked them, silently agreeing with every last sentiment of praise. She hadn’t had the easiest start in life, hadn’t come from good stock herself…but she’d raised a damned fine pack, a pack worthy of the Hemming name. It hadn’t always been easy, and heaven knew those boys loved trouble, but the walleyed receptionist wasn’t wrong. Devotion to family, loyalty to pack, service to community, in that order—those were the tenets she’d raised her sons on, and each of them had lived up to the expectation.

No one needed to know the private roller coaster having six werewolf sons brought. 

Despite the fact that more than half of them were grown men starting families of their own, not a week went by when it wasn’t something—Grayson calling to cheerfully announce that she was about to be short a son, as Owen had filled his swimming pool with grape soda, and would she prefer to have his remains cremated or buried in the family plot? Or the news that Trapp would be bringing his sweet yet skittish human girlfriend ‘round for the holidays, whom he’d pronounced the one, filling the space that had been vacated when Lowell announced he would not be making it in after all. Liam, the youngest, was her sensitive one; a senior at the local high school, moody and secretive in a way her eldest three had never been.

It had been the boys she’d enlisted this year in what she privately called the Pack War with the Gregors. 

Helene had thought it would be so fun! to turn her festival of lights into a competition, and the weak fools on the planning committee had all jumped aboard. A winner would be announced tonight, at the party. Sandi could feel her blood rippling beneath her skin at the thought of besting Helene Gregor, certain that her house had won.

She’d called the boys several weeks ago, inviting them all over for a Sunday dinner, adding that they needed to have a family meeting. They had been unimpressed with her zeal.

“Mom, this is crazy. It’s just Christmas lights. Who cares that—”

“It wasn’t crazy when you replaced the shingles on Owen’s roof with aluminum foil?” she shot back at her oldest, before spinning to Owen. “Or when you filled Grayson’s pool with soda?” Grayson scowled at the memory, glaring at his brother.

“Shouldn’t we be above this?” Trapp grumbled, leaning forward on the sofa. “This isn’t very becoming behavior for the town’s best pack—”

“You dug a hole in your brother’s yard to bury. Him. Alive!”

She felt the heat rising through her, felt her eyes flash and change, steam practically pouring from her ears. Deep yoga breaths…when she reopened her eyes, it was to find all five of her present sons pressed back into the sofa cushions, and her husband snickering behind her.

Sandi breathed again, calming her rage.

“This is for the pack, and the pack sticks together.”

“Will Summer be at this party?” Liam piped up, dark eyes narrowed. Summer Gregor was Helene’s youngest, a year behind him in school, and Sandi frowned.

“I assume so…”

“Cool, I’m in. Just tell me what I have to do.”

The grudging help of her sons had been good enough, Sandi told herself at the time…then several days later, Helene Gregor had done her the biggest favor possible. A sly comment about pack superiority had been made to the butcher, a dazzling smile given to the Hemming who’d been in line behind her, with no idea what she’d done. Trapp was her hothead, always had been. His huge heart and bright smile gave way to the shortest fuse of any of her boys, and Helene Gregor had unwittingly ignited it. Devotion to family, loyalty to pack, service to community—she’d raised her sons well.

She’d come home that day to find the hook and ladder parked in the street outside the house, had quickly scrambled to make lunch for the two other firemen assisting her son, had sat and had coffee with the laughing fire chief, a wide-set orc she’d known for decades. The towering pines had glittered with lights and crowning stars by the time they’d left, with extra sandwiches for the firehouse, a warm hug for the chief, and a kiss on both her son’s cheeks.

The next day, Jackson had come by, grumbling about Trapp’s repeated text messages, to festoon the roof with eight animatronic reindeer while she entertained his own little boy, her first grandchild. Owen had created an arched walkway up the  long driveway, and Grayson had come by with his hedge trimmers, turning the boxwoods into holiday topiaries with Liam’s assistance, and Sandi decided it was worth her husband’s fury.

Now the night had arrived, and it seemed like most of Cambric Creek had turned up. She watched as Jackson’s little boy raced and tumbled with several gnoll cubs, a family who’d recently moved away, but had come back for the party; Trapp’s pretty little human girlfriend crouching down, talking with several of her students; the old drider wearing what was clearly a hand-knit sweater over her numerous arms…and there in the doorway, next to his beaming twin, her son Lowell, who had definitely told her he would not be able to fly home for Christmas.

Sandi couldn’t hold back her tears as she gripped him tightly, couldn’t hold in her happiness—she was surrounded by the people she loved most in the world, in the community she loved, the community she had helped build. A silly competition over holiday lights suddenly seemed inconsequential, completely unworthy of her time or attention.

…Until the werecat who headed the community planning committee tapped a microphone at the top of the room, announcing the winner of the Festival of Lights competition. She met Helene Gregor’s eyes, felt her hackles raise and knew the other woman felt the same. When the name that was called was not hers, Sandi felt it like a solid punch to the gut, the air gusting from her lungs, leaving her reeling. It wasn’t her name…but it hadn’t been the Gregor’s either.  

The little moth family cheered, their ecstatic children jumping up and down as the room clapped, racing to the werecat for their trophy. Sandi remembered well the night she’d met them on the sidewalk, how they didn’t know anything about Christmas, but they loved the lights. Tears filled her eyes again, happy that she’d made this possible for them, introducing them to the holiday she’d always loved best. After all, wasn’t this truly the meaning of Christmas? She watched her neighbors laughing, trying each other’s food, the children running, all of her boys, together for the first time in over a year. Everything had turned out just as it should. 

She felt Trapp’s warm presence beside her, knew his scent without needing to lift her head. 

“Look at this,” he chuckled, showing her a picture on his phone. 

For a long moment, Sandi was unable to make out that the mess of lit color she was looking at was a house. Gradually, the shape came together: a small bungalow with a neat yard, every square inch of the house covered in glowing lights. There was no design, no other holiday decorations, just a million tiny twinkle lights for a family who loved them. 

“There has to be at least five hundred strands there.”

She felt her laughter down to her toes, felt the unnecessary stress of the previous weeks melt away as she laughed, leaning into her son’s strong side. Everything had happened just as it should.

“We’re going to destroy them at the summer relays.”

Trapp’s eyes were fixed on the Gregors, across the room. Sandi felt the glimmer of the wolf shiver up her spine, weaving her fingers with her son’s, forever her cub, no matter how old he was. 

“You’re God damned right we will.”