Joy wasn't sure if he was referring to her strike or the fact that the paper was following it. "I'm not the only one," she said in her own defense.

"Ma.s.s hysteria," Bob cracked.

If their son wasn't with them in this car right now...She clamped her lips together and glared out the window. They really were going too fast. Why didn't her husband listen to her?

"Bob, slow down," she commanded.

"Hon, we're fine. Cool it."

He was trying to kill them but he was telling her to cool it. She shut her mouth and did a slow simmer.

Bobby was silent for a moment, then asked, "Um, does this mean we're just going to sit around and do nothing for Christmas?"

"It means we can have a nice, quiet holiday," Bob corrected him.

"We're not going over to Uncle Al's?"

Bobby actually sounded concerned. Joy took hope. Maybe Bob hadn't poisoned their children's minds after all.

Bob's brows knit. "You want to go to Uncle Al's?"

"Well, yeah. I haven't seen anybody since I went away to school."

Bob nodded thoughtfully.

"And what about cookies?" Bobby wanted to know.

"Don't worry. I'll buy some," Bob promised.

"Mom, is he kidding?" Bobby asked, going from sounding concerned to panicked.

Joy smiled over her shoulder at him. "Don't worry, sweetie. It'll be okay," she added, and patted Bob's leg. Bob frowned.

"Who's shopping for presents?"

"I am," Bob said, "and it's already done."

"Cool," Bobby said, sounding impressed.

He was equally impressed when they got home and he saw the Bob Christmas tree. "Holy c.r.a.p!" he exclaimed, eyes bugging.

"It's up," Bob said. "That's what matters."

Joy just shook her head and went out to the kitchen to heat up the clam chowder she'd made earlier.

She was slicing French bread to go with it when her son came out to the kitchen. "You all squared away?" she asked as he opened the fridge.

He stood there, surveying its contents. "Oh, yeah." He shut the door and rooted around in the pantry, coming out with a lunch-size bag of chips, then leaned against the doorjamb and began to pop chips in his mouth. "So, are you and Dad..." He petered to a stop.

"What?" Joy prompted, still slicing.

"Are you guys okay? I mean, you're not having problems, are you?"

"You mean as in about-to-get-divorced-type problems?"

Bobby shrugged. "Well, this strike stuff is a little weird. I thought maybe...I don't know."

"We're fine," Joy a.s.sured him. "We're just renegotiating our contract, that's all."

"So what happens if you can't renegotiate?"

Joy shrugged. "I'll kill him." Bobby made a face and she smiled. "I was just kidding. Don't worry. It will be all right. Just a little different this year."

"A little different," he said in disgust. "What was Dad smoking when he did the tree? And is he really making the cookies?"

Joy stopped on her way to the table with the French bread and lowered her voice. "Check under your bed."

Bobby looked relieved and grinned. "Thanks. At least that's something I know is going to be right this Christmas."

So far it was the only thing.

Twenty-one.

The Holly Herald's staff party was in full swing, and Rosemary Charles had to admit the guys hadn't done a half-bad job planning it. As it turned out, Bruno's Sports Bar did have a tree they could put their white elephant game presents under-a gigantic fiber optics number that sat parked in a corner of the bar. Under it lay a pile of gag gifts. A few were wrapped in Christmas paper or nestled in gift bags, but most (the men's) had come wrapped man-style in brown paper or plastic bags. The newspaper's Web guy, Dustin, had actually used red ribbon to tie his bag shut. But Dustin was new. Next year would probably be another story. The party food consisted of Bruno's buffalo wings and miniburgers, and some bowls of nuts, but there was plenty of beer so n.o.body seemed to care. Country music kept a steady beat going under the clack of b.a.l.l.s on the pool tables and bursts of laughter, and right now some country singer was belting out a number that had Santa driving a 747.

Jonathan Hawkins, their publisher, strolled among the tables, chatting with the reporters and secretaries who weren't bellied up to the bar. Their editor, Walt, was ordering fresh drinks and joking with a cute bartender in a Santa hat. Rick, who was playing pool with Rosemary, Martha, the food editor, and another reporter, stood waiting his turn and stuffing his face with nachos.

"They don't even miss my red velvet cake," Martha lamented to Rosemary as she chalked her cue stick.

Rosemary leaned on hers and watched as Rick set down his nachos and prepared to take his shot. "Oh, well. Your baking skills are wasted on these guys, anyway. Pearls before swine, girl."

Rick sank his ball and positioned himself for another shot.

Martha sighed. "Why do we bother? No one would miss it if we all stopped doing what we do. We just proved it."

Rosemary thought of how her dad rubbed his hands together in antic.i.p.ation before sitting down to eat Christmas dinner, how he always managed to find where her mom hid the s...o...b..ll cookies and snarf down every one before anyone else could get a chance. "Oh, I don't know," she said. "I think a lot of guys appreciate it." Then she thought of how p.o.o.ped her mom always looked by Christmas Day. "But I don't think women need to do as much as they do. And maybe they shouldn't be such martyrs. They should recruit more help."

And speaking of help, those s...o...b..ll cookies weren't that hard to make. Maybe she'd bake a batch tomorrow and drop some off for her dad. Give Mom a break.

Rick made another shot, smacking a ball into a side pocket.

"You could save some for the rest of us," Rosemary complained.

He walked past her and waggled his eyebrows. "I'm good. What can I say?"

"Something modest?" she suggested.

He ignored her, bending over and setting up for his next shot. He had a nice b.u.t.t. And great aim. He made that shot, too.

"Beginner's luck," she goaded.

"In pool, there's no such thing as luck," he informed her. "You need a precision eye and a steady hand. And I've got great hands," he added as he sauntered by her.

"And a fat head."

Walt came over and handed Rosemary a bottle of Red Hook. He looked around like a king surveying his kingdom. "Well, we pulled it off." "We" meaning Rick, who had gotten volunteered army-style to find a place for the party. "You women make too big a deal out of everything. Those women didn't need to go on strike. They just needed to delegate."

"You'd have sold a lot less papers if they had," Rosemary teased.

Walt made a face. "Got an answer for everything, don'tcha?"

"Pretty much."

He took a swig of beer. "Well, kid, it's been a fun ride. Nice bit on the smaller turnout at the Hollydays arts and crafts fair, and announcing the winners of this year's tree-decorating contest will make a good twist. After that I think we'll have about milked this thing for all we can. We'll get a picture of the contest winners in the paper Christmas Day and call it quits with that."

"There's still Christmas Day itself," Rosemary reminded him.

He shrugged. "That'll be pretty much of a snooze. Stories about people opening presents don't sell papers. No, I think just about everything interesting that's going to happen during this strike has happened."

She supposed he was right. What else could happen that would be newsworthy between now and Christmas?

"It's sick, that's what it is," Sharon snapped. From the look on her face, Joy decided it was a good thing she'd suggested a Sunday afternoon walk and gotten Sharon out of her house and into the crisp winter air. Otherwise the steam coming out of Sharon's ears might have scalded her husband.

They were on their second lap around Sharon's neighborhood, which had been dubbed Candy Cane Lane because of the extravagant holiday decorating the people all did on their houses.

"I think your tree looks adorable with all those little toy cars and tinsel," Joy said.

"Who'd have thought it would win the tree-decorating contest! He's going to frame the picture," Sharon grumbled. "I'll never live this down."

They walked past a lawn with a huge creche. "At least Pete's involved now," Joy pointed out.

Sharon sniffed. "Yes, and from now on everything will be messy and sloppy and-"

"And you'll all share the celebration," Joy said, cutting her off. "Isn't that the most important thing? Isn't that what you really wanted? Isn't that why you went on strike in the first place, so you wouldn't have to do it all alone?"

Sharon frowned and kicked at a little mound of snow on the edge of the yard. "I suppose. But now I'm doomed to snoring Santas and singing reindeer all over the house. Honey, that's no improvement."

"Well, you could always confine them to the family room and put out your fancy decorations in the living room," Joy suggested. "Maybe you could put up your own tree in your bedroom. That would be romantic."

A smile grew on Sharon's face. "Now, that idea has possibilities."

"And at least your husband has changed," Joy added, feeling a little jealous. "You've accomplished something with your strike."

Sadly, it was more than she could say. And Christmas was almost here.

Sharon walked back into her house, determined to look on the bright side like Joy had suggested and see how everyone had benefited from her loosening the holiday reins. And then she caught the whiff of burned cookies and followed her nose to the kitchen, where she saw the disaster. Flour dusted the whole work island. Every available counter s.p.a.ce was scattered with dirty bowls, measuring cups, and bags of sugar and flour and other baking ingredients. Someone had dropped an egg on the floor and failed to wipe it all up. And that was just the kitchen. All her boys looked like they'd been in a food fight.

"Oh, my stars and little catfishes!" she cried and pressed a hand to her chest. "What is going on here?"

"Hey, Mom," called James. "We're making gingerbread boys."

"Is that what you're making?" she said. "It looks more like a mess to me."

"We'll clean it up," Pete a.s.sured her. "Why don't you join us? Oh, yeah, you can't. You're on strike."

His words sounded more like a taunt than a regret, and that irked her.

"Mom, we could use some help. This dough tastes kind of funny," said Pete Junior.

It was all the excuse she needed. "Well, let me see." She shed her coat and gloves and went to take a pinch of the dough. "Did y'all remember to add the sugar?"

"Who was supposed to put in the sugar?" Pete asked, and their middle son, Tommy Joe, blushed and raised a timid hand.

"Well, let's just dump this out and start again," Sharon said.

"You're gonna help us?" asked Pete Junior. "I thought you couldn't do anything."

"Yeah," put in James, "or you'd get a scab."

"I'd be a scab," Sharon corrected him. She looked at Pete.

He was watching her, his eyes asking, "What are you going to say to your kids now?"

That was a hard question. "I guess I can be a scab sometimes, even when there's not a strike," she admitted. Maybe Pete was right. Perhaps she was just a teensy bit of a Yulezilla.

He shook his head and slapped an ear. "Whoa, my hearing must be going. I thought you said-"

"Never mind what you thought I said, Pete Benedict. And this doesn't mean I'm ending the strike. I'm just...taking a day off from it to supervise you boys." She started washing her hands. "Okay, now. Let's get all the ingredients lined up here on the counter and we'll put each one away after we've added it. That way you'll know everything is in the bowl that should be."

For the next hour they played together in the kitchen, making not only gingerbread boys but gingerbread trees, pumpkins, and bunnies, and any other shape that James pulled out of Sharon's basket of cookie cutters and fancied. Her oldest son decided to make an anatomically correct gingerbread boy, which got his brothers and his father laughing hysterically. Sharon decided to let it go. Maybe that particular boy would have a sad accident coming off the cookie sheet.

At last they were done and the kitchen was restored to order.

"I'm p.o.o.ped," Pete declared. "Let's go out for pizza."

"Good idea," Sharon agreed. "I don't want this kitchen all messed up again now that it's clean. Boys, you all go change. We're not taking you out looking like a bunch of ragam.u.f.fins."

The boys stampeded out of the kitchen with noisy whoops, leaving Sharon and Pete alone.

He leaned against the counter and pulled her up to him. "I should have taken a picture of you crossing the picket line. I'll bet someone at the Holly Herald would have paid big money for that."