I’m Pink Lady Apple Yeggs and my friend, and brother-in-law, Deviled Yeggs suggested that I record each project that I set up in the hopes of reforming the people who continue to work for Lily the Pink Enterprises.  If for no other reason, it would show how God is at work.

It is now late in the afternoon on Christmas, but there were many naughty things that happened last night.

I noticed that most of the men folk in the family were exhausted, barely dragging to the table for our mid-afternoon late-lunch early-dinner.  Since Gwen was flying in on a helicopter while Thanksgiving dinner was being served, she wanted to have a big meal for Christmas that she had cooked herself.  We always had a big worship service Christmas evening, too big to be called a vespers service.  We were squeezing in the family meal, with a few extra employee couples.  I had not seen much of Gwen in the past month.  We had some social functions within our immediate family.  We had some play time with her four adopted children and the two she arranged to have me adopt.  And we had both sent proposals to each other’s office – okay, hers was in the kitchen until we finished the small house that would be attached to my big house.  For those that do not know the nomenclature of the Lily the Pink complex, the big house was the home my father had built for the family, but I ended up being the only child.  The warehouse behind the big house and lower on the hill was converted into a cider house.  The cider house complex had to be expanded as we added a small distillery, a carbon recovery system, and then expanded upon the bottling plant and shipping and receiving as we grew, all under an interconnecting roof structure.  To complete the original campus, there was an apartment building, three floors, a little bit down the hill to the east of the big house.  The big house, the cider house (which is a lot bigger), and the apartment building form a triangle on the side of a hill.

When Uncle Dellie, aka Red Delicious Apple, crime boss, head of the Rotten Apple Gang, first turned the main campus into a brothel, with Baldwyn Apple running it since I refused to be the madam, he bought the apartment building and connected the three buildings with covered and walled walkways.  We had a family sized pool in the backyard of the house, the only structure in the enclosed triangle at that time.  The pool has been replaced with a pool large enough for water polo, plus a little extra space.  With everything walled in for prostitution business, you had to enter the big house and then be redirected.  This arrangement gave me a chance to build the Lily the Pink product line as a legitimate business.  The Rotten Apples did some money laundering through the cider business, but I kept separate records so that when Deviled Yeggs and the Tracy Police Department freed us from Rotten Apple control, I was able to show that the properties were all legally mine and the money in the bank was divided into my money and the gang’s money.  I had no idea about the multitude of offshore accounts that Uncle Dellie set up.  More money that I need to give away.

But back to the Lily the Pink campus.  Right after our emancipation from the illegal sex trade, one of the young freed prostitutes showed that she was a natural at being a project manager.  She quickly enclosed the roofs of the three buildings, built a bakery for my husband, Scrambled Yeggs, and built our own water treatment plant.  This new roof structure, all glass and steel, has been dubbed the Crystal Mountain, with waterfalls and two water slides that operate nearly eight months of the year.  But the Crystal Mountain works as a very large greenhouse, with water sluices going in every direction.  The interior has been made to look like a jungle with elevated walkways for the farmers to grow water lilies for the cider operation and vegetables to feed the employees.  We added a three-building apartment complex further down the street that leads to shipping and receiving.  We house employees, extended family, and families in Tracy that go through the mission downtown for temporary or semi-permanent housing until they can get back on their feet.  Some of those families got back on their feet through being hired at Lily the Pink, and their housing is permanent if they do not wish to move.  And Lily the Pink has expanded to Washington state, due to the availability of apples and a partnership with a group of department stores known as Sam Hill of Portland, Oregon.

Okay, with all that going on, I reduced my workload to that of CEO and turned everything operationally over to Gwen Quinn, a companion that Uncle Dellie had hired less than a week after my mother deserted me upon my graduation from high school, my father already in prison as Uncle Dellie’s enforcer.  So, Gwen was writing her job description, and I was writing my idea of what her job description was.  We had agreed on less than half of the duties, but we were slowly making progress.  I think Gwen’s zeal to take over more of the duties is that I am pregnant and a little too old to be working too hard for the rest of my pregnancy, but Gwen has always been very protective of me.

And now, she was married to my grandfather-in-law, who I call GrandPa.  After a year-long trek around the world, they brought me two children, Kanok and Joon, to be my children, and they brought back four of their own, Valin, Thanh, Asha, and Catalina.  Gwen cannot have children of her own, and she is a few years older than I am.

Gwen and I both became Christians, reading the Bible behind closed doors, away from the prying eyes of Baldwyn Apple.  But Gwen, the chef, did the grocery and clothing shopping for the employed ladies at Lily the Pink which included being Baldwyn’s buyer of sexy lingerie for the brothel.  Now she cannot help herself.  Every time there is a wedding, she buys naughty lingerie for every lady in the wedding party.  It’s her thing.

Now, with that background, the little boy that I had out of wedlock but whose father is now my husband was sent to the monastery by Gwen.  He grew up there and is now the mayor of Tracy.  Just a few days ago, my nephew, Deviled Yeggs’ son, Easter married Jemima.  My son, the mayor, Boaz Yeggs, married my former head of security, Cassandra Beech (formerly Sandy Beech, but no one calls her that now – Cassandra or Cassie only).  It was a lovely double wedding.  Those four are still on their honeymoon, but the rest are gathered in the cider house conference room for our Christmas dinner.

And the men are dragging.  Okay, Deviled, Otto, Poached, and my father-in-law Thou (Short for Thousand-Year-Old Yeggs).  Their wives all seemed to have a glow about them: Naomi, Zuzka, Callie, and Maeve.  Even Griffin Grunge and Jim Kaiser were dragging with their wives glowing.  Even Dev and Naomi’s children, Sophie and Blaise, were dragging.  Pauline and Mashie Niblick were there since GrandPa considers Pauline his almost daughter.  Really, Pauline’s mother died, Pauline’s father was never identified, and GrandPa stepped in after Rev. Tozer and his wife Mary took Pauline in.  But GrandPa only saw Pauline clandestinely.  And again, Pauline was glowing and Mashie looked dead to the world.

I don’t worry too much about the terms “in-law”, “step”, or “half.”  They are all family.  As I looked around, I noticed Gwen smirking as she saw the couples having difficulty with keeping their families together.  Okay, something was up, and I was afraid that my new company president might have something to do with it.

As the children went to the nursery and others started playing games, mostly board games, I pulled Naomi aside.  She is known as Glyce to many, but I prefer Naomi.  Glyce is short for nitroglycerin because she used to be explosive when shaken, but in my time of knowing her, she has been a wonderfully powerful woman.  I had been poisoned by Baldwyn just before the emancipation, our freedom day.  Naomi took a shell of a woman that could not walk and hardly stand and used her ground-breaking style of therapy to nurse me back to full health.  Even though I married her husband’s brother, she has been more than a sister to me.

I pulled her aside and asked what everyone in the family had done instead of sleeping last night.  Naomi said she would only talk in private, and she could not speak of all the others.  We slipped into my office.  This is Naomi’s firsthand report.

“A few days ago, I got a package from Gwen.  She said to open it after the children went to bed on Christmas Eve.  Dev fixed a fire in the fireplace and then went to the bedroom.  I was told not to open the box until the fire was roaring, but I never told Dev to light the fire.  I had no idea that he had also gotten a package from Gwen.  Inside the box, it was one of Gwen’s standard lingerie, nothing I would wear unless I knew Dev was the only one to see it.  There was also an envelope.  On the envelope, it said, “Put on the lingerie, and wait.  When Santa arrives, open the envelope.”  After a little waiting, Dev comes back into the room in a Santa costume.  I opened the envelope.  Inside was a story about how Santa has made all his deliveries, and he needs some companionship from Mrs. Claus (me) so he can unwind, but there was another envelope.  Every time, there was another envelope with more instructions.  As I started disrobing Santa and massaging his tired muscles, Dev admitted that he had gotten his package from Gwen, with instructions on lighting the fire in the fireplace and then leaving to get the costume on, with the naughty underwear underneath.  As we followed the instructions and more bits to the story, Dev wanted to trash the idea and just have sex and go to bed, in any order, but I refused.  I had to see this quest through.  All I can say without horrific embarrassment is that it was basically a really nice combination of massage and great love making, with jingle bells.  Sorry, that was part of Dev’s underwear.  Every time he moved, there were jingles.  It caused the love making to be extra slow, afraid the jingles would wake up the children.”

I groaned, “This is Gwen, in her purest form, and most diabolical form too.  No wonder she is in there laughing at all those exhausted men.  But neither of you got much sleep.  How did Dev not rest, and you fell asleep so easily?”

Naomi replied, “I think it was the instructions.  I have never felt so satisfied after making love.  I went to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, but Dev tossed and turned.  At least that is what he said.  I was sound asleep.  When I woke up this morning, I was thinking about what I hear a lot in sex therapy.  The guy reaches a climax, and the gal isn’t halfway there.  But, to the guy, they are done.  She stays awake listening to the husband snore.  This was the opposite.  I hope Gwen sends us on a quest like that every year, even though Dev is extremely attentive to my needs.  Dev said this morning before we got in the car, you know, away from big children ears.  You’ll learn.  Big children ears when you don’t want them to know.  Little ears when you tell them to clean their rooms.  But Dev said he felt like he had the weight of every package that went down every chimney on his shoulders.  He could never get comfortable.”

We hugged, and we returned to the party.  Gwen probably set up every married couple in the room, but that did not explain why Blaise and Sophie were exhausted.

I pulled Sophie aside and we returned to my office.  I was confident that she would talk.  Here is her story:

“Aunt Pink, if this gets back to Mom and Dad, they will be so embarrassed, and Blaise and I might get grounded, even though it was Blaise that did all the snooping.  He woke me up about one in the morning.  We have a rule that he never opens the curtains of my canopy bed unless I allow it.  He said that he got a glass of water and then he had seen “Mommy kissing Santa Claus,” but then they did not stop at kissing.  He was pretty sure it was Dad in a Santa suit due to the voice.  But what threw him off was every time Santa moved, there were jingle bells.  At one point, Mom said ‘oh, oh, oh.”  Dad said, should that not be ‘ho, ho, ho?’  Then Mom said, ‘No, that’s your line, and cut out the comedy and don’t stop what you are doing, just go, go, go!’  When they got way past the kissing and into the love making, the jingle bells went crazy, so they slowed down.  Blaise found a way of sneaking out and coming to talk to me, but he watched long enough to be beyond scientific curiosity to getting into the pervert range.  Then I realized that both he and Margie skipped the grade where you get sex education.  I’ll back off the pervert if he never does it again.”

“I told him that what he had seen could never be unseen, but he and Margie would be doing something like that once they were married.  He said that was what was going to keep him up the rest of the night, thinking about that.  I welcomed him to the rest of his life.  He had finally done a little growing up, but you lose sleep doing it.  Then, after he left, I stared at the ceiling.  When I got the canopy bed, I dreamt of my knight in shining armor coming to my bed and having his way with me, but then, I want us to be married and go on a honeymoon to do that.  Then I wondered if my canopy bed would ever see any love making.  And that is when I saw the sun coming through the window.  Aunt Pink, will I ever go back to sleep?”

I gave her a hug, “Sweet Sophie, you will sleep like a rock tonight.”

As she was leaving, Gwen came in.  “I saw you call away your snitches to see what I had been up to.  I would have included you and me and Millie, but Millie’s health is not that good yet.  As for you, I do not want you on a strenuous quest, even a satisfying strenuous quest until the baby comes.  Expect Scrambled in a Santa Suit next Christmas.  I would do the Easter Bunny, but that is a religious holiday to me.  It can wait until next Christmas.”

I hugged Gwen and said, “It is so good to have you back.  More laughs.  More tears.  And the unexpected at any moment.  Now, let’s go read Matthew 2 and Luke 2.”

Gwen said, “I think it makes more sense doing Luke 1 and 2 and then Matthew 2.”

I shrugged, “You are the president of the company.  This is family, but I shall bow to your suggestion.”

Gwen asked, “Why bow to my suggestion?  Are you still feeling the weight of all those presents going down the chimneys around the world?”

I said, “You are going to have to tell me how you did that!”

Gwen protested, “No!  Not my secrets!”

Merry Christmas

Credits

The only real Credit is to I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.  Here is the Jackson 5.

Here is Blue Christmas, sung by Porky Pig?  Okay, one of my friends from work said it wasn’t Christmas until he heard it on the radio.  This is not the radio, but …

But for me, as long as we’re being ‘silly,’ it isn’t “Silly Christmas” until I hear Christmas Dragnet by Stan Freberg.  But somehow, listening to it nearly every year, I still ain’t made my mind up about Toledo…

And to end on a more serious note.  Here is David Wesley on location, instead of in his basement, singing a capella, Carol of the Bells.