God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay…                

What she loved most about Scranton was the winter.                  

Cold and ice and snow and things that fell from the sky that looked so much like home to her it could make the breath catch in her throat.  The way that she was skilled at maneuvering slippery streets and five o’clock darkness, and the way that her cheeks turned red with the chill in the air and her breath visibly puffed out of her mouth to make little clouds that mingled with the snowflakes and the twinkle of Christmas lights.                

So many things were new for Pam this year that sometimes she felt like she was floating in a foundation-less abyss.  She had Jim, of course, and he was so much a part of her and so warm and he was all of the things that she knew, but sometimes it seemed like Scranton itself had turned into a different place… because Pam was so different.  She ate at different restaurants, she shopped in different stores, she had new friends and a new apartment and a new sense of romance.  Pam had changed and suddenly the world was open, uncharted territory.  Suddenly Scranton was all overwhelming and foreign and sometimes exciting…but sometimes it was just…  She felt like she needed to sit down and take a breath, take a break.  Sometimes she wished she could go back to when everything was mind-numbingly familiar.                  

That was why she’d gotten tears in her eyes when Michael had called out from his office and announced that it was snowing.  He’d yelled “First snow!” and she had smiled like she usually only smiled at Jim, and her eyes had watered of their own accord and she had gotten up from her seat and gone to look over his shoulder out the window…  She was the only one in the office to react, the only one to respond and participate in Michael’s child-like exuberance because to her it was like the warmth of the kitchen, and the smell of freshly baked cookies, and the soft glow of a Christmas tree and… home.  It made her feel at home again.  She’d crossed her arms and bit her bottom lip to keep in what might either be laughter or tears, and she nodded at Michael when he asked her if she thought it was beautiful.  Because…yes, to her it was.                

Since that first snow Jim had commented often on her cheeriness…her exuberance…the way that she decorated her place and spent hours in the kitchen and made him take walks with her to look at lights and to catch snowflakes on their tongues.  He sometimes called her Martha Stewart and it made her laugh.  She sometimes held his hand and it made him smile.  They would go on walks with coats and scarves and mittens and hats, and they would link arms or hold hands and make each other laugh through block after block of inflatable Santa’s and softly lit nativities.                  

Then other times they were much less merry and much more quiet, because sometimes Jim was unhappy…sometimes he felt stuck…or afraid of being stuck…and he would sit on the sofa with his head in his hands and refuse the hot chocolate she’d made, and so she would kiss him and she would tell him to put on his coat…                

Because this was how she loved Scranton.  This snowfall and this holiday and this chill in the air.  And she promised that he wouldn’t feel stuck anymore if they just went for a walk.                

And usually she was right.                  

She was realizing that even though she’d known Jim before, it wasn’t until the snow had fallen that she’d realized all of him.  It wasn’t until the temperature slipped low and frosty, it wasn’t until they started to huddle together under the blankets and whisper because that was what people did in the cold month of December, it wasn’t until she used his oven to make those peanut butter cookies with the Hershey kisses in the middle because those were his favorite, that she realized he was inside of her life and he was inside of her home and between him and the snow she could die a happy woman.  Sometimes she thought she must know him better than anybody else.  Sometimes she was certain he knew her better than Roy ever had.                

She loved him like first snowfalls and scattered ornaments and the scent of pine.  She knew him like Scranton in the winter, and December felt like the warmest month she’d ever had.  And she was sure that before the month was over she would tell him exactly how she felt…exactly how much of her he really was, and exactly how much of him she wanted to be. 

 *** ***                 

“This is a little bit intense,” he admitted, leaning over her desk with a tight-lipped smile.  She tipped her head at him.                

“Bringing me home to meet your parents?” she wondered, and he opened his mouth to reply, but she stopped him with warmly spoken words,  “Or the fact that this is our first Christmas together?” she added, and this time he didn’t even bother trying to respond because he could sense that she wasn’t finished, and, predictably, she went on,  “Ooor the excruciating pressure of knowing that tomorrow I will be opening a present from you, and our entire relationship depends on how wonderful it is?” this last was deadpan, and he raised his eyebrows at her, blindly scratching at the spot where his watch met his skin.                

“Uh, yeah, yes all of those things seem intense to me,” he told her, a flatness in his voice that did nothing to hide the way that he was being completely honest.  She smiled mischievously and wagged her eyebrows at him a few times, pulling a genuine laugh from his mouth and making him shake his head at her in a way that was purely Jim.                  

If she were honest, she would admit that she’d been waiting for this day with childish excitement, sure that spending time in his childhood house would be like turning the clock back ten years and seeing the way that he’d been as a teenager, a child, a boy with brothers and sisters and parents and all of the things she never really got to know about him.                  

Of course, she was also nervous in that ‘I‘m going home with my boyfriend for the first time’ kind of way, but she consciously chose not to focus on that part.                

“Well, call me crazy,” she responded through a smile, “but I think we’re pretty awesome at handling intense relationship landmarks.  Mostly,” she looked up toward the ceiling in thought, “because we’re funny, highly intelligent, surprisingly athletic when necessary, and also young and idealistic,” she finished, grinning up at his grin and wishing the day would pass just a little bit faster.  He watched her for a moment and shook his head in exasperation.                

“Wow,” he drawled, “you forgot to say that we’re good looking,” he corrected and she clicked her tongue at herself before smiling broadly at him.  He returned the smile with trepidation and she felt his next comment coming before it even fell from his mouth.  “It’s still intense,” he mumbled, his head down and his fingers hanging in defeat over the ledge of her desk.  She patted the tops of them gently and sighed.                

“Don’t worry,” she told him earnestly.  “Here,” pushing a Tupperware toward him, she smiled toothily and he laughed again, “have a cookie.”

It took Pam about thirty seconds to figure out that the Halpert family was almost nothing like the Beesly family.  The house was full of people and brightly lit, there were about eight women cooking things in the kitchen and an equal number of fifty-something men crowded around a big wooden table with cards spread out among them, and every once in a while one of the women would scold them on their language or on the amount of money they claimed to be betting, even though Pam was sure they probably never paid up.  There was a navy blue colored den that was full of teenagers and twenty-something’s playing board games, and a cream colored living room currently housing Jim’s oldest brother Jonathon, who was playing the piano with a practiced kind of fervor, as a group of about five younger children basically yelled out Christmas carols.  Thinking back on it, she was surprised anyone had heard the doorbell ring.                 

But, in fact, Jim’s youngest brother, Adam, answered the door in jeans and a thermal shirt, a wide smile on his face and his cheeks rosy with the warmth of the house.  He held out his arms and laughed.                

“You’re late, asshole!  Hi, Pam,” Adam greeted, and Jim chuckled and shook his head stepping forward to give his brother a warm embrace, patting him on the back enthusiastically.                  

“Look at you! Jesus!  What are you, working for J. Crew now or something?” Jim wondered, stepping back to take in the way his brother had grown into his gangly limbs and elfish features and cut his hair short to make him look older, handsome, definitely worth a second glance in Pam’s humble opinion. 

“Our little boy’s growing up,” Jim joked.  Adam blushed further and glanced at Pam uncomfortably.                  

“Dude, I’m 23...you people act like I just turned 16...” he murmured, closing the door soundly behind Jim and Pam as they moved into the foyer and pulled off their coats, unloading bags and packages, having promised each other they’d go back for whatever was left in the car.                  

They all turned when a fourth and noticeably female voice entered the conversation, yelling out to Adam with a little tint of Halpert-humor laced through her words: “It’s just cause we never thought you’d cut off that cute little string you called a ponytail.”                  

Pam smiled broadly as the second youngest Halpert, Larissa, rushed down the stairs on excited feet and practically knocked Pam over with her long arms and her thrilled embrace.  Adam rolled his eyes.                

“Whatever,” he mumbled and retreated into the den, dragging socked feet against the plush carpet.  Larissa chuckled, pulling out of the hug and patting Pam’s cheeks affectionately.                 

“Hello, hello, Pam Beesly! Ugh look how cute you are! It’s like seven degrees outside, you must be freezing,” she assessed, linking arms with Pam and dismissing Jim with a wave of her hand.  “Hi Jim,” she mumbled, and Pam winked over her shoulder at him as he followed close behind her, still visibly anxious about introducing her to his parents.                  

She’d met all of his siblings at one point or another, but had never had the pleasure of making it to Dickson City to meet his mom and dad.  She was actually excited now that she’d arrived at the house and now that she knew how wonderfully spirited his family seemed about the holiday.  Christmas at her house had usually consisted of her, Roy, her mother, and her father, eating turkey, watching Rudolph, and passing the phone around as her sisters called to say Merry Christmas.  Then she and her mother would go to midnight mass while her father and Roy went to bed.  She had to admit it was nothing too exciting.  It was definitely nothing like this.   They rounded the corner into the kitchen and Larissa clapped her hands.                

“Excuse me, adults, hello!” Larissa called out and the poker game hushed, as well as the chatter coming from around the oven, stove, and refrigerator, “I would like to introduce you all to my very special guest,” she continued.  Pam glanced at Jim with a twinkle in her eye and he sighed and rolled his eyes.  “This is Pamela Beesly and she is full of holiday cheer and she has come to share with you the spirit of Christmas,” Larissa announced and Pam turned back to her with laughter on her lips, as the men and women all shook their heads, a few returning to whatever they’d been doing, having grown accustomed to Larissa’s infamous antics.  “And also to play many board games,” she added happily.  Finally, unable to stay quiet, Jim stepped forward.                

“Uh, she’s actually here to be my girlfriend, Larissa, but thank you for that wonderful introduction,” he mumbled, giving Larissa a gentle shove and taking Pam’s hand warmly as he pushed through the activity and made his way toward the stove where his mom was leaning with her arms crossed and a familiar looking smile on her face.  As they weaved through the pie-making and the batter-stirring Jim paused to lean down over one woman’s shoulder, bending to plant a kiss on her cheek.  “Hi Aunt Carol,” he greeted warmly.                

“Jim, I’m so glad you finally got here!” she responded.  He shrugged in a Jim kind of way and smiled.                

“Yeah well, work and stuff you know…I’m pretending to be a grown up.  That looks great, by the way,” he told her pointing down at the cherry pie in front of her that she was just finishing with a coat of sugar.  She winked.                

“My godson likes these,” she told him.  He chuckled, and patted her affectionately on the arm as he moved past.                

“He sounds like a cool guy,” he told her and she laughed heartily, returning to the pie, but not before grinning at Pam.                

“Hi, Pam,” Aunt Carol greeted quietly and Pam felt something inside of her warming up in a way that it had never done at the thought that she might become a part of whatever this family was…all of these people…the way that they had a routine and relationships and traditions…she wanted to be a part of it.  Finally they reached the stove and Jim wrapped his arms solidly around his mother.                  

“Mom, Merry Christmas.  Everything looks great,” he assured her, and she smiled happily into his shoulder, her chin-length brown bob brushing against the white of his oxford shirt.                  

“I didn’t buy you any presents this year, I hope that’s ok,” she told him jokingly, and he laughed and rolled his eyes at her obvious lie.                

“Right,” he mumbled incredulously, pulling away from her and gesturing to Pam with a shaky breath.  “Mom this is Pam, Pam this is my mom,” he introduced.  Pam smiled broadly and chuckled at the way his mother clapped excitedly and gave her a warm hug.                  

“We finally meet!” she proclaimed happily, and then she pushed Pam away, holding her at arms length and taking in the sight of her with a wide grin. “You are just as beautiful as Larissa said,” she promised in a conspiratorial voice, rubbing her back affectionately as Pam blushed out of self-consciousness.                

“Oh, no I um…” she shook her head and rolled her eyes, “Thank you so much for inviting me, Mrs. Halpert, this is…” she gestured with her hands and chuckled, “How many people are in this house right now?” she wondered in amazement.  Jim’s mom tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and shook her head.                

“Ugh I don’t count because if I did I think I would faint,” she joked.  Pam laughed and nodded, crossing her arms protectively and catching Jim’s eye.                 “Well, everything is amazing.  Your house is beautiful,” she complimented and Mrs. Halpert hummed in agreement.                

“Thank you, we like it.”                

“Alright I’m coming through here, everyone stop talking about me and keep your whisks to yourselves!” a man called out from the other end of the kitchen, causing all of the ladies to chuckle and roll their eyes affectionately.                

“Dad, you’re actually going to venture through the kitchen? Wow…that is…Pam you should feel honored,” Jim announced, watching with an amused expression as his dad held his hands above his head and bobbed and weaved through the many chefs surrounding the countertops and appliances.                  

 “Nobody move,” he called, “and I say that with your own well-being in mind, Carol.  Susan, put down that bowl, I mean it,” he murmured.  Pam joined in the chorus of laughter at the sight of his panicked face and careful footsteps.  She glanced questioningly toward Jim who leaned down toward her ear and whispered an explanation.                

“Like seven years ago dad offered to get beers for the poker table and ended up knocking over an entire casserole, fresh out of the oven,” he told her.  She nodded, her eyes still on his dad as she wondered how she and Jim could be so alike with such very different families.  “Holiday catastrophe,” he explained.  She chuckled.                

“Ok I made it,” his dad proudly proclaimed, and there was an unenthusiastic chorus of applause from some of the women as his wife patted his stomach happily, congratulating him on his brave journey.  “Now, Pam,” he began, his voice getting suddenly serious and his arm wrapping protectively around the shoulders of his wife, who looked at Pam and shook her head in exasperation, “I need to know what your intentions are with my son,”                

“Dad,” Jim interrupted helplessly.                

“No I mean it, this is serious, because I don’t want you taking advantage of his good looks, and charming personality, all of which he got from his father,” he told her with false grandeur, and she smiled up at him.                

“Oh no don’t worry, I don’t find him good looking or charming,” she admitted, “I’m dating him for his money.”  There was a moment of shocked silence in which Jim gazed down at her in blatant amusement and his father stared at her in surprise.  Finally, Mr. Halpert’s face split into a wide, toothy grin and he barked out one quick laugh before sobering and pretending to consider what she‘d told him.                

“Well, then that’s ok,” he decided, his 6’4” frame dwarfing not only Pam, but also Mrs. Halpert who stood at a slight-seeming 5’6”.  “Glad to have you, Pam,” he told her honestly, his tone reminding her of Jim and the way he said things like Thank you, and I’m sorry: all earnestness and sincerity.  She nodded at him.                

“Glad to be here,” she replied, attempting to match his richness of intention, even though that sort of thing didn’t come as easily to her.                

“Have you met all the aunts and uncles and cousins and brothers and sisters and babies yet?” he wondered, looking around with a grimace, “They’ve kind of taken over the place.”  And he was right, they kind of had.                  

But as Jim huffed and rolled his eyes and grabbed her hand and pulled her through all of the rooms, haphazardly introducing her to people and making jokes and tossing out stories that started with things like Remember when…, and ended with things like That’s why nobody let’s you near the tree anymore, Pam felt her cheeks aching from all of the smiling she was accidentally doing, and she felt her nervousness settle into something like comfort.                

She tugged on Jim’s sleeve as they stood on the outskirts of a raucous game of Pictionary and he dipped his head down to hear her better.  She pressed a gentle kiss against his cheek.                

“Thank you for bringing me here,” she told him quietly, and he pulled back a little to look her in the eye, his expression one of mild surprise and confusion.  She grinned up at him and shrugged slightly because she wasn’t sure why she felt like she had to say it, but it didn’t really matter because he nodded a little and kissed her cheek in return.                

“You’re welcome,” he whispered against her skin.  After a moment he stood up tall again and shouted out the answer to the clue his cousin was drawing for what seemed like the twentieth time in complete aggravation.                  

“Garbage disposal,” he announced, and his cousin tossed her marker into the air, throwing her hands above her head.                

“Thank you!” she yelled, as her team mates shouted out arguments and indignant accusations, to which she just nodded and crossed her arms.  Finally she held up her hand in the international sign for stop and they all fell silent.  “Jim is the only person in this room who is even mildly intelligent.  This was obviously a garbage disposal.  Look,  here’s the trash can, and here’s the sink, and then you put them together.  What’s confusing?” she wondered angrily.                

“Nothing,” Jim told her with a twinkle in his eye.  She nodded at him. 

“Thank you, Jim.  Thank you very much.  Do you two want in on this?  I think my team needs a few replacements, so if you and Pam are up for it, you‘re on…” she murmured, and Jim glanced at Pam and they both agreed, crouching down to sit Indian style on the floor among all of the Halperts.

After a few more rounds of Pictionary and one round of charades that degenerated into Jim, Adam, and a few of their cousins competing to see who could best impersonate Jim’s dad and Jim’s dad’s four brothers.  Everyone burst into a fit of laugher when Adam’s impeccable impersonation of his Uncle Greg was interrupted by Uncle Greg himself entering the room to inform them all that dinner was ready and on the table.  Adam had turned one hundred different shades of red and Pam was unable to keep herself from laughing even though Greg was still standing there looking at them all like they were insane, which Pam guessed maybe they sort of were.                

They all maneuvered themselves and crowded around the three different tables in the house, one adult table and one kids table crammed into the kitchen and another table full of adults in the dining room, and still there were three cousins who, in the end, had to eat standing up…which apparently was normal for a Halpert holiday because nobody even noticed except Pam, who quietly offered one of them her chair.  He laughed and shook his head, telling her it was each man for himself and good for her that she’d snagged a spot.  She laughed and shrugged, settling into her meal and enjoying the way that her plate was full of macaroni and cheese and meat loaf and broccoli casserole and all sorts of home-cooked warmth that she just wanted to wrap herself up in forever.                  

Everyone ate and everyone talked and every once in a while someone would switch tables because they were avoiding an argument…or because they were joining one, but to Pam’s delight the arguments in the Halpert family were strictly light-hearted and mostly involved laughter-filled comebacks and choruses of uninvited commentary.  The kids table was full of somewhat well-behaved children who all giggled and hummed their way through the meal, completely oblivious to their parents, and rosy-cheeked with Santa-filled anticipation.  Pam just let the atmosphere carry her along as she ate, and she quietly let herself enjoy the way that Jim had his hand securely settled on her knee for the entirety of the meal.                  

Then, just as everyone started to clear the plates, stacking everything as near to the sink as they possibly could, the doorbell rang out over the chatter and the clinking of silverware.  Pam settled next to Larissa at the sink, having accepted her role as dish-dryer, and Jim rubbed his hand warmly across her back as he announced that he would go answer the door.  Mrs. Halpert grinned at Pam as she set down a stack of plates and shook her head.                

“Larissa put you to work already?  I’m so glad I didn’t raise lazy children,” she mumbled sarcastically, and Pam laughed, pulling the dish towel off of her shoulder to accept the first plate that Larissa was handing her.                

“I don’t mind,” she promised, and Larissa nodded primly toward her mother.                

“See, mom?  How are Pam and I supposed to chat if I’m here slaving away and she’s all the way over in the living room?” she wondered, and Pam chuckled again as Mrs. Halpert rolled her eyes and muttered something in return, but the dry reply was barely audible over the sudden yelling coming from the foyer.  Pam frowned.  That was definitely Jim…and apparently he was extremely happy to see whoever had been at the door.  Mrs. Halpert moved to investigate the commotion, and Pam looked down as a damp and soapy hand landed on her forearm.                  

“Oh no…” Larissa breathed.  Pam looked up at her in concern.                

“What? Who is it?” she wondered, and Larissa’s face was genuinely concerned, which just tightened the coil of nervousness in Pam’s stomach.  “Larissa?” she wondered.  Jim’s sister just licked her lips and glanced in the direction of the front hall, pulling her hand away to continue washing the stacks of dishes on the counter top.  Finally, she spoke just loud enough that Pam could hear her.                

“Just don’t um…” she shook her head and sighed, handing over a salad bowl.  Pam dried it blindly, afraid to take her eyes off of Larissa’s face.  “It’s just Anne.,” Larissa finally explained, trying desperately to sound much more casual than she had before,  “She used to live next door, and she sort of um…” she sighed again.  “I had no idea she was coming.”                 

“Why do you look like you’re going to throw up all over the dishes?” Pam asked, her hands working tensely at the probably already dried bowl.  Larissa pursed her lips and glanced over at her.                

“You really like my brother, right?” she asked, and Pam frowned in response, unsure what that had to do with any of this.  She nodded and Larissa nodded back.  “And you know that he really likes you…right?  Like he wishes there were dragons he could go slay for you and everything?” she offered and Pam grinned lazily.                

“…Okaaay…” she drawled, unsure if dragons really played any kind of part in her relationship with Jim.  Larissa leveled her with her gaze, leaving her soapy hands suspended in the sink full of water.                

“Just don’t forget that,” Larissa instructed,  “You like him, he likes you, dragons, slaying, knights in shining armor…”  Pam sighed in aggrivation.                

“What does this have to do with anything?” she finally forced out, and Larissa grimaced almost comically.                

“Jim and Anne used to be…”                 

And in that pause, realization settled over Pam like a heavy kind of cloud.                

Larissa continued: “…Like…Jim and Anne.  You know?  Total inseparable best friends who became teenage lovers in some fairy tale bullshit type of…like…” she shrugged,  “Jim and Anne,” she finished…because apparently those three words said enough.  Pam felt herself get pale as she nodded and forced a smile and rolled her eyes and did all sorts of auto pilot things to assure Larissa that she knew and it was fine and this didn’t bother her at all.                  

Her insincere sounding promises were interrupted by Uncle Greg’s boisterous voice.                

“Thank God Anne’s here!  Anne, get in the kitchen and tell this young lady that she does not want a tongue ring,” he requested, pointing at his daughter who was sitting with crossed arms at the end of the kitchen table.  Pam turned to catch sight of this Anne, this Thank God Anne’s here!-Anne, who entered the room with arms full of packages and rosy cheeks and long blonde hair and a petite little perfect looking 5’2” frame.                  

Pam felt something inside of her tighten with dread.                

“Sweetie…” Anne began, resting a manicured hand over the shoulder of the sulking teenager, “you don’t want a tongue ring,” she promised, and moving to point at Greg with a jokingly intense finger and narrowing her gaze she lowered her voice to a stage whisper, “Please, don’t bring up my punk phase…it only upsets everyone.  And Merry Christmas,” she greeted, stooping down to plant a kiss on his cheek and flicking a shiny lock of straight hair out of her eyes.                  

Pam’s gaze shifted to Jim who was hovering in the doorway, his arms crossed, and a big goofy looking smile on his face, his eyes fixed on Anne as she made the rounds and handed out hugs and kisses to everyone in the room.  Pam was all too aware of the way that Jim’s eyes had that certain sparkle, and the way that every once in a while Anne would turn and glance over her shoulder at him…offering silent facial commentary that would make him chuckle or wink or raise his eyebrows in astonishment…and Pam felt her sinuses sort of tickle a little so that she had to rub at her eyes to make sure they were dry.                 

Pam liked Jim, she reminded herself firmly, and Jim liked Pam, and there were dragons and slaying and knights in shining armor…                

And Jim and Anne were just…like…Jim and Anne.                

And Pam kind of wanted to crawl in a hole and die.

Jim had introduced Anne to Pam with an awkward and rushed sounding sentence.                  

Something like: “Anne this is my, uh, my girlfriend Pam and Pam this is, um…Anne.  Does anybody want a beer?”                  

Then he’d disappeared and Pam had been left to wonder why she’d never heard the name Anne fall from his lips before, and why, when he did say it, it sounded like it might have literally sliced through his vocal chords.  It sounded heavy, like he’d said it a thousand times before and like it was a part of him, but like it had shadows stitched between the letters and the word was practically painful.                  

The two women had exchanged falsely-enthusiastic pleasantries and then, thankfully, Larissa had intervened and whisked Pam away, mumbling something in her ear about Jim probably wanting to kill whoever had invited Anne, who Larissa assumed was Jim’s father since he was usually ignorant to this sort of emotional turmoil.                

“Pam, you don’t understand.  This was like…” Larissa whispered,  “…D-R-A-M-A,” she spelled out, as if she and Pam were Kindergarten teachers surrounded by students and discussing a box of cookies, “I’m not exactly clear on the details because Jim and I don’t really do the whole Family Ties, Let’s discuss our feelings thing, but, I’m telling you, somebody broke somebody’s heart and it…was…messy. In that kind of like, I‘ve known you my whole life, and I know more about  you than anybody else ever will, and now I’m using it against you, kind of a way,” she mumbled conspiratorially, and Pam had a brief but vivid flash of what Larissa would be like as an old woman, full of gossip and conjecture.  Pam really wanted to be around to see that.  “Every time I’ve brought it up to Jim he has been completely unwilling to explain or discuss it, which must mean that whatever happened was bad news, and if I had to guess…“ she sighed, and shot a glance toward the ceiling in thought, “All I‘ll say is that with Anne‘s personality, blue eyes, and blonde hair, she seems like heart-ache on legs to me, and I would not be surprised if she was the one who did the damage,” she finished, shaking her head.                 

“But he’s being nice to her.  He seemed so excited to see her…” Pam responded, genuinely confused, because in her experience Jim usually didn’t react well to having his heart broken…                

“Yeah well, he’s Jim,” Larissa reasoned, and Pam sighed because that actually kind of made sense.  “You should’ve been here like three years ago though…it was so awkward.  She just showed up at like 3 in the afternoon when Jim was at work, and nobody in the family knows the details of their breakup, so everybody was so excited to see her and…” she huffed and shook her head, “Poor Jim, when he walked in this kitchen and she was standing there?  I thought he was going to totally lose it.”  Pam chewed on her lip in thought and her gaze drifted to Anne who was sitting in the dining room with Mrs. Halpert and laughing airily…looking like she totally belonged.  Larissa sighed again and turned the water on, running a soapy washcloth over a plate sloppily.  “Anyway,” she went on,  “I think we‘re like her only family and she really just wants to be here for her own…” she shrugged, “Whatever, but my plan is usually just to ignore the situation altogether.  That would also be my advice to you.  Remember,” she prodded, gently poking an elbow into Pam’s side, “Dragons.”  Pam chuckled and nodded and went back to drying dishes.                    

And the rest of the night was full of certain kinds of moments.                  

Moments like Pam catching Anne’s eye during Jim’s turn at charades when he paused to roll up his sleeves. Anne had offered her a grimacing sort of smile that said more about her than she probably thought.                                 

Moments like Mrs. Halpert coming in to pass around desserts, and one of Jim’s cousins handing him the shoebox that Anne had brought, filled with gingerbread cookies, declaring that he knew Jim would want them because they were his favorite…had always been his favorite…  Jim had raised his eyebrows, shaking his head and saying he was all set and didn’t really want dessert.                  

Moments like Jim wrapping his arms around Pam and whispering that he loved her in this certain kind of voice that made her wonder what exactly he meant, and whether it was a declaration of loving her or more a declaration of not loving someone else.                  

Moments like Pam feeling like the tension was a little too high and noise in the room was a little too much… 

Moments like Pam feeling like maybe she didn’t fit in, like there wasn‘t room for her to fit in if Anne was there being so familiar and at home… 

Moments like Pam feeling like Jim had purposely not told her things about himself…   

Moments like Pam feeling like maybe she was just tired and all of this was nothing.                 

Whatever the case, she definitely needed to take a breath….take a break.  And Dickson City suddenly felt at least as confusing as Scranton, Pennsylvania.                                

So she just sat still and quiet and tried hard to convince herself that she wasn’t bothered, and that the lack of oxygen in the room was just her imagination.  Anne seemed nice, she told herself firmly.  She told herself that there was no reason to feel like an intruder, there was no reason to feel territorial, and the way that everyone had inside jokes with Anne was fine, and the way that Anne watched Jim when he wasn’t looking was fine, and the way that Jim avoided looking at Anne at all was…fine…and she liked the Halperts and they probably liked her and there was nothing to resent in this house, on this holiday.  And she tried hard to convince Larissa that she was having a great time and there was no need for the look of absolute sympathy on her face because Pam was fine.                

But finally, during a round of Taboo in which Jim and Adam were basically wiping the floor with every other team, Pam felt like maybe she couldn’t breathe, and maybe she didn’t have enough will power to keep her thoughts from happening to her.  She leaned over to whisper to Larissa that she was going to take her dish to the kitchen and she’d be back in a second, and then she gripped her plate with white knuckled fingers and made her way out of the den on careful and quiet feet.                  

Jim was frantically giving his brother clues for “Paul Revere” and didn’t look up when Pam stepped gingerly past him.                

As she set the dish down and ran water over it, avoiding eye contact with any of the aunts and uncles that might have been watching her pass by, who she had now convinced herself were comparing her to a 5‘2“ blonde-haired neighbor with careful and judgmental eyes, she heard the soft and easy sounds of someone playing the piano in the living room… and she realized that she hadn’t seen Jonathon since she‘d arrived and he’d told her he was on “kid duty.”                  

The front of the house was virtually empty, as if it had been sealed off with a calm and quiet kind of bubble, and the emptiness leant the piano to more grown up sounding melodies… tunes that weaved their way in and around I’ll Be Home for Christmas, and O Christmas Tree, and something else that sounded like maybe it had once been sung by Karen Carpenter…things that were gentle and careful and all of the feelings Pam wanted to have around her and none of the feelings that she‘d had in the den, perched uncomfortably between Larissa and Jim and feeling simultaneously invisible and like the white elephant in the room.  So she maneuvered her way through the kitchen and she ventured into the dimly lit hallway and toward the even more dimly lit living room.                  

The only lamp-light came from over the piano, casting a yellow kind of glow across Jon’s hunched shoulders, arms, and  fingers, drifting like foam on the ocean…weightless and long and lean and so much like Jim that it made her lean back against the door frame and just stand there, transfixed.  There was a delicately decorated Christmas tree in the corner, lit with tiny white twinkle lights that shed their light around a circle of carpet where one of the younger kids was stretched out on the floor with coloring books and crayons, quietly humming to herself in the way that only a tired out and shy eight year old can.  The girl looked up at Pam when she stepped into the room, and Pam offered her a gentle smile.                 

She felt disappointed for a moment because she was hoping Jonathon and this room and this piano would be her temporary haven…she was hoping she would sit down and listen and take the deep breath she’d been needing since Anne had arrived…but there was this child, this blonde-haired, blue-eyed, coloring, humming child, and Pam was full of a special kind of awkwardness because Pam Beesly was a lot of things, but she would be the first to admit that she wasn’t very good with kids.  She shook her head at herself and sighed, wishing she didn’t have this feeling of discontent, and as Jon began to play a haunting version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, she started to turn toward the hallway, resigning herself to the den full of games and noise and Anne. She paused, though, when the little girl held a coloring book toward her and smiled.                

“Do you want to color with me?” she asked, and Pam heard Jon chuckle softly from the piano bench, but still he didn‘t turn and the song went on, and Pam felt her smile spread wide and she nodded, accepting the book and lowering herself down to the lushness of the carpet because this was something she could do, and maybe this child was different and maybe she would like Pam because she was related to Jim…she was a Halpert, and maybe that meant something.                  

So Pam stretched herself out, lying flat on her stomach, and she started sorting through the book and searching for a picture to color.  She decided on a delicately drawn image of Santa Claus, standing on a rooftop with his sack slung heavily over his back.  She picked up the red crayon and started to fill the page with color.                

The image came to life easily, quickly, and something about the act of coloring - the simplicity of it, something about the way that the crayon felt in her hand and the way the smell of it was nostalgically mixed with cookies and evergreen, something about this girl sitting beside her, reminded Pam that it was Christmas…her very favorite holiday.  And there was snow, and there were lights, and presents and carols, and all of the things that she loved so much.                  

She closed her eyes and reminded herself that Jim wished there were dragons that he could slay for her.                

She’d thought she and Jim were unique and storybook and practically epic in the way that they had met and meshed and fallen in love…she’d thought it was the kind of thing that only happened once in a lifetime, because “Pam and Roy” hadn‘t been anything at all like “Jim and Pam.”  With Roy she’d been fumbling and careless and flighty and nothing like she was now, and she thought Jim was her once upon a time…her and they lived happily ever after…she thought this was it and she was finally Cinderella.                  

And now she’d found out that she was at least Jim’s second epically romantic girlfriend…                

And now she was afraid that maybe she was his replacement Anne the way that Karen had been his replacement Pam…and it made her feel like she was either going to throw up or cry.  Maybe both.                 

But instead she opened her eyes and she shaded in Santa’s rosy cheeks with a crayon marked “Cotton Candy” and she told herself that it was Christmas and everything would turn out ok, even if she didn‘t fit in here in the way that Anne did.  It was Christmas and this was the best that she could do.                  

“Jon, do you think we’re going to sing more carols tomorrow?” the girl murmured without picking up her head, and Jon hummed in a way that made Pam smile down at the book beneath her hands.                

“I think maybe we could arrange that,” he told her, “Do you think Santa’s going to bring you something good tonight?” he asked and the girl licked her lips and glanced at him over her shoulder with sparkling eyes.                

“Yep,” she replied simply, and Pam and Jon were unable to hold in their laughter at the sureness of her tone.  “How bout you?” she wondered, directing the question at his back as he continued to play the piano.  He sucked air in through his teeth and tipped his head to the side a little in consideration.                

“I don’t know I might get coal this year, Jess,” he admitted and Pam smiled again, thinking that maybe everything really would be ok because this space and these people made her feel warmer than she’d been before, and even if she didn‘t fit in with Taboo or charades, she definitely fit in with coloring books… Jess giggled at the mention of Jon getting coal and returned to her books with fingers full of crayons and concentration.  “What happened, Pam, playing Taboo with Anne was too much fun for you to handle?” Jon asked gently as Jess started to sing softly along with his playing…                

“God rest ye merry gentlemen…let nothing you dismay…”                

“Oh, yeah, I think I’m more of a coloring kind of girl,” she admitted, winking at Jess, who peered up at her with a childish kind of pride on her face.  Jon nodded and Pam glanced thoughtfully at his back.  “What about you? How’d you end up as the designated piano player of the evening?  I feel like I should give you a dollar or something,” she joked and he chuckled.                

“Yeah really,” he agreed, “No I’m just uh…I get too competitive.  It’s safer for everyone if I’m in here, according to my wife,” he told her, his voice warm with amusement.                

“Got it,” Pam told him with a genuine smile, returning to her picture and starting to fill in a starry night sky with the crayon marked “Midnight Blue.”  Her artistic endeavor, though, was interrupted by a small finger tapping at her forearm.                

“Pam?” Jess asked quietly and Pam looked up, her hand going still against the page.                  

“Hm?” she replied.                

“What do you think Santa’s going to bring you for Christmas?” she wondered and Pam’s brow furrowed in serious thought.                

“I don’t know,” she admitted, “But I bet it’s gonna be pretty great,” she told her conspiratorially, and the little girl looked back at her with an excited smile and Pam chuckled because…maybe she wasn’t as bad with children as she thought.                

“I like your picture,” Jess told her in a low murmur that Pam thought was startlingly like her own shy declarations had been when she was a child, and Jess bent her head down and traced her finger across Pam’s rosy-cheeked Santa.  “His cheeks look real pink, just like in the Night Before Christmas,” she whispered and Pam softly nudged Jess’s shoulder with her own.                

“Thanks,” she replied quietly, and Jess smiled and nodded and picked up the turquoise to solidly color in a piece of cartoon candy.  Pam didn’t say anything else because she sort of had tears in her eyes, and she sort of wished that Jim was here because there was something so familiar about coloring books and crayons…they felt like first snows and freshly baked cookies and family and home, and Pam wanted so badly to have that be all that there was.  She wanted so badly to forget that Jim was in the den with Anne and Anne’s sixteen-year-old ghost, and for the first time she felt genuinely empathetic toward Karen…because maybe Jim had been haunted by Pam a year ago, and maybe Karen had felt as left out as Pam did now.                

Pam was all too aware that Anne was a huge part of Jim’s life that he’d just…not mentioned.  Anne was someone that Pam knew nothing about, and all this time she’d thought she knew Jim better than anybody else.  She’d thought she knew Jim in this transcendent kind of way, when really it seemed like maybe she didn’t know him at all, and even though she knew it was irrational and silly, she was left with this feeling of disappointment…or suspicion.                  

Because suddenly she was terrified that this meant that Jim had an M.O.  Suddenly it seemed like Jim was this certain type of guy who over-romanticized and who fell in love and had his heart broken over and over again, and Pam was just another tragic romance in a long line of many.                  

And now Pam‘s Christmas was colored with this gray feeling of concern, this irrational blueness of discomfort…when all she’d really wanted was the child-like wonder of a rosy-cheeked Santa Claus and the crisp whiteness of the season’s first snow.

“Paul Revere!”                 

“Yes! Yes, good, ok…so,” he flipped to a new card and blew air out of the side of his mouth in concentration, “this is a kind of um form of transportation for clowns or…uh…damnit…ok, ok, no this doesn’t have two…uh, round rubber things, but only…”                

“One?”                

“Right right so what is that called?”                

“What?”                

“What is it called if it only has what you said? Come on, man, don’t look at me like you don’t know what I’m talking about right now.”                

“Jim, what does that…a form of transportation with one wheel?”                

“Yes! You’re an idiot, yes come on!”                

“For clowns?”                

“Time!” Larissa called out triumphantly, smiling at Jim’s look of utter irritation.  “Oh my God, don’t look so disappointed, you got like sixteen points or something,” she scolded.  He sighed.                

“Unicycle, Adam.  The word was unicycle,” Jim told him flatly, and Adam just rolled his eyes.                

“Whatever, I don’t even know what that is,” he murmured, standing to go get a bottle of beer as Anne and Jim’s sister in law, Bridget, started their turn.  Larissa handed the egg timer to someone closer to the action and then crossed her arms and stared at the side of Jim’s face, willing to wait as long as it took before he finally turned to look back at her.                

“What?” he forced out, annoyed and raising his eyebrows at her as evidence.                

“How’s the game?” she asked, her voice a forced kind of casual that made him tip his head.                

“It’s good…” he told her suspiciously.  She nodded her head at him shortly, her movements quick and irritated.                

“Is it good?” she asked, and he shifted on the floor and sighed.                

“What…yeah, it’s good Larissa.  What is the matter with you?”  She scoffed at him and leaned back.                

“What’s the matter with me?  What’s the matter with you, Jim?  What.  Is the matter.  With you?” she questioned quietly, her brow furrowed and her arms crossed.  Jim just sighed again, leaning down closer to her and whispering back an impatient response.                

“Can you just yell at me for whatever it is you think I did wrong and get it over with please?” he requested and she shook her head.                

“You’re being selfish,” she told him earnestly.  He froze and she could visibly see him trying to keep the words from fully sinking in.  He licked his lips and tossed out a deferral.                

“Did you want to be on Adam’s team? I thought you guys hated being on the same team…” he mumbled innocently, and she huffed out a sarcastic chuckle.                

“No, ew.  Adam sucks. I don’t want to play Taboo with him.  I’m talking about Pam.  You’re being selfish,” she repeated.  Jim turned to look around the room, only just realizing that Pam was missing.                

“Where did she go?” he asked.                

“Probably somewhere to shoot herself in the face,” Larissa replied curtly.                

“What is your problem?” Jim prodded, his voice raising slightly in volume so that Larissa had to shush him and scoot closer on the carpet as Anne attempted to get Bridget to guess something involving Richard Nixon.                  

“My problem is that while you’re being all weird and pissy because dad invited the she-devil, over there, to your romantic Christmas, poor Pam has just been sitting here.  This family can be really overwhelming to an outsider, Jim, and she is not having fun,” Larissa stated, her voice sounding completely avid that this was the truth.  Jim’s face twisted into incredulousness and he began to deny it, but then his expression shifted and Larissa could tell he was thinking back and wondering if maybe Pam really wasn’t having fun.  She’d said she was, but Larissa knew that didn’t mean anything.  “It isn’t my job to make sure she’s ok,” Larissa told him meaningfully.  He chewed on the inside of his cheek and nodded his defeat, realizing that not only did he have to go after Pam, but he probably owed her an apology.  His family was overwhelming and he hadn’t been paying enough attention to how she was handling it.                

“You do know that you should see a therapist about this problem you have of always having to be right, right?” he asked Larissa teasingly and she waved him off with a quirk of her lips.                

“Please, I don’t have to be right, I just am,” she promised, “Now get out of here.”  He chuckled and ruffled her hair in a way that was blatantly reminiscent of their childhood rapport.                

“You’re so pushy,” he accused as he stood, and she chuckled and watched him leave the room with victorious eyes.  God, she thought to herself, I have to do everything in this family.  

***    ***                  

Jim felt like someone had reached down into his lungs and pulled the air out of them like it was made of something solid and tangible.  He felt like someone had grabbed onto all of his senses and tugged until his ears were sort of ringing and his eyes were sort of watering and his hands were tingling and his mouth was suddenly dry.  He felt like he was in a waking dream and this dimly lit scene in front of him was a complete manifestation of his overly-emotional imagination.  But the doorframe was solid against his back, and the heat from the furnace was pushing against the skin of his arms, and someone in the kitchen coughed, and everyone in the den laughed and it echoed against the walls of the hallway like the roar of a crowd.                

This was real…                

And he was totally in love with her.                  

Like…he felt like there was no way she actually existed so perfectly and so precisely in his universe.  Shoving his hands into his pockets he crossed one ankle over the other and grinned, shaking his head a little in a mixture of amusement and helplessness.                

Pam was stretched out on the floor, her knees bent so that her feet kicked at nothing in the air above her, an array of crayons spread out in front of her, and Jim’s second cousin Jessie was nestled up right against her side like glue had attached one hip to the other and there was no way Jess could be pried away from Pam even if she tried.  Pam was nodding and smiling and she pointed a long gentle finger down at the coloring book Jessie was working at with intense concentration.  She murmured something about making a doll’s dress lilac instead of green and Jess nodded and replied softly with something Jim couldn‘t quite hear, licking her lips and switching crayons with chubby fingers.  Jon was at the piano playing a slow and nostalgic version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and as Jessie bent her head low and filled in the book with a dusting of light purple, Pam’s lips moved and Jim could tell she was singing along, even though he couldn’t hear her voice.                

He’d always been sentimental, and he guessed he’d always wanted a family, but this was like someone had zipped open time and pulled his future out of the closet…this was like someone had tapped into his subconscious and made real the quiet secrets he hadn’t even gotten around to telling himself.  He couldn’t catch a full breath and he couldn’t clear the haze from his eyes, so he blinked and ran a hand down his face like it could wipe away his astonishment and emotion.                  

“Then one foggy Christmas eve,” Pam murmured, her voice barely on a pitch, and her mouth only moving as much as it absolutely had to while Jess’s feet kicked beside her in a childish form of keeping the beat.                

“Santa came to say,” Jess filled in, “Rudolph with your nose so bright, come ride in my sleigh tonight,” she sang, and Jon chuckled at her invented lyrics, a smile twisting Pam’s lips as she picked up an orange crayon and filled something in on the page in front of her.  Jess smiled up at her with excitement, and Jim had a sneaking suspicion it was just the look Jess got every time anybody mentioned Santa Claus.  He crossed his arms and stood stock still until the song ended and the room was filled with silence.  “Jim, come color with us!” Jessie suddenly exclaimed, and Jim practically jumped out of his skin, not realizing that anybody in the room had noticed his presence.  But of course Jessie had, she was pretty much the most intuitive and intelligent kid in the family.  Pam also started, turning to look over her shoulder in surprise, her eyes wide and her cheeks turning an embarrassed shade of red.                

“Hey, sorry,” she muttered softly,  “is the game over?” she asked, and Jim lifted one side of his mouth, hoping his voice and his face didn’t give away the tightness in his chest and the way that he basically wanted to take her upstairs and have his way with her.                

“Oh I don’t…um…” he inhaled noisily and stood up straight, glancing back over his shoulder toward the den with a frown, before turning back and locking his gaze with hers, his voice softening more than he’d intended.  “Come for a walk with me,” he requested, and she blinked at him, her eyes shining with understanding and something almost like gratefulness.  She nodded and turned her attention back to Jess.                

“I’m gonna go with Jim, but we can color more tomorrow, ok?  You better go to bed or Santa won’t come,” Pam told her excitedly, raising her eyebrows and smiling.  Jess raised her eyebrows back, her face breaking into a wide grin and her feet kicking idly in the air of the living room.                  

“Ok, Pam, you better go to bed too!” she told her, the smile on her face coming through her voice in a way that was often identified with the Halperts.  Pam chuckled and brushed some hair from Jess’s face, hoisting herself up and giving an easy kind of wave to Jon, who just nodded at her and glanced at Jim with a knowing kind of look in his eye.                 

She followed him out into the hallway and when he turned back to look at her over his shoulder she had a sad kind of look on her face, a little-girl melancholy, and all he knew was that he wanted to make it disappear.  So he kissed her, and he told her to put on her coat.                 

Because this was what he loved about her. 

Pam’s coat was warm around her shoulders and she quietly kicked at the dirty snow beneath her  feet as she and Jim strolled slowly down the sidewalk.  He hadn’t said much, and neither had she, not wanting to ruin their walk with the thoughts that were heavy on her mind.  But finally Jim cleared his throat and she felt a knot of fear form in her stomach because that was almost never a good sign.                 “You aren’t having fun,” he murmured quietly.  She snapped her head toward him and lifted a corner of her mouth in denial.                

“Yes I am,” she promised.  He sighed and shook his head, his eyes sweeping over the streetlights and the starry sky.                

“I should’ve warned you about how my family is really overbearing, but I just…I didn’t even think about what that might be like for you,” he admitted, his tone sincerely apologetic and his hands shoved deep into his coat pockets like that could save something or salvage something.  She shrugged.                

“No, your family is,” she inhaled a deep breath, “they’re great, Jim.  You should be so thankful that you have them so close by,” she told him honestly, but she was somehow unable to remove the tinge of hidden meaning in her words…the way she emphasized the word ‘family’ because she was sure there was at least one person who wasn’t included in what she thought was so great.  He glanced down at her with a furrowed brow.                

“So what’s wrong?” he asked, and she bit her lip in defeat because she was hoping he wouldn’t ask her that.  She hated to lie to him and now that he’d asked she felt like she was obligated to admit how silly she was being.  She supposed they’d have to talk about it eventually.                

“I guess I just…” she sniffed, “You could’ve…I don’t know…” she braced herself and just spit the words out, “warned me about Anne, maybe.  Or just mentioned her or…” she shrugged again and tried as hard as she could to not sound as upset as she really felt deep down.                

“Anne?” Jim repeated, and Pam felt her feathers ruffle a little bit.  Why would he act like he didn’t know what she was talking about?                 

“Yeah, I mean she’s your ex, right?” she asked him, her voice tight with impatience.                

“Uh, yeah unfortunately she is,” he conceded.                

“And she still spends Christmas with your family,” she stated, her voice flat to emphasize how odd that might seem to any normal kind of person.  Jim rolled his eyes and it only made her that much more anxious.                

“Yeah, she says the Halperts have always been her family or something so she just…shows up every year,” he mumbled.  “It bothers you that she’s here?” he asked, and she crossed her arms and told herself that it was only because she was cold.                

“It’s stupid,” she admitted, “But I feel like your family really likes her, and I’m not even…” she sighed.  “I’m not a really loud person,” she said this as if she was informing him of something he didn’t know, and he chuckled.                

“I know,” he told her warmly.                  

“Well I just… Anne comes in and is all getting everything right in Taboo and joking around with your Uncle Greg and talking with your mom about someone named Sylvia who I have no idea who that even is and you got so excited when she showed up and it was like…”  she swallowed and shook her head a little, “Your favorite cookies are gingerbread?” she wondered quietly, shrugging her shoulders in defeat and disbelief that she could’ve been so wrong, disbelief that she didn‘t even actually know what kind of cookie was his favorite.                  

“Not really,” he interjected, but she went on as if he hadn’t spoken.                

“I didn’t even know that this Anne person existed, Jim, and according to Larissa she was like your one true love or something.  She kept just saying that you were ‘Jim and Anne’ like that should mean something to me,” she told him, her voice starting to tighten with a hint of frustrated tears.                  

“Pam,” Jim interjected again, “Anne and I are not…‘Jim and Anne,’” he promised her and she shook her head again, silencing him because she was too convinced that just by saying they weren’t he was confirming that really they were.  She sighed.                

“I can’t even believe that this…” she drifted off and kicked at more dirty snow beneath her boots,  “I’m Karen,” she announced, and he turned his head sharply to look down at her in surprised confusion.                

“What?” he asked.                

“I am, I’m Karen.  Because I thought this was a huge thing that we were doing.  I thought you and I were… ‘Jim and Pam.’  I had no idea that it’s just because you’re like…Are you just this guy?  Like you fall in love, and then something goes wrong and you move away and fall in love with someone else?  I mean…”she took in a deep breath and stared down intently at her shoes, “I was never really in love with anybody before you.  I loved Roy but it was so…immature, the whole thing.  But you’ve got this whole like…list of girls.  I’m so afraid that if I just say the wrong thing you’ll…I‘ll wake up the next day and you‘ll be in Iowa or something.”  She clicked her tongue at herself and pressed a chilly hand to her forehead, “I told you this was stupid, I sound crazy,” she mumbled quietly.  He blew a lungful of air out of his mouth and frowned thoughtfully, unsure what exactly he should say in response to her.  “Your family loves her, and they don’t even know I exist…” she finished, her voice unmistakably water-stained.  He looked over at her and stopped walking, taking her arm and stopping her from walking ahead of him.                

“Pam,” he stated firmly,  “you have no idea what you‘re…” he sighed in aggravation and she could tell he was trying desperately to keep himself from getting angry, “Look, first of all, Anne and I were…” he paused in thought, “I don’t know what Larissa told you, but you should not listen to her,” he proclaimed, and he said it as if that was statement enough.  Pam raised her eyebrows at him and waited until he finally sagged in defeat, acknowledging that he’d have to explain all of this or she’d be unhappy for the rest of their Christmas.                  

“Anne and I dated all through high school,” he admitted, “but it was like…she loved that I was on the basketball team, and I thought she was cute and she thought I was funny and we were friends and we ended up having sex, basically.  There was no romance involved and I was like sixteen and definitely not,” he raised his fingers and drew quotation marks in the air, “’in love’ with her,” he promised, meeting Pam’s eyes adamantly.                

“Larissa said she broke your heart,” Pam informed him, feeling childish, but unable to help herself because it was Christmas and she didn’t want to feel this way, and Jim was really the only one who could put her fears to rest.  He cleared his throat and shook his head gently.                  

“Right before we went away for college she confessed her undying love for me and I, being the sensitive guy that I am, told her I didn’t want to be in a long-distance relationship and I thought we should break up.  But she refused to end things, and then she went a little bit crazy and all through our freshman year of college she kept sending me things in the mail and calling me and like…” he grimaced at the memory, deciding silently that Pam didn’t need to know the gory details of Anne’s mental breakdown.  He skipped ahead, “So, finally I ended up having to tell her that if she didn’t leave me alone I was going to call the cops and get a restraining order.”                  

Pam’s eyes were wide and she tried hard not to react further to his story, unsure what exactly the appropriate response was to Jim basically admitting that his ex-girlfriend was a lunatic who he‘d threatened with legal action.                  

“I don’t even know what her deal is, she’s a little bit…” he tipped his head and offered her the look of wide-eyed bewilderment that he usually reserved for Michael Scott and she grinned sheepishly, realizing that she really was silly and he was right, she shouldn’t listen to Larissa.  “Anne should probably work at Dunder Mifflin,” he told her and she laughed outright at the way he’d spoken her own comparison between Larissa and Michael aloud.  “She creeped me out, seriously.  And like five years ago or something, after hearing nothing from her for like two years, she showed up at Christmas and acted like everything was cool.  See what I mean?  Creepy,” he stated firmly and Pam raised her eyebrows in simultaneous agreement and amusement, “But I just figured…keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right? Like, whatever if she wants to hang with my family and act like she’s sane then fine, I’ll just suffer through it,” he paused, “And I hate gingerbread, just so you know,” he told her warmly.  She shook her head at herself and felt her cheeks redden in embarrassment.                  

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled and he chuckled.  “I’m an idiot, and I’m never listening to Larissa again.”                

“You were so jealous,” he accused and she huffed.  “You were.  You were like sharpening your claws and getting all ready to take her out back,” he assessed teasingly.  She smiled up at him then and shook her head.                  

“Shut up,” she told him firmly.  He wagged his eyebrows at her and smiled.  “I hate you,” she feebly retaliated.                

“So I guess I should cancel that job interview I had in Iowa, though, right Karen?” he wondered, grasping her hand and tugging so that they were walking again down the slushy sidewalk in the orange streetlight.  She sighed.                

“That’s not funny.  I’m really afraid that you’ll do that,” she told him honestly, and he paused in shock because there was no question the amount of seriousness laced with that sentence.  There was a lengthy pause before he finally spoke.                

“I would never do that,” he told her, his voice half whisper and half not, almost caught in his throat.  She bit her lip and nodded, her eyes on the ground until he reached out and took her face firmly in his hands, shaking her a little bit as if to emphasize his seriousness.  “I would never do that,” he stated again.  She blinked up at him and her lips quirked into an attempt at a smile.                

“Ok,” she whispered back.  His thumb swept across her cheek lightly and he bent down to press a kiss chastely against her lips.  “Jim?” she murmured once he’d pulled away and they were walking again.                  

“Yeah,” he replied quietly, his eyes on the scenery around them and the way that the street was covered in decorations and snow.                

“You’d slay a dragon for me, right?” she asked, a hint of humor in her voice at her own question.  His left cheek lifted a little and his brow furrowed as he turned to look down at her.                

“What?” he wondered and she chuckled.                

“Just…I guess I’m asking if you think we’ll live happily ever after,” she admitted, her voice somber and her expression soft and serene.  He watched her for a moment, thinking over her words and taking in the way that she seemed so suddenly at ease when only minutes before she’d been full of anxiety, taking in the way that she had something like Jessie inside of her and she was quiet and earnest and childish and grown-up all at once, and he smiled.                

“Yeah,” he promised, wrapping an arm solidly around her shoulders, “Yeah I think we will.”   

What she loved most about Jim was the way that he knew her.                

He was kind and careful and reassuring and all of these things that felt so much like home to her it made the breath catch in her throat.  The way that he was skilled at maneuvering her insecurities and her fears, and the way that her cheeks turned red sometimes when he looked at her, his gaze all hunger and honesty.                

They spent Christmas Eve in two different rooms, segregated along with the rest of the unmarried members of the family, and he said goodnight to her leaning in the doorway of Larissa’s old room with a quirk of his mouth that made her chuckle because she knew it bothered him much more than it bothered her to be sleeping so close, and yet so far.  The women sharing beds and blow-up mattresses chatted into the night, and the last thing Pam remembered before falling asleep was Anne admitting that she‘d always wished that she could draw, but sadly was, at best, only capable of a sad sort of stick figure.  Pam was inappropriately satisfied, and slept with a tiny little smile on her face, because she had some things that other people didn‘t, and that seemed really good.                

She awoke the next morning to the sound of excited feet skipping against hardwood, and stood to slip into the hall, watching with crossed arms and an amused expression as the younger of the Halpert children excitedly went about rousing all of their parents.  Jim appeared, groggy and adorable, trudging  somewhat unhappily out of his old bedroom behind Jon.                

“Good night,” he greeted huskily, blindly placing a kiss at her temple.  She chuckled.                

“Morning,” she corrected, “you seem rested…” she mumbled sarcastically.  He huffed.                

“I hate this part,” he admitted, his eyes sliding closed in exhausted defeat, “Why do kids think that 5 AM is fair game?”  She smiled indulgently and wrapped an arm around his middle, patting him fondly on the chest.                  

“Because, Jim,” she began to explain, her voice holding a tinge of reminiscence of the teachers she’d had in high school, “Santa was here.  Or did you not get the memo that it’s Christmas?”  she wondered, and he chuffed in her general direction leaning back against the wall and trapping her arm against him securely.                

“Wow, good thing you mentioned that, because I had no idea, Beesly.  I didn’t even get you anything,” he teased, and she was reminded of his mother and the way she’d teased him in much the same way the night before, and Pam thought for a second that maybe she did fit in…maybe she was a part of some sort of Halpert tradition…                  

“Don’t joke like that,” she warned, “It’s not funny.”  He nodded solemnly before letting a grin seep through his mock-serious demeanor.                

“Pam, come downstairs to see what Santa brought!” Jessie called out excitedly as she tripped by Pam and Jim on excited, sock-clad feet.  Pam smiled widely down at her speedily passing form.                

 “I’m right behind you!” she promised, and Jim groaned quietly into her ear, pulling laughter from her mouth that she shielded by hiding her face in his t-shirt.                

“Come back to bed with me,” he whispered into her hair, and she gently smacked his stomach.                

“Inappropriate,” she scolded.                

“What?!” he asked, reaching half-heartedly out to her as she stepped away and made her way toward the over-populated bathroom to brush her teeth with the rest of the girls.  He sighed behind her and she held her arms out in helplessness.                

“Sorry,” she offered, “It’s Christmas.”  He raised his eyebrows and gasped in mock-surprise and she laughed as she turned away from him and picked up her toothbrush with long, graceful fingers.   

***   ***                

The presents were practically attacked before everyone was even downstairs, and Pam found herself once again standing on the outskirts of the activity and observing, because it was not what she was used to and she was still learning this house and these people and these traditions.                  

In the Beesly family each member opened one present every hour, in an attempt to make the gift-giving last for the entire day.  Their unwrapping was careful and slow because they saved the paper and re-used it the next year.  They opened a present one at a time, examined it, thanked whoever had given it to them, and then indicated that the next person could go ahead.                  

The Halperts tore into their paper and ripped open box after box, filling the house with complete commotion for two hours straight, and forcing Pam to clutch at her cup of coffee and hope she didn’t get knocked over.  But there was a wide smile on her face as she watched, immensely entertained, and enjoying the way that the children jumped around in excitement and the adults called out to each other from room to room, commenting on gifts and offering up refreshments.  She supposed it was a flaw of hers, this observing instead of joining…watching instead of acting.  But she felt much more at ease standing in the doorway and grinning when she was directly addressed, but otherwise simply taking in everything that was happening around her.                

She shifted when she felt a gentle hand on her back, assuming that someone was trying to get by her and shove their way into the over-crowded den, but when she turned and backed up she was met with the warm smile of Mrs. Halpert, who held out a beautifully put-together tray of pastries, asking silently if Pam would like one.  She gingerly scooped up a raspberry danish and murmured a timid thank you.                

“You’re welcome, Pam,” Mrs. Halpert replied, nodding at her in encouragement and taking in the way that she sipped her coffee and chewed thoughtfully on her pastry with her eyes fixed on the den.  “Can I say something to you without it making things awkward?” she wondered quietly, and Pam turned her head back sharply, feeling the distinct nervousness of the night before reappear inside of her.  She swallowed her bite of danish and nodded.                

“Of course,” she responded, and Mrs. Halpert nodded back, turning and sweeping her own gaze over the activity in the den.                

“Jim has always been a happy kind of person,” she began, and Pam wondered where exactly this little talk was going and whether she should politely try to excuse herself, “But he’s also always had…his father hates it when I say this,” Mrs. Halpert interrupted herself dryly, and Pam pressed her lips together in an indulgent kind of smile, not sure that a full smile would have been completely honest with the amount of wariness inside of her, “But he’s always had some kind of…I don’t know…unrest, maybe.  He’s always been unsettled.  Do you know what I mean?” she wondered, and Pam felt her anxiousness abate for a moment because she knew exactly what Mrs. Halpert meant.  She’d seen it in Jim from the moment she met him, that he felt things deeply, and he had a kind of poetic sense about him that cast a little bit of a shadow over the way that he viewed the world.  He felt like he wasn’t sure what he wanted to be, or who he was deep down, and he’d admitted that to Pam often…and she thought of him sitting on his sofa with his head in his hands, telling her he felt stuck, telling her he needed to do something more…be something more.                 

She nodded at Mrs. Halpert slowly and took a sip of coffee.                

“Yes,” she assured her, after she’d swallowed, “I do, actually.”  Mrs. Halpert smiled softly and inhaled, watching Pam for what felt like an eternity and Pam felt her brow furrow, questioning what was going on in Mrs. Halpert’s head.  Finally, Mrs. Halpert spoke and Pam got her answer.                  

 “You settle him,” she stated, and Pam felt the air leave her lungs in a gush.  “You do something to take away his unrest and his worry, and until yesterday I didn’t really understand what it was about you that made him so at ease.  But now I…” she squinted slightly and tilted her head,  “You’re very kind, Pam.  You seem very kind and calm and quiet and I can see exactly why he loves you as much as he does.”  Pam’s eyes filled with tears and she found herself without enough voice to respond, her mouth dropping open in surprise.  Mrs. Halpert chuckled.  “See, I knew it would be awkward.”                

“No,” Pam finally forced out.  “No it’s not.  It isn’t,” she promised adamantly, not wanting anything to ever take away what Jim’s mother had just given to her.  She blinked and set her danish back down on the tray for a moment so that she could wrap her arm around Mrs. Halpert’s shoulders and pull her into a brief hug.  She pulled back and shook her head at herself, picking the danish back up and grinning ruefully at her own emotion.  “Thank you,” she told her meaningfully, and Jim’s mom winked.                

“I just call it like I see it,” she told her.  “We really are honored that you would spend Christmas with us,” she stated quietly and Pam nodded, unable to really reply as she watched Mrs. Halpert walk away and push herself into the den, elbow first, exclaiming that if anybody wanted to eat pastries they should act fast.  Pam stood there and considered the fact that maybe her quietness wasn’t a flaw at all and maybe it was just the thing this oversized Halpert family happened to need to balance out all of the activity… Maybe someone like Anne blended into the scenery perfectly and knew answers to board games and baked gingerbread cookies, but maybe the Halperts really only needed someone to be still…be quiet…stretch out with a coloring book and bake cookies with Hershey kisses in the middle.  Maybe they really did need Pam.  She hoped they did, anyway.                

Jim appeared from the crowd and grinned at her, his hair still ruffled and his flannel pajama pants and forest green shirt making him look like a much younger and more innocent version of himself.  She raised her coffee cup in a little cheers and he chuckled at her, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her through the kitchen until they were standing at the hall closet.  He reached in, pulled out his winter coat. and handed it to her, tugging on her hand again and leading her out the front door and onto the porch.  The air was crisp and chilled and Pam pulled his coat on gratefully, glad that she’d thought to pull on thick winter socks before she came downstairs.                  

“Fresh air,” Jim explained simply, crossing his arms and leaning against the railing of the porch to assess her, his eyes sweeping over her face and then her over-sized coat-clad body, and he smiled warmly, his own coffee cup hanging empty from his fingers.  The porch, the morning and the way it was still gray with the hour, seemed so much more quiet than the inside of the house and Pam took a deep breath through her nose, loving the way that everything felt like Christmas…smelled like Christmas…just seemed like Christmas in that way that was impossible to explain.  Jim reached out to her and took the coffee from her hands, the soft smile on his face staying in place and his eyes squinting at her a little bit, like trying to say something without really saying it.  Pam smiled widely and was about to announce that she loved this…that she loved him…when he interrupted her.                

“There are gloves in my coat pocket if your hands are cold,” he told her and she raised her eyebrows at him, taking a second to realize he wasn’t announcing anything romantic or declaring anything important, just suggesting that maybe she’d like to wear his gloves.  She flexed her fingers to feel how cold they really were and decided that gloves were actually not a bad idea, so she reached a hand into the right pocket and came up empty.  Reaching into the left pocket she frowned when the only thing she discovered was an envelope…no gloves.  She eyed him suspiciously and pulled the envelope out, looking down warily and finding herself unable to stifle the barking laughter that erupted from her lungs once she finally focused and realized what she was holding.  But then as the surprise settled and she realized what exactly he had done she gasped, covering her mouth with an ungloved hand.                

“You…” she blinked up at him, “You bought us tickets to Sandals, Jamaica?” she asked, disbelieving, unsure whether she should laugh again or tell him she wasn’t sure she could stomach vacationing at Michael Scott’s favorite getaway.  Jim chuckled and jutted his chin out gently toward the envelope in her hands.                

“Check the actual tickets, Pam…” he told her quietly.  She opened the envelope and stared down at the airplane tickets in her hand, tears filling her eyes and her hand starting to shake like her head was starting to shake.  She inhaled a noisy breath and held it, the tears starting to track down her cheeks in little drips.                

“Paris,” she breathed, her voice thick with tears and her hand still hanging against her mouth like it could catch her emotion and keep it inside.  He licked his lips and studied her.                

“Yeah,” he whispered.  “The Sandals thing was just a joke,” he admitted, his tone sheepish but still hushed like he didn’t want to break the glass-like look from her face and the way that she was staring down at the paper in her hand like it was made of gold.                

“Why did you do this for me?” she asked, with her fingers pressed gingerly against her lips, and he shrugged, smiling because he couldn’t help himself.                 “Because I’m in love with you,” he told her honestly, and she started crying in earnest, stepping forward to throw her arms around his neck and press her lips against the skin there, murmuring that she loved him too, over and over again like it was a mantra or a prayer.                  

Wrapped in his arms with two tickets to Paris clutched tightly in her fingers she wondered how she could’ve ever thought, the night before, that Christmas had gone wrong.  She wondered how she could’ve confused this happiness with melancholy…how she could’ve mixed up perfection with imperfection so soundly and easily.  She tightened her arms around him, laughed into his shoulder, and reveled in this…here…this warmth and this feeling of being grounded and sure…this comfort and this being a true part of something…being half of a whole, being the Pam in ‘Jim and Pam’…                

She thought that what she loved about Scranton was the winter...                

And what she loved about Dickson City was this.  Here.  This man, and this house, and the way that they wrapped themselves around her like a blanket during a cold night…like the warmth of a kitchen or the smell of freshly baked cookies…they were clean and they were white and they felt as familiar and beautiful as the season’s first snow.                                 

And she felt at home.   

…Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.