SGMW Family Christmas
Arizona's POV
I walk into the kitchen, stopping to admire my girlfriend’s ass as she pulls something out of the oven. I’ve always loved watching her cook.
“Hey babe, the table’s all set, can I help with any of the cooking?” I ask her as she stands back up.
“Haha. That’s funny. I told you, this dinner has to be perfect. That means you can’t help because you would burn everything,” she tells me. I pout at her, even though she’s right. I just hate that she’s doing all the work.
“Aww, don’t pout at me, hon. I told you I don’t mind doing all the cooking,” she says, walking over and placing a chaste kiss on my lips, effectively removing my pout. How does she always know what I’m thinking? She starts to pull away, but I grab her hip with my left hand and snake my right into her hair, deepening our kiss. Unfortunately, one of the timers chose that instant to go off. I try to keep her there, but she overpowers me with her ortho strength.
“Really, Arizona, do you want the turkey to burn??”
“No,” I sigh. “I’ll just leave you to it then.” Damn her need for edible food. I head back toward the living room, but she calls out to me before I reach the doorway.
“Hey, I love you.” She grins at me. It’s then that I notice the lipstick smudge and burst out laugh. Her face immediately drops and she gives me a confused look. “I say I love you and you laugh at me? What the hell?”
“You… you have… lipstick… sm-smudged on your face!” I gasp out between fits of giggles.
“WHAT?! Arizona, I don’t have time for this! They’re going to be here any minute!” She starts freaking out, and I immediately stifle my laughter. Her freak outs are never good.
“Calliope, calm down, it’s okay. Here, let me fix it.” I grab a tissue and carefully wipe the smudge off. “There, good as new.”
“Thanks, babe. Now can you please leave the kitchen so we don’t have any other mishaps?” She bats those long eyelashes at me, making it impossible to say no. I give her a quick peck on the lips, careful not to leave any more lipstick, and go back out to the living room. No sooner than I sit down on the couch do I hear a knock on the door. As I get up to answer it, I yell out to Calliope, “Guests are here!”
I open the door to see Mark, Lexie, Derek, Meredith, Owen, Cristina, Teddy, Bailey, Alex, April, and Jackson all crowded on the front porch. Before I can say anything, I notice the snow coming down behind them.
“Ooooh it’s snowing!!” I exclaim. Despite the fact that there was already a couple feet of snow on the ground from yesterday’s snow storm, I’m still excited to see that it’s snowing on Christmas Day. There’s nothing I love more than snow on Christmas. Except maybe Calliope.
“Seriously, Robbins? That’s how you greet your guests who are standing on your porch freezing to death? It’s snowing?” Mark says that last bit in a high-pitched voice that I assume is supposed to be some imitation of me. I punch him in the shoulder and then invite everyone inside. I have a feeling tonight will be a very good night.
The next fifteen minutes are a chaotic mess of greetings, taking coats, and getting everyone seated at the table. It makes me so happy to see all my SGMW friends together. Being surgeons, this doesn’t happen very often; there’s always someone working. But not this time; nope, this time we all managed to get at least this evening off so we could have dinner together. As everyone settles in and continues chatting, Calliope finally emerges from the kitchen.
“Hey, guys! Merry Christmas! Who wants eggnog?” She greets everyone before passing around the container of her homemade eggnog. I’m pretty sure that’s the one thing she makes that I don’t like. But I’ve always hated eggnog. It just sounds weird, so obviously it tastes weird too. Right? Anyway, Calliope and I return to the kitchen to bring out the food. This is the one thing she lets me help with, since I waitressed throughout high school and college so she knows I won’t drop the food. I’m still amazed at how much she made tonight. She refused to let anyone bring a single dish. I’m not sure anyone actually put up much of a fight to that. There’s turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, baked corn, homemade rolls (yum!), fruit salad, devilled eggs, cheese and crackers, and dessert. Oh dessert! It seems like she made just about everything: pumpkin pie, apple pie, pecan pie, sugar cookies (that I got to frost!), pumpkin cookies, buckeyes, peppermint bark, fudge, and my favorite strawberry pretzel dessert. And I made cream cheese mints. She lets me do those because my mom and I made them for years and it doesn’t require any cooking or baking.
“Arizona! Are you going to help or just stand there in my way?” Calliope’s voice brings me from my thoughts and I realize I’d just been staring at the all the wonderful food and not helping her.
“Sorry, babe,” I say in a bashful tone as I move to grab a couple dishes and let her pass. Once we’ve got everything on the table, made sure everyone has a drink, and taken our seats, we start passing the food around. I hear an echoing chorus of praise for Calliope’s cooking as everyone starts to dig in and I can’t help but grin. I’ve always known she’s a great cook, but I love that everyone else thinks so too. Several conversations start around the table as we eat. I’m content just eating my food and listening to it all until Mark’s voice comes at me from across the table.
“So Robbins, get anything exciting for Christmas this morning?” He asks. I immediately light up at this topic.
“I got new wheelie sneaks!” I exclaim as Calliope rolls her eyes next to me.
“Seriously, Torres, you got her new ones? Weren’t you relieved when the other ones finally bit the dust?” He looks at her incredulously. I knew she had celebrated the death of my wheelies behind my back. I should’ve known it had been with Mark.
“No, Mark,” she starts, but I interrupt her.
“Santa brought them!”
“Seriously, roller girl? You still believe in Santa?” Cristina jumps in.
“She bought them for herself and put from Santa on them because she knew I’d never buy her new ones,” Calliope explains.
“You’re such a spoil sport,” I tell her, sticking my tongue out at her. I know it’s childish, but what can I say? I work with kids, I tend to pick up some of their habits. Everyone just laughs at me before returning to their previous conversations. Calliope, however, leans over to give me a kiss on my cheek and whispers in my ear.
“I’m sorry, hon. You know I just worry about you twisting your ankle again, or worse. I don’t like seeing you in pain.”
“I know,” I sigh. “I promise I’ll be more careful with these ones. Especially around ‘Caution: Floor May Be Wet’ signs.”
“That’s all I’m asking.” She gives me another kiss before turning back to Bailey and continuing their conversation. I look down at my plate only to realize I’ve already eaten all my food. As I glance around the table, I notice that everyone is just about finished. That means dessert time! Yay!
“Everyone ready for dessert now?” I ask, immediately getting affirmatives from around the table. Calliope and I clear off everyone’s plates and put away the leftovers with some help from Bailey, April, and Owen. I knew I liked that guy for a reason: he’s such a gentleman. Once the table’s clean, we refill it with all the desserts and coffee of course, because hey, it’s what we surgeons live on.
After we’ve all had our fill of dessert, we take our coffee to the living room to play some games. This part of the night was all my idea. I love playing games, and we’ve got several laid out on the coffee table. Everything from Pictionary to Taboo to Catch Phrase. And Apples to Apples. You just can’t have a party without Apples to Apples. We decide to start with that one. I can’t believe how much fun it is to play with this group. It’s obvious we all spend far too much time at the hospital because half of our answers are hospital-related (at least in our minds). We finish that and move onto other games, playing well past midnight. Eventually everyone gets tired and decides to head home. We say our goodbyes and Merry Christmas’s and finally Lexie and I manage to pull Mark and Callie away from their heated debate. I’m not sure exactly what it was even about, but I don’t think I really want to.
I wave goodbye and shut the door before collapsing against it. I think I had a bit too much fun for one evening. And not enough coffee to go with it. Groaning, I push myself off the door and return to the living room in search of Calliope. I find her face down on the couch, clearly as exhausted as I am, if not more so. I lean over and gently brush the hair out of her face so I can give her a kiss on the cheek.
“Let’s go to bed, baby,” I whisper to her, nudging her to get up. She complies with a groan.
“Hmm, okay…” She says. We make our way to the bedroom, change, go through our nightly routines, and crawl into bed. She immediately snuggles up to my back and wraps me in her arms.
“Merry Christmas,” she whispers.
“Merry Christmas, babe,” I whisper back before drifting off into dreamland.