Christmas with the Calvins

Chapter Fifty

Much to Bernard's relief, his wife and father-in-law both turned out to be right. After Jessie and he formally announced their pregnancy to the residents of the North Pole, everyone wanted to help. Judy, Abby and the rest of the kitchen promised both the stressed out Head Elf and his excited, expecting wife food whenever they wanted. They also promised Jess a healthy balanced diet including proper servings of all the food groups. Harper, the head of the recorded music department, began to shower Jess with CDs that the elves made for expecting mothers. She slipped a few of the best holiday tracks in there too. Curtis, who already knew a fair amount about Christmas, hit the research center to find everything he could pregnancy and babies. Perhaps the most involved though was Quintin. He volunteered himself and his entire department to help Bernard with the additions to their elf house.

"We can deck the whole place out with tech." Quintin animatedly explained. "motion activated baby monitors, satellite TV, separate rooms for Holly and Jolly..."

"Holly and Jolly?" Bernard repeated with raised eyebrows. The two of them were standing in the kitchen of the house in question, staring down the plans for the new house. Q looked up from his schematics sheepishly.

"Well you and Jessie haven't announced names yet. And the team and I wanted something to call them other than Baby One and Two..."

"We're here!" Jess called as she burst through the front door. She was accompanied by Lucy, who walked in holding her older sister's hand.

"Bernard!" Lucy called out cheerily as she ran towards her brother-in-law.

"Hey there, sis!" The Head Elf greeted, pulling her into a hug. Laura and Neil had sent Lucy to stay with her sister for the weekend so that the young couple could get some parent training. "Lucy, have you met my good friend Quintin?" The young girl shook her head.

"Quintin makes all kinds of stuff for us here at the North Pole." Jess told her sister. "And now she's going to help us make our house bigger so that we have rooms for our babies."

"That sounds like a lot of work." Lucy observed. She sat at one of the kitchen chairs and looked down at the blueprints. She tried to make sense of all the boxes, lines and descriptions that covered the plans, but they were difficult to read.

"Well it's not so confusing once you know how to read it." Her sister explained. "See each of these boxes is a room, and Quintin labeled each one so we can tell which room is which..." Jess's fingers danced across the schematics as she pointed out the rooms for her sister. "And you see these two rooms here, the ones that say H & J?" Lucy nodded. "That's where the new babies will sleep."

"What does H&J stand for?" Lucy asked curiously.

"Holly and Jolly." Jessie laughed. "They are nicknames that our friends have made up for the twins until Bernard and I name them."

"You knew about this?" Bernard raised his eyebrows once more.

"Yeah." Jess nodded."You may have noticed that we have yet to name our children, and the elves wanted something to call them, so I suggested Holly and Jolly. It's cute don't you think? Very Christmas-ish."

"But not very elfish." Bernard frowned.

"And what would you have us name them then?" Jess folded her arms across her chest. "Beatrice and Bartleby?"

"Those would be fine names for elves." The Head elf nodded.

"I'm not naming my kids Beatrice and Bartleby. I want them to have pretty Christmas names like Star as in a Christmas Star. Or Nicholas like St. Nicholas."

"You could name them after a family members." Quintin suggested, but after a death glare from his boss, he turned his attention back to the blueprints.

"Bernard, we still have plenty of time to decide. For now, I think Holly and Jolly are fine substitute names. Now I was going to take Lucy down to the theater to see a movie. Would you like to come with us?"

"I'd love to Jessie, but we really just got started here, and we were hoping to break some ground before that snowstorm next month." The Head Elf huffed.

"Okay, okay." She held her hands up in surrender. "After the movie, Lucy wants to spent some time with Dad, so maybe I'll swing by and check your progress?"

"Oh, Jessica, I hate to trouble you," Quintin called after her. "But if you could teach my team how to paint your signature snow colored camouflage sometime this week..."

"And give your team an edge over mine in the big upcoming snowball battle?" Jess scoffed. "I'll see what I can do. C'mon Luce, we'd better head out now if we don't want to miss the movie."

"She sure is something, that wife of yours." Quintin whistled as the sisters left the home.

"That she is." Bernard agreed. "But you know what Q," He said, clapping his friend on the back. "I wouldn't want her any other way. And I hope our kids grow up to be just like her."