text: Oh, The Weather Outside Is Frightful
  
  Monday, December 20, 2010, 7:00 AM
  
  Off to the left side of Nita's head, her radio alarm went off. Eyes still closed, she stuck a hand out from under the covers and felt around until she found the button. The insistent buzzing stopped, leaving her with the faint sound of somebody from the local all-news station talking in a cheerful tinny voice about lane closures on the Major Deegan Expressway.
  
  She opened her eyes. It was still very dim in the room. Winter mornings weren't exactly her favorites: she hated getting up when it was still dark.
  
  Nita sat up in bed, rubbed her eyes. Is the sun even up yet? she wondered.
  
  7:16, said Bobo from somewhere in the back of her head.
  
  "Thanks," Nita said, and rubbed her hands up and down her arms. It was chilly: the central heating hadn't come on yet, and in weather as cold as it had been the last few days, even a flannel nightie couldn't do a lot for you once you got out from under the covers. Shortest day tomorrow, she thought. Longest night... "And an eclipse of the moon," she said aloud.
  
  While that's true, Bobo said, I wouldn't quote you long odds on seeing it.
  
  Nita got out of bed and went straight to the closet for the beat-up wooly-chenille bathrobe she favored on mornings like this. "Well, yeah, probably going to be too busy..."
  
  That's not the problem.
  
  "Oh?" Nita said, and went to the back window to tilt the Venetian blinds open.
  
  The back yard looked someone's old black and white photograph of a winter scene: softly lit in a shadowless dove-gray, the dark shapes of bare shrubs and leafless trees seemed charcoal-sketched against an indistinct background barely visible in the pre-dawn twilight. But what was slightly visible now in that grayness was movement; a gentle down-sifting of light near the window. Ever so lightly, ever so slightly, it had begun to snow. There was maybe an inch of it on the ground already.
  
  Nita smiled a little to see it. Snow for Christmas...
  
  But possibly, Bobo said, a little more than you might have had in mind.
  
  "Oh?"
  
  You'll want to check your manual... but we have incoming.
  
  "Uh, okay." It was unusual to hear Bobo sound quite so concerned.
  
  Nita picked the manual up off her bedside table and went to do bathroom things, then headed downstairs to see if her dad had made tea yet. He had: and he was standing there in the kitchen dressed in his black cold-weather parka just finishing what was in his Mets mug. He looked tired and a little bleary, which was no surprise this time of year—the runup to Christmas was always crazy for florists. "You okay?" Nita said, getting a mug for herself and filling it from the pot.
  
  "Yeah," her dad said. "But God, am I getting sick of poinsettias."
  
  This was something that Nita had heard repeatedly for the last few weeks. "I don't blame you," she said. "When do you think you'll be done today?"
  
  "Probably five," her dad said. "I don't see any point in working late hours this week. I know what orders I've got due out and I've got enough time budgeted for them. If it gets busy toward the end of the day, Mikey can keep the shop open a little later. I don't want to miss the excitement." He smiled a little. "When do people start getting here again?"
  
  "Not till about four," Nita said, and yawned. "That's when Filif's coming: we'll take him over to Kit's and get him settled in. Or get Kit's pop settled, anyway..."
  
  "Not still nervous, is he?" said Nita's dad. "I've told him once or twice already, you couldn't ask for a nicer house guest. Should I call him and calm him down?"
  
  "Might not be a bad idea, if you get a moment today."
  
  "Will do." Her dad kissed her goodbye. "Tell Dairine I said to put the garbage out."
  
  "I'll tell her." And Nita made a small face, since telling Dairine to go anywhere near a garbage can was rarely all that effective. There were few chores she hated more.
  
  Her dad headed out. After a few minutes she heard the car starting up, and (as it pulled out of the garage into the driveway) the snow tires whining and slipping in the new snow, even though her dad had salted the driveway last night. Wet snow, Nita thought. Whatever we get, it'll stick. The thought of that snow piling up on Filif's branches made her smile. Do they even get snow on Demisiv? she thought. I know so little about the place...
  
  Something to look into. Meanwhile... She stretched. Breakfast. And then... Christmas!
  
  She spent the first half of the day just puttering around the house and relaxing, rejoicing in not even having to look at the clock, despite the low-level buzz of anticipation already building inside her as time for the arrival of friends and guests got closer. It was the first real day of the holidays for her, the first weekday that Nita didn't have to go to school, and wouldn't have to go again until the first week in January; and the calm of it felt like heaven. Miraculously (or actually due to hard work and some forethought) she was all sorted out for her between-semesters work: no reports to write, no projects to agonize over. And nothing to procrastinate over, either! Or to get stressed over because you know you're procrastinating. It was perfect.
  
  ...Well, nearly perfect. Every now and then the thought of the one person who wouldn't be there for Christmas this year came up to meet her as she looked at some window decoration that wasn't quite right and needed to be straightened, or some spot where another traditional Christmassy item—that glass bowl full of fake poinsettia flowers, the other bowl full of shiny ball ornaments—was dusty and needed attention. Nita kept waiting for one or another of these moments to turn into pain, and kept being surprised when they didn't. It wasn't that she didn't miss her mom. Because I do, every day. It was just that for some reason, her sense that her mom was okay was stronger than usual. Initially Nita was tempted to spend more time trying to figure this out. But why? Why do I want to keep poking at it like a tooth where the filling fell out? Mom would tell me to let it be. So I will.
  
  She had more tea, and after a while wandered upstairs to her bedroom again and put a few last wrapping- or ribbon-touches on a couple of gifts she'd picked up for other party guests. It wasn't mandatory for people to bring each other things, but along the line she'd seen a thing or two that seemed right for one or another of the people who were coming. And there was one special gift that she kept stealing peeks at, half in admiration and half in nervousness that he wouldn't like it. Finally, she laughed at herself—very softly, so as not to wake Dairine, who apparently still wasn't up yet—and closed the little box. Then she felt around underneath her bed for the bedroom slippers with the waterproof soles, the ones that wouldn't mind being out in the snow. What the heck, she thought, garbage is garbage, it needs to be out...
  
  She pulled the full plastic bag out of the kitchen garbage pail and quietly went outside to where the big garbage cans sat next to the garage. The snow was still falling gently out of a solid gray sky, mostly straight down, in a persistent, purposeful kind of way. Only the occasional tiniest breath of breeze stirred it around and made it swirl as it came down. Then it straightened out again, doing a credible imitation of snow globe snow. I meant to look at that weather report, she thought, as she put the kitchen garbage in the big can, shook the snow off the garbage can lid, and quietly put it back in place. In a moment. Right now, despite the way the cold bit at her through her bathrobe and the flannel nightgown, Nita was quite content to stand in the snow—maybe two inches deep, now—and let the silence soak into her bones. There was no sound anywhere; even the normal traffic noise that would have drifted over from the nearby Southern State Parkway was completely muted.
  
  She glanced down at the tracks her dad's car had left in the driveway snow. They were already filling up again, and the salt underneath them didn't seem to be having much effect. Nita briefly considered doing a small wizardry to talk the driveway into believing it was warmer than its surroundings so that the snow would stay melted. But is it really necessary? she thought. Sometimes it was harder for wizard to wait a little while and not spend energy that might not have actually been required to improve a situation. Then she grinned at herself. And maybe, she thought, I'm just feeling lazy. And every now and then, why not?
  
  She went back in the house, took off the outside slippers and left but by the door to melt their snow off on the doormat; then found her other slippers which had somehow migrated to the dining room, put them on, and wandered into the living room. It was bright enough, even though no lights were on; the picture window was letting in that pale gray snow light, restful. Perfect to read by, she thought. She went upstairs very softly, pulled a book out of her to-read pile, went downstairs again into the kitchen for more tea, and curled up on the couch with the book and just read.
  
  The next thing she knew the kitchen door was opening. Her dad had come home for lunch, and even two rooms over Nita could tell from the sound of the way he tossed his keys onto the kitchen counter that he was in a bad mood. Oh great, she thought, what's this about?
  
  She put the book down and picked up the empty tea mug sitting by her, and wandered into the kitchen. Her dad was staring into the refrigerator, scowling. Nita leaned around him and peered into his face. "What?"
  
  "Don't get me started," he muttered.
  
  "About what?"
  
  "Football."
  
  Nita rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah, the miracle..."
  
  "Not miraculous," said her dad, and started rummaging around in the fridge a lot harder than he needed to.
  
  Nita snickered. For her, the only sport of interest was baseball. But come the end of baseball season her dad normally started paying attention to football, for which Nita had no time whatsoever. Apparently the Philadelphia Eagles had played the Giants at the Meadowlands over the weekend and had abruptly come from behind in the last quarter to badly beat the Giants, her dad's favorites. Now, every time he heard the local news teams on TV or radio referring to this as "the Miracle in the Meadowlands," he positively growled.
  
  "Daddy, you really want to shake this mood," Nita said. "If Fil turns up here and sees you upset like this, he's going to want to know why you're upset! And then you're going to have to explain football to him. And he always gets freaked when he thinks he hasn't done enough research in something."
  
  "Well," her dad said, and sighed. "I take it that on this visit your job is going to be explaining Christmas to him?"
  
  "Well, he'll have arrived doing the basic reading, you know that."
  
  Her dad laughed a little. "Not sure how basic basic is, but the subject can get complicated..."
  
  "Tell me about it," Nita said. And then the front doorbell rang.
  
  Her dad glanced at her. "And you not dressed yet," he said. "Let me get it. Probably it's the first batch of kids wanting to shovel the driveway." He went past her to answer the door.
  
  Nita heard him open it, and then something unexpected happened; her dad started laughing. Curious, she went into the living room and peered around towards the door to see what was going on. Then she understood his surprise, because standing there in bright red ski coveralls and big boots and a parka and a woolly Christmas hat was Tom Swale, with a snow shovel over his shoulder.
  
  "I don't even know what the going rate for this is anymore," Nita's dad said, and laughed again, feeling around in his pockets. "Is five dollars enough, or has inflation hit this too?"
  
  Tom roared with laughter. "Just leave that they are, Tom," said Nita's dad. "Come on in. Coffee?"
  
  "No, it's okay, I won't be keeping you," Tom said, leaning the snow shovel up against the side of Nita's front porch underneath the mailbox. He stepped in the door that Nita's dad held open for him, and all the snow obligingly fell off him before he crossed the threshold.
  
  "You sure," Nita's dad said. "I mean, that trick has to be good for at least a ten if you'll do it to the sidewalks and the driveway. Maybe we can come to some kind of arrangement."
  
  Tom followed her dad into the dining room, smiling at Nita. "It's okay, Harry, I'm not shilling for business. At least, not this kind of business. I was just doing our sidewalk, and then it occurred to me to wonder whether Nita had seen the weather report, and I thought I'd just walk over and check."
  
  "Yeah," Nita said. "Bobo did mention something about a storm coming."
  
  "The storm," Tom said. "The snowstorm of the decade, if not the millennium... a category 2 nor'easter with snow. There won't have been a snowstorm this powerful since the sixties, if our own weather forecasters are worth their salt. Even the non-wizardly forecasters are starting to get really concerned, and with reason. The temperatures are going to drop quite hard on the twenty-first, and the wind's going to pick up. Blizzard conditions at the very least, and super-blizzard at worst." He sighed. "A lot of us are having to change our schedules at the last minute, because all the local services are going to be under tremendous pressure and the going to need all the help they can get on this one, at least from wizards expert in handling this kind of weather."
  
  Nita followed them into the dining room and sat down with them. "Does that mean you won't be able to make it to the party?"
  
  "Oh, we'll be looking in," Tom said. "But we won't be able to stay long." And then he gave Nita an amused look. "The joke is that it turns out we wouldn't have been able to stay very long anyway, because a few days ago the airline changed our flights to Banff and left us looking at an earlier departure." He brushed a little ruefully at his ski coverall. "But now that's not an issue. Here Carl and I were already to go to the snow, and all of a sudden it turns out the snow is coming to us. With a vengeance. So we canceled, and the slopes will have to wait for us until the new year."
  
  "Sometimes you just can't catch a break," Nita's dad said.
  
  "The Eagles," Tom said. "Tell me."
  
  That made Nita's dad laugh. "I'd have thought you guys would just try to push this storm away, though," he said, "if it's going to be so much trouble."
  
  Tom shook his head. "We don't usually fight with the weather unless we have to. And even if you want to, with the biggest storms there's almost no point; there's so much kinetic energy already bound up in them that it's like trying to stop an atom bomb. This one's got its mind made up—it's coming through. All we can do is try to mitigate the worst circumstances, help the emergency services quietly where helping won't get noticed, and generally just make ourselves useful."
  
  Nita swallowed, because a thought had just occurred to her. "You don't need any of us, do you?"
  
  "That's really thoughtful," Tom said, "and the answer is, in a word, no. None of you are in the required specialty groups, and we've got plenty of people stepping up to handle this. So you enjoy your party. We'll stop in sometime this evening for a while, have an eggnog, and then head out to do our thing."
  
  He got up, and so did Nita's dad, walking him to the front door. "But Tom, if you change your mind about the driveway, let me know. We local small businessmen have to stick together..."
  
  Their laughter mingled as the door closed. "I'll let you know. See you two later."
  
  A little while after hearing the doorbell, and just after their dad headed back to the shop, Dairine materialized in old jeans and an oversized sweater, demanding tea and food. For the time being Nita ignored this. "You have a late night last night?"
  
  "Working out some software issues with Spot," she said.
  
  "Oh, really?"
  
  "Don't angle for details," Dairine said rubbing her eyes. "Party stuff. You'll find out. How did it get to be two o'clock already?"
  
  "Ten of," Nita said, glancing at the clock. But it was a fair question. "And you know what? I don't care. Everything is moving in slow motion today, and I love it."
  
  Dairine flopped down at the dining room table and stretched. "For once we're in agreement."
  
  "'For once,'" Nita said in good-natured mockery. It was interesting to notice that she and her sister had lately been in agreement a lot more than they used to. Maybe it's the wizardry, Nita thought. And even if it's not, I really don't care why it's happening. It's better than fighting. "I took out your garbage," she said.
  
  "My garbage! It's the garbage. I'm just the one who gets stuck taking it out." Dairine wrinkled her nose.
  
  "Doesn't matter. You owe me one," Nita said.
  
  Dairine rolled her eyes as if in scorn at this bourgeois concept. "I'm not even up ten minutes and you're trying to push your simplistic barter economy stuff on me? Please." She got up and went to get some tea.
  
  Nita laughed at herself. Well, that lasted five minutes. "Shower time," she said, levering herself up out of the chair and heading upstairs. "Make another pot, okay?"
  
  She didn't even hear Dairine's answer, and didn't particularly care what she'd said. The tone of the day was remaining unbroken; slow and easy, building toward something good. That soft snow light was filling the upstairs hall from the window down at the end, and filling the bathroom too. Nita showered, then went and got changed into her party clothes—nothing dressy, just dark leggings and low black fluffy-lined elf-boots, and what Nita had started referring to privately as the Christmas Sweater of Doom. It was a ridiculous hairy angora-knit crewnecked construction adorned with fake Icelandic patterns in red and white, and scattered all over with revolting embroidered green yarn Christmas trees with little sewn-on Mylar ornaments. Kit had stumbled across the thing somewhere online and ridiculed it so mercilessly that Nita had decided she had to have it. It had taken entirely too much of her disposable income for that month, but it would be worth it for the look on his face when he saw it on her. And it's going to be hilarious explaining it to Filif...
  
  Nita glanced at the clock radio and realized to her shock that it somehow said three-thirty. Whoa, how'd that happen, she thought, where'd the time go all of a sudden! Maybe I had a little too much lazy. He's going to be here soon...
  
  She gathered up the goodie bag with her Christmas cards and small presents in it from where it had been sitting on her desk for a while. Then Nita headed downstairs, noting in passing the sound of Dairine thumping around in her room, apparently going through her drawers or her closet. Last-minute decisions, Nita thought, smiling as she headed down the stairs. Dair always tries to be so organized, but when it comes to clothes she can never make up her mind...
  
  In the living room, Nita paused briefly, glancing around. The place looked tidy enough, so she didn't have to worry about bringing anybody over if for some reason they needed to see something of hers. Fine, she thought. She headed into the kitchen, noted a few dishes in the sink, and stopped just long enough to wash the and put them in the rack. Then she grabbed her parka off the hook by the back door, threw it over the crazy Christmas sweater, and carefully headed out the back door, down the steps, and through the gate into the back yard.
  
  The snow was deeper out here; she had to step carefully to keep the boots from getting wet. Nita looked around and saw that the silvery snow light was already getting a bit dimmer. Above that gray ceiling, sunset was already coming on. She paused by the tree growing out of the middle of the yard between house and the garden, and put a hand on its trunk. "You awake?" she said.
  
  Liused's answer took a few moments in coming. A little.
  
  "Got a guest incoming," she said. "Want to talk to him? Or if this is a bad time, he can stop by earlier tomorrow, when the light's better."
  
  ...Tomorrow might be best. In the morning?
  
  Nita patted his trunk. "No problem," she said. "I'll talk to you then."
  
  She headed on down the garden—all the flower beds covered over with mulch or burlap bags this time of year, and those in turn covered with the new snow—and finally under the bare trees in the furthest part of the back yard, where the surface of the snow was patched and dappled with little lumps of it that had slid off the branches above. The stillness was very deep back here, and Nita just stood there a while, not caring how cold her feet were getting, and appreciated it.
  
  Around her she thought she could almost see the sky's light dimming moment by moment. Bobo, what time's sunset?
  
  Four thirty-one.
  
  "I might not be imagining it, then," she murmured. And then at the bottom of her vision, she caught sight of something unexpected: a glow under the snow, a sign of the embedded transit circle waking up. He's early, she thought, stepping back.
  
  A moment later a cold cinnamon-scented breeze blew in her face, and Filif was standing there, as suddenly as if a tree with its lowest branches demurely veiled in mist had suddenly grown on the spot.
  
  He looked at Nita with all the berries on that side, while using the others to gaze up and around him. "Dai stiho, my cousin!"
  
  "Dai, you," Nita said, and stepped into the transit circle as soon as it had finished discharging, and buried her arms in among the fronds to give him a big hug.
  
  It was at that moment that a light breeze sprang up. Nita felt the sparkle of breezeblown snowflakes on her cheek just a bare second before one of the trees above them let slip some loose snow on top of them.
  
  They both laughed at that, and Nita reached up to brush Filif off a little. "I was early..." Filif said.
  
  "I don't care," Nita said. "It's so great to see you! This is going to be so much fun."
  
  "Where's Kit?"
  
  "Over at his place helping keep his folks calm. This is their first time to have a bunch of non-Solars over..."
  
  "And they're so kind to have me! I can't wait for this." He shivered with excitement.
  
  At least Nita hoped it was excitement. "You know, I've never even asked you. Does it snow where you are? Do you even get winter?"
  
  "What? Of course it snows," Filif said. "Demisiv has a fairly pronounced axial tilt. And a lot of highlands. The climate's temperate most of the year, but in the depths of the cold season we get quite big storms, sometimes. Normally no one's too bothered. In the dark season a lot of people elect to go dormant and just wait it out. Others... stay more active, like to get around then." He fell silent for a moment. "A long story."
  
  "But you're okay with this?"
  
  "Yes, of course." He ruffled out his branches. "This feels quite homelike, actually. The temperature range isn't far off."
  
  Nita paused. "This is possibly the most idiotic time possible to be asking you this," she said. "But... are you okay with all this? Because you understand about the normal Earth Christmas trees now, don't you. And where they come from. And what happens to them."
  
  Filif paused too. "Life is life," he said. "But I did do my research before I came. Those lives have been brought about just for this purpose, haven't they?"
  
  "Pretty much, yeah."
  
  "Well, I can feel that. So can they." Filif rustled his branches as a little more snow fell on him from the branches above. "That being the case, we should allow them all the dignity of accepting what they've been destined for. And of knowing that they're making the best of it: in some cases, not just with acceptance, but great joy."
  
  Nita nodded. "It seems a lot to ask of them..." Nita said.
  
  "It's not what you're asking," Filif said. "It's what they're giving. Gift is a powerful state from which to approach the world..."
  
  Again there was that sense of what Filif was saying having come up from some great depth. But even when he was at his goofiest and most excitable, Nita had never had trouble feeling, at a slight remove, the underlying strength from which sprang everything Filif did and said, and in which he was powerfully grounded. When that power revealed itself in the middle of a wizardry, sometimes it took you by surprise. Nita wasn't going to push the issue at the moment; if Fil had something that needed saying, explanations would be forthcoming soon enough.
  
  "Anyway," Filif said, "you should relax. I'm not a newbie here these days: you don't have to hide the salad bar from me any more."
  
  Nita burst out laughing. "Good!"
  
  "And after all this time, I'm finally here to get decorated. So let's get on with it!"
  
  "Right," Nita said. "Sker'ret's put a receptor site out in Kit's back yard to make transiting in easier for people."
  
  "Shielded, I take it, so as not to discomfit the neighbors..."
  
  "Absolutely." Nita walked them both back a step or two into the center of the transit circle. "You set?"
  
  "Yes."
  
  "Then let's go!"
  
  A heartbeat later, the two of them came out in Kit's backyard. "It's going to be a zoo in there," Nita said. "Carmela's mama decided all of a sudden that she was not going to let her daughter mess around with her best tableware. She was going to set up the buffet herself."
  
  "If I didn't know better," Filif said, "I would suspect Carmela planned it that way in order to get her mother to do the heavy lifting."
  
  Nita snickered as she reached down to her charm bracelet for the empty-ring charm that held the simplest of several invisibility spells. "You know her too well," she said as she pulled the bright Speech-tracery of the spell out of the charm, expanded it into a broad faintly-glowing network, and threw it over the top of the two of them. "Not that there's all that much to do. Sker'ret had Crossings Catering transit the food in about an hour ago. It's all in disposable serving trays and bins and things..."
  
  They headed up across the snow-covered lawn of Kit's back hard toward the house. "There's no rush about installing the puptents," Nita said. "Sker's put in a hub to make the installation easier. Just plug your wizardry in, and the hub'll do the rest."
  
  "He seems to have thought of everything," Filif said.
  
  "Happiest when he's organizing," Nita said, "that's our Sker'."
  
  They went in the back door, through the kitchen. There were four or five pots on the stove, from which wonderful smells were arising: mulled wine, hot chocolate, hot cider. Christmas music was floating out of the living room: as a song finished and Nita heard a veejay's voice, she realized that the TV had one of the big music video channels on. "You are going to hear every Christmas carol ever written before this is over," she said to Filif, flipping the invisibility spell off them and collapsing it again.
  
  "I take it that's a good thing?"
  
  "We'll see what you think by this time tomorrow."
  
  They headed into the dining room. The table was covered silverware and napkins and cups and glasses, and a whole lot of food. Some of it was local—Nita immediately recognized Kit's mama's buffalo wings and the little deviled-egg and cream cheese and chilli hors d'oeuvres that she liked to do on crackers. But the rest was covered with human and alien-biology delicacies from the Crossings, everything carefully labeled. Nita made a private resolution to get back here as soon as she could and check out the details, as some of the food looked familiar, and if she didn't move fast, Kit would shovel it all down his face before she got a chance.
  
  "Come on, Fil," Nita said, "come meet Kit's pop and mama!" She pulled him around into the living room, having caught a glimpse of them in there through the passthrough; they were hanging a last few garlands up near the ceiling.
  
  Nita pulled Filif over to them. "So here's the guest of honor!" Nita said. "Juan Rodriguez," Nita said, "Marina Rodriguez, this is Filifermanhathrhumneits'elhessaiffnth."
  
  Kit's pop's eyes went wide. He opened his mouth to respond, but before he could say anything Nita immediately added, "Everybody calls him Filif, so don't even bother trying to pronounce the long version. It always takes me a couple of days to even remember how."
  
  "Estimable senior cousins," Filif said, bowing, "thank you for your welcome." And then he straightened up and offered Kit's pop a long branch, and his mama another.
  
  They both stared at these for a moment, and then took them. "Nice to meet you, Filif," said Kit's pop. "So nice!" said his mama.
  
  "A pleasure on my part as well! I'm very excited about what's going to happen."
  
  "Well, we're excited to have you! And we're glad you're here finally," said Kit's pop. "It's been so strange not having a tree already. It's felt almost unnatural. But we're good now." He beamed at Filif. "You're what... six feet easily, I'd say!"
  
  Filif thought about that for a moment. "Yes, I'd say so," he said. "And about five feet in diameter at the base."
  
  "It's going to be unusual to have a Christmas tree that's so cooperative," said Kit's pop. "But look, you should enjoy the party for a while first! We like to let it get good and dark before we start decorating... it's more impressive, then, when the lights go on."
  
  "That's fine," Filif said. "What do you normally do at this point with a... locally acquired tree?"
  
  "Well, first of all unwrap it outside — normally you bring it home wrapped up in webbing so the branches don't get hurt. And after that, leave it outside for a little while to let it relax and help the branches find their right shape again."
  
  Filif rustled a little in agreement. "It makes sense," he said. "If you like, perhaps I'll go stand outside for a bit and get myself acclimatized."
  
  "Uh... won't the neighbors see you?"
  
  "Not at all," said Filif. "Nita handled it when we came in, but I'm as good at being invisible as any other wizard There are lots of ways to do it. Once I stop moving, they'll see a wrapped up tree sitting leaning against the side of your garage while you get the room ready."
  
  "There's zero need for that," said another voice. It was Dairine, wandering in out of the living room. She was in a long green silky top and darker green floppy pants, something Wellakhit if Nita was any judge. "Sker' did a smart thing and shielded the whole back yard. The front's open, but he did a selective visual wizardry with the windows: nobody human will be able to see any of the non-Solars through it, and the filter spoofs anything unaffected so it can't be seen either."
  
  "Probably that's a good idea," said Kit's mama. "Especially lately... Well, come on, Filif, what do you like to eat or drink? Or do you want to wait till you've come back in?"
  
  "I think Sker'ret will have brought some rooting compound for me," Filif said. "It's what I'll be standing in while decorated." He shivered again, that excited gesture.
  
  "It's in the dedicated corner already," came Sker'ret's voice from the kitchen. "A big pot of that acid stuff you like, Fil." And in came Sker'ret, apparently after a visit to one of the storage closets in the back of the house. He was walking on only a few pairs of legs, and with all the others he was carefully holding three other piles of serving plates above his upper carapace.
  
  Nita had to turn and stare, fascinated. "I didn't even know your legs hinged like that!" she called after him.
  
  "Apparently they do," said Sker'ret, and kept on going into the dining room.
  
  "Where's Kit?" Nita said.
  
  "He's upstairs changing," Carmela said as she came wandering into the living room from the back of the house. She looked very much the Christmas hostess in a glittery red tunic top and red-and-white leggings with a very subdued candy-cane pattern on them, and low red boots to complete the effect.
  
  "Fashion plate," Nita said as Carmela grabbed Filif and hugged him, half vanishing into his branches and making some of his berry-eyes on either side of her pop a little.
  
  "Yes, well, with such a special occasion you have to make a little effort," Carmela said. "Kit's doing his best but I don't know if it's going to be enough..."
  
  Footsteps were coming down the stairs. "I heard that!" said Kit's voice. "Just because some people can't manage to find themselves a genuine collectors' item like this..."
  
  Kit came down into the living room, turning toward the group gathered there, his mouth open... and then stopped dead.
  
  "Oh no," Nita said, and started gasping with laughter. "Oh no!" Because Kit was wearing black jeans and sneakers and a ridiculous hairy angora-knit crewnecked construction adorned with fake Icelandic patterns in red and white, and scattered all over with revolting embroidered green yarn Christmas trees with little sewn-on Mylar ornaments.
  
  They stood there in shock, staring at each other as Kit's mama and pop burst out laughing in unison. "You look like the Bobbsey Twins," Kit's mama said.
  
  "Who?" said Kit and Nita in unison.
  
  Mrs. Rodriguez threw a glance at her husband, then gazed briefly at the ceiling as if begging for help from some unseen source. "Generation gap," she said. "Never mind." She headed for the kitchen.
  
  "I didn't mean for you to buy it," Kit said, "I meant for you not to buy it! So I'd be the only one having it."
  
  "Emailing me pictures of the thing was no way to get me not to buy it!" Nita said. "What am I, six?"
  
  Dairine pushed past her toward the dining room, snickering. "No better than eight on a good day," she said.
  
  "Whatever you do," said an Irish voice from that direction, "don't change. Don't either of you dare change."
  
  Nita turned. There, leaning in the dining room doorway, having apparently just arrived, was Ronan. He was in black, as usual... but for a change, surprisingly formal blacks. Trousers instead of jeans, shiny black brogues instead of goth boots, a very slim-fitting black shirt with black glitters in it, and to top everything off, a Santa hat in white and black.
  
  Nita burst out laughing. "What are you supposed to be, some kind of dark 'jolly old elf?'"
  
  Ronan waggled his eyebrows. "Other people can worry about who's nice. I prefer to concentrate on the naughty."
  
  "I don't even want to know," said Kit's mama as she came back into the room with a tray full of glasses of hot cider. "Nita?"
  
  Nita grabbed one. "You're earlier than I thought you'd be," she said to Ronan.
  
  "Wanted to get out before it got too crazy. We've got weather like you're going to get."
  
  That surprised Nita. "Can't be the same system—"
  
  "It's not. Trust me, we don't need your help to trigger major snow events! We've got Siberia." Ronan wandered over to where some buffet trays had been laid out on one of the low living room tables and went picking among the crackers piled up there. "And we're getting hammered. A foot on the ground already and lots more coming. Heathrow's closed, Charles de Gaulle is closed, Frankfurt and Geneva were just shutting when I left." He found a plate for his snacks. "In fact, most of Europe's a mess. Every wizard who specializes in that kind of thing is out in the cold right now. So glad I'm not one!"
  
  "Here," said Kit's mama, putting a glass of cider in Ronan's hand. "Who else wants one?"
  
  Nita had a long drink of the cider and felt the world seem to settle a little around her. Whatever spice mix Kit's mama had worked out to use in the stuff, Nita never got tired of it. The next thing she knew she and Kit were laughing about their sweaters, and she was stealing snacks off a plate he was holding, and the room was getting fuller of people. Her dad showed up, and the next thing Nita knew he and Kit's pop and Filif were discussing the best management of the electrical outlets for the lights they were going to be putting on him, and Kit's mama was laughing in the kitchen with Dairine at something Spot had just done, and the entertainment system was showing what appeared to be an ancient rock star playing a guitar in the nude.
  
  And Kit leaned over to Nita and said, "Anyway, I don't know about you, but I'd say the party has begun..."