A FANCIER THAN PLANNED WEDDING RECEPTION, A MODEST YET STILL EXTRAVAGANT HONEYMOON, A BABY ON THE WAY, AND UNCERTAINTY AT THEIR SHARED PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT. No, it wasn’t a good time to be spending money and yet it would be their first Christmas as a married couple. Naturally, she wanted to give him a lavish present; this year something real, just for him, a gift to bring him the kind of joy he brought her in ways she long since lost count of. Like a toy, so to speak, for a playful man, as in this one she had just married, since very soon all the toys they would be spending money on would be of the baby variety. She’d thought long and hard on it, trying to come up with an amazing gift for her amazing Jim.

But then the rumors became more like facts and they agreed, after talking through it at length, Pam trying to lighten him up by reprising Deb U Tante’s southern accent, that they wouldn’t dip into their savings, or the baby fund, or what was left of their wedding presents, not that there was much left anyway—during the honeymoon they let themselves forget they worked at a paper company with salaries that reflected it.

In the end, they decided together that gifts to each other this year would again be small-scale or even homemade. But she’d done that last year, the homemade, technically office-made present thing, when things were tight because of the new house, new being a relative term as it was far from new for her fiancée. She followed the rules and made him those silly paper clip sunglasses and then he went and pulled a Jim, and bought her a watch. She wasn’t going to let that happen again this year. This year, she would somehow find a way to buy him something, a gift he wanted but might not think to buy himself.

Around said house were the many relics of Jim’s childhood because they lived in the house where he had been a child, and a teenager and a young adult. There was the ugly clown art still stuck on the wall and in the basement a collection of similarly questionable art pieces. There was the closet in the bedroom that he used to share with his brothers with markings on the inside of the door showing the heights of the Halpert boys as they grew. There were the model horses that once had been part of the décor in the den and were packed in a crate in the basement along with the other boxes filled with old toy trains and record albums. And there were the guitars that she never heard him play, not knowingly at least. The acoustic with the popped strings he’d never bothered to fix and the electric Fender that he claimed was unusable without an amp. He purported to be not very talented anyway, the reason he was in no rush to fix the strings or purchase an amp.

But from time to time when he passed the guitar, that had become part of the den’s new décor, he might run a finger along the lower edge of the Fender as it hung on the wall hook, his face projecting an expression she couldn’t quite decipher, a more subtle version of the one he wore when she would unknowingly catch him taking it down to pluck the metal strings. He was right, with out the amp all that came from the instrument was a hollow, tinny, almost non-existent echo of sound and yet again there on his face was the curious look as if he was remembering a time when he had his sights on being a rock star.

Little did Pam know the Fender wasn’t from his childhood or teenage years or even young adulthood. In actuality it was a more recent purchase. And the look on his face as he plucked it was an amalgamation of all his emotions when thinking of the reasons he’d bought it and that time of his life, mixed in with the bliss of the now and the real reason why he’d never needed to replace the crappy amp he blew out in the first month he had owned it.

Jim had purchased the Fender in Stamford, as a kind of personal pick-me-up, keep-his-mind- off-her, busy himself by diving into something he had once dabbled in, not that he was ever very good. That was apparent in the way his instrument rebelled, the strings on the acoustic popping one after the other when he tried to play clichéd, lovesick ballads during the first month of living in his new city. He knew he cheaped out on the amp he bought along with his electric upgrade, but the Fender had put him back enough that he would wait until he got better to buy the right one, his plan to take lessons from Andy in yet another activity that would keep his mind free from thinking of her for an hour a week. He should have simply bought new acoustic strings.

Because shortly after, things got nutty fast. First it was late night sessions practicing Call of Duty, because he sucked at that too, and it seemed to be important to Josh, his boss. Then it was learning what a hothead Andy could be and not wanting to be around him any more than necessary. Then it was the branch closing, first when it was Scranton, the concern who would come over but then when Josh abandoned ship, he was left to decide if he could handle going back to Scranton. And her.

It was that night, when he made the decision to return, that he went home and picked up the Fender, threw up the volume and aggressively banged out angry, discordant sounds that weren’t quite music. This time it was the amp that protested against the cacophony he produced and blew out beyond repair.

He's not sure why he even kept the Fender all these years, every now and then he’d think about putting it on Craigslist but then he’d pick it up and strum a few sour, almost soundless notes and change his mind. It was strange, the Fender was a reminder of those darker times, before she was his and yet it was not something he was ready to part with because it also reminded him of how lucky he was to have made that decision to come back, despite how he’d felt that night after he’d made it. Besides, it looked good hanging in the den.

There were fewer relics of her childhood in their house. A collection of the sketch books she’d created in her youth lined a bookshelf in the garage art studio he’d made for her.

There too was the tree-topping angel that had once been her Mee-Maw’s and an assortment of ornaments amassed in childhood, among them the little mice collection, one holding a paintbrush, one with the stack of books, and one in the sled made of a Crayola crayons box. The seasonal trinkets were still in boxes upstairs along but would soon be transported down for they brought home a fine Douglas-fir yesterday. Even bare, it’s presence in the house, in the corner of the den where the window met the wall where the Fender was hung, made it suddenly feel like the Christmas.

And in the spare bedroom, there was the old dollhouse.

It had survived the move, four of them in fact, safely transported from all of her previous homes to the one she currently shared with Jim and their child that was on the way. Sadly, the vast collection of miniature furniture that had once been inside it had only made it through the first.

Jim had been long since gone for Stamford so he wasn’t there to witness the fountain of tears she cried when she learned it was all gone, shortly after the second. The missing box probably left on the curb and mistaken for trash, a fate it shared with another box containing stuff from the kitchen. But it was only for the miniatures that she wept. Plates and bowls were easier to replace.

Truth be known, her reaction to the loss, an impassioned wail that seared her sinuses and lasted so long her throat was sore and hoarse in the days after, was so intense because it was not just for the lost contents of the dollhouse. It was also for the conclusion of her nine-plus year relationship, made definitive days earlier when she moved out of the home with Roy and into her own place. But mostly, it was the intensely-felt devastation over losing her best friend and a release of the guilt and regret she’d bottled up in the weeks after he had gone.

Now, two more moves later, the old dollhouse, which she hoped to refurnish slowly, remained woefully the opposite. There was never much in the way of extra to spend on tiny furniture, not when she needed it for a real table and chairs and a bed in her own apartment. And a car, and gas and food. Then when things were almost flush, she needed it for tuition to Pratt.

During the elapsed time since the loss, she’d furnished it with only one item, a tiny bench, custom-made for her by a classmate at art school who dabbled in woodworking, too. He hadn’t known about the dollhouse; he’d made it as a little gag gift, designed like the one Pam’s boss had once been forced to sleep on. After all, they’d bonded over tales of their crazy bosses while having coffee with a larger group after class, during which Pam had shared all the insane antics of Michael, from his Yankee Swap, Secret Santa exchange, to the Dundies, to the awkward and out of control dinner party where her boss’s, ex-boss slash psycho-girlfriend went postal. Sometime later, he carved her a small jewelry box which he gave to her upon hearing about her engagement.

She never felt right using the box, especially after Jim’s reaction when the friend tried to get her to stay in New York, but it felt harmless to keep the bench for the dollhouse. Jim, she suspected, didn’t love the idea, but never said otherwise and besides he had probably long forgotten about the bench or the house even. The old Victorian was upstairs in the spare room last used, other than for storage, when Pam’s dad had stayed with them.

The rest of the dollhouse rooms remained empty, in contrast to her real-life house which was only fully furnished because the older Halperts had left so much behind. But once again, the priority furniture purchases were adult-size pieces and not miniatures, as they replaced the most dated pieces in the various rooms and of late, bought the crib, changing table and glider for the nursery.

On this day, in early December, though an unseasonably warm weekend for Scranton, Pam awoke thinking of nothing but the upcoming holiday, and no wonder as they’d spent the early part of yesterday taking advantage of the fine weather to put up their outdoor lights.

Following a lunch prepared and enjoyed at home, since they were more and more watching their pennies as the news of Dunder Mifflin’s fate seemed more and more ominous, they took an afternoon trip to a tree farm up in Lehighton and let themselves splurge just a tiny bit on the tree.

While Jim was outside inspecting the string of lights they noticed had gone dark upon their arrival home last night, Pam visited the spare bedroom where the Christmas decorations were stored in the closet. The big plastic container that normally held the outside lights, most of which had also been left behind when her future in-laws moved out, was there on the bed, where he returned it to yesterday after spending the morning putting them up. It was empty of course, except for the box of replacement bulbs, which she grabbed to bring downstairs to him, rather sure he would come through the door any moment and announce he needed one. On her way back out of the room she stopped to look into her dollhouse and that’s when the bulb inside her head went off.

It was later that evening, as she dozed off next to Jim on the couch, the football game on low in the background, that she had a second burst of inspiration. Or more accurately, the child growing inside her did. Pam was nearly in a full slumber when she felt suddenly, low in her abdomen, the baby’s frenetic movement occurring in harmony with the sudden increase in volume on the television, as an ad for Guitar Hero Van Halen amped up. It was as if the baby, while rocking out to “Panama”, had come up with the gift idea that Pam herself had been struggling over.

As the thought transferred from child to mother Pam popped her own head up from her husband’s lap.

“You okay?”

The sudden movement had Jim slightly alarmed until Pam grabbed his hand and placed it over her bump for him to feel what she pictured happening within it, the baby jamming on her placenta as if it was a guitar.

Though not the first time he felt the internal acrobatics of baby Halpert, his eyes still widened in amazement and an exuberant smile spread across his face.

“It seems the baby really likes Van Halen.”

“I’m guessing so.”

“He or she probably inherited your musical talents.”

“You assume I have some. I told you, I was never exactly Eddie Van Halen and it’s been a while since I’ve strummed anything but air guitar.”

While Pam knew that wasn’t entirely true, she didn’t say a word. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw his eyes flash to the wall with the tree. Whether he did or not, she also glanced in that direction, catching a glimpse behind the green branches, with a new vision for the gift she would place under it.