Joan looked around the house one more time and smiled—everything was perfect. She’d worked really hard on all the decorations and the food. The guests should be arriving in a little over an hour and she wanted to make a good impression on Brian’s friends. She couldn’t believe that her little boy had given her a second chance, and she wasn’t about to blow it.


The doorbell broke her out of her musings. What, it was too early for the guests. When she opened the door, she saw Brian loaded down with gifts. “A little help here, Mom.”

Joan laughed and started pulling the packages off the top of the stack. “Brian, what have you done now?”

“I just bought everyone’s presents over here this year. I thought you’d like to see Gus open his gifts and he didn’t mind waiting.” Brian bent and placed a kiss on his mother’s cheek. “Merry Christmas, Mom.”

“Merry Christmas, son.” Joan helped Gus and Justin in the house. Justin was loaded down with dishes and so was Gus. “We’ll just put all this stuff in the kitchen, Grandma,” Gus said before placing a kiss on her cheek.

“Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Gus, I’m so happy you could come.” Joan gave his cheek a little pat.

Justin was last through the door carrying, even more, dishes of food in a big cardboard box. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and said, “Merry Christmas, Mother Kinney.”

“Merry Christmas, Sunshine. You know you didn’t have to do all this, but thank you so much.” Joan helped him into the kitchen and started to unload the box.

“We couldn’t expect you to do all the work for the entire gang, Mother Kinney. There is just too many of us for one person to handle.” Justin was busily putting things away. “I’ll stop by tomorrow to take you to the grocery store.”

Joan put her hand on Justin’s shoulder. “You don’t have to do that, Sunshine. I appreciate everything that you and Brian have done for me, but you boys don’t need to go to all that trouble.”
Justin gave her his megawatt smile and bumped shoulders with her. “I love going shopping with you, Mother Kinney. You always tell the most amazing stories about Brian.”

“I just wish I’d been a better mother to him when he was growing up.” Joan took a deep breath.

“Well, he still hasn’t grown up yet, so you still have loads of work to do.” Justin laughed.

Brian walked into the kitchen after putting all the presents under the tree. “I heard everything you two were saying about me, and I’m shocked and appalled that you could say such disparaging things about my character. Gus, you need to set these two straight on a few things.”

Gus looked at his father and winked. “Well, Pop, Grandma is already straight and I really don’t think you want Justin to turn straight, so what am I supposed to do with them?”

Brian wrapped his arms around his mother’s waist from behind and placed a kiss against the top of her head.

“Are you feeling better, Mom?"

“I feel like a million dollars, Brian, don’t worry. Let’s get everything ready the guests should be arriving shortly.”

“These people aren’t guests, Mom. These people are just family, so you don’t have to impress them.”

“You be nice, Brian.” Joan pulled away from her baby boy and laughed softly.

Two hours later after opening up the presents, everyone was sitting in the living room talking. Joan looked around at all the people and smiled. Emmett and Drew were busy picking on Ted and Blake, Gus and J. R. were playing their new video game, Michael and Ben were talking to Debbie and Carl, Hunter and his boyfriend Maxx were checking out their new laptops, and Brian was busy kissing Justin under the mistletoe.

Joan pulled out her new digital camera and started taking pictures of everyone. This was going to be the perfect way to end this year’s scrapbook. She finally had her baby boy back.