“I’m not asking you to celebrate your holidays. I’m asking you to celebrate the upcoming birth of our child.”
Try as he might, Ebenezer couldn’t fault Gorg’s logic. Again, it all depended on if what Gorg said was true, which Ebenezer still found difficult to believe. “But does it have to look so much like a Christmas tree?” he whined.
“Don’t you want our child to be born healthy and happy?” Gorg eyed Ebenezer. “That’s the traditional meaning of the birth tree. All our hopes and wishes for the health and happiness of the baby are hung from the branches.”
“Fine. We’ll go to Walmart tomorrow and grab some lights, garland, and tinsel.” Ebbie put up a finger. “For thebirthtree, not theChristmastree.”
“Of course, my love. I know how you feel about the holidays.” Gorg grinned at him, making Ebenezer feel like he’d somehow lost an argument.
***
The store was crowded when they got there, and parking was a nightmare. It took them twenty minutes to score a space a football field’s length from the store.
Okay, that was probably an exaggeration. It wasn’t that far to walk, but Ebenezer was not in a good mood, and it felt that way to him.
He didn’t want to be at Walmart shopping at this time of year, and especially not shopping in the holiday department, but he’d promised Gorg they would go.
Gorg was bundled up in his overcoat, but considering how the majority of people dressed to go to the store these days, it hardly mattered. People showed up in costumes, bathing suits, and pajamas…an overcoat was hardly worth noticing.
Ebenezer grabbed a shopping cart and led Gorg through the store to where the decorations were kept.
The holiday department was located at the back of the store where the gardening supplies were usually shelved. The large room was filled with everything Christmas, and Gorg’s eyes grew as wide as saucers at the display.
With a bit of difficulty, Ebenezer steered Gorg away from the illuminated, blow-up lawn displays — Santa in an outhouse seemed to fascinate Gorg — to the rack full of boxes of garland and tinsel. “What color garland do you want? Silver? Gold? Red? Green? Blue?”
“All of them!” Gorg replied, sounding positively giddy. “I want a rainbow on our birth tree!”
Ebenezer nodded. “Okay, one of each.” He pulled boxes of each color from the shelf and placed them in their shopping cart. He reached for the tinsel, taking two boxes.
“Oh, no. We’ll need more than just two!” Gorg cried.
“A little of this stuff goes a long way,” Ebenezer replied. He was thinking of finding tinsel tucked away behind the sofa or under the chairs next year, long after the “birth” tree had been stripped of its decorations and planted in the yard.
He had been unaware that aliens knew how to use “puppy eyes,” but Gorg looked at him with the most wishful and hopeful expression full of love and longing that before he even knew it, Ebenezer had slipped five more boxes of tinsel into the cart.
The next stop was for lights. Gorg was immediately drawn to lights shaped like small flowers, each in a different color. “Oh, I like these!”
“Of course you do. You wouldn’t like plain ol’ white lights. These are multi-color, flashing, and chasing lights. They do everything but sing to you.”
Gorg gasped. “Do they have lights that sing? I should very much like lights that sing.”
“Goddamn it, me and my big, fat mouth,” Ebenezer grumbled. He led Gorg to another display of colored lights that flashed, chased, and played twenty-five different holiday tunes.
Gorg clapped his hands and did a little jump. “Oh, these are perfect!”
“Shh, calm down. Your tentacles are squirming like crazy. The store is going to think we’re shoplifting puppies or something.”
“Do they sell puppies here? I would like a puppy.”
Ebenezer frowned. “No, they don’t. I was being facetious, and we don’t need a puppy.”
“Puppies are fun. I read about them and saw them on your television.”
“If, according to you, we’re going to have a baby, we’ll have enough to do without worrying about a dog.”
Gorg huffed. “I will attribute your grumpiness to your pregnancy,” he said. “But please reconsider the puppy. I saw on television that they are very good with children.”
“This is not the time or place to have this discussion!” Ebenezer said. “Now, while we’re at the store, is there anything else we need for this birth tree?”
