Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 02:50:28 -0500 (EST)
From: Bwstories8@aol.com
Subject: The Castaway Hotel: Next Generation, chapter 23

The Castaway Hotel: Next Generation - by BW
Copyright 2011 by billwstories
Chapter 23 -- Here Comes Santa Claus.

This was going to be a holiday of mixed emotions for me.
Jake left for Oklahoma on Thursday night, since he was
going to spend Christmas with Nick and Shannon at the
Lawrences.  I couldn't go with him, since my family was
all coming here, but I didn't want to deprive him of
spending time with his son either.  It's going to be strange
that he isn't going to be around to enjoy the holiday with
me, but I know we'll each survive.

Thursday night, many of the boys joined me to watch 'A
Christmas Carol,' starring Alastair Sim.  It was originally
titled "Scrooge,' when it was made in 1951, and although
it is one of the older versions, it is also the one that I've
always considered the best.  I also like George C. Scott's
portrayal of Scrooge, but still tend to let the earlier
version top my list.  Anyway, it was nearly 11:00 by the
time the movie finished, so we rushed off to bed.
Tomorrow the others will be arriving and there will be a lot
for each of us to do.

The boys began arriving at the house on Christmas Eve
Day, with the first of them showing up about an hour
before lunch.  Beginning with the arrival of those living
closest to us, Little Ricky and Andrew got here first, as
they returned from college, and then Ricky, Sammy and
Graham were the next to pull in.  Ricky had stopped and
picked the other pair up in York again, since they thought
it would be best to carpool.  We had just sat down to grab a
snack and chat when Ricky made an unexpected
announcement.

"The drive really tired me out," he proclaimed, "but then
again I stayed out late and partied last night so that might
also have something to do with how I'm feeling."

Ricky flashed me a devilish grin and gave me a wink after
saying this.  Almost immediately, this made me begin to
wonder if his facial gestures were meant to indicate that
his evening out might have also included a romantic
encounter.

"I'm gong to go upstairs and take a nap.  I hope you don't
mind," he stated next.

"No, not at all," I replied.  "Sleep as long as you need to,
because I want you fully alert tonight, for our Christmas
Eve celebration."  Ricky nodded and then headed up the
stairs.

I went back and spent more time with the rest of the
family, as the others continued strolling in.  I was happy
to see each of them as they arrived and we gathered in the
family room, where we talked about what they'd been up
to since we'd last seen them.

I was surprised when Mark pulled in, because I knew he
would be staying with his mother.  Not only that, but it
was kind of early in the workday for him to be here
already.

"I wouldn't have figured you'd be here this early," I told
him.

"I actually took off early, because I told them I had a
business meeting with one of our clients," Mark
announced.

"So you told a fib to leave early?" I asked.

"Not at all.  I am meeting with some of our clients," he
confirmed.  "I'm here to talk to Danny and Brandon about
Elliot's accounts."

That explained several things.  He was here to have them
sign the paperwork for the various things he had done
with Elliot's newfound wealth.  While he was doing that,
Amy stayed in the family room to chat with us, so her
boyfriend and the others could take care of business.

"I really hate to bother you with this over the holidays,"
Mark began, as he addressed Danny and Brandon, "but I
really didn't want to mail this information.  I felt it would
be better to handle this in person."

"It's not a bother," Danny assured him.  "We're just
grateful you're taking care of this for us."

"Exactly," Brandon added.  "I'm not sure we'd have
trusted anyone else with this amount of money."

"And I want to thank you too, Uncle Mark," Elliot told
him.  "It means a lot to me knowing you're watching out
for my investments like this."

"It's my pleasure," Mark assured him, "and you're quite a
lucky young man.  I know you'd rather still have your
father, but since that isn't possible, he did leave you very
well off.  All in all, you have a little more than nine million
dollars in the various investments and I hope to make a
little more for you, by the time you start needing to dip
into it."

"Wow!  There's that much?" Brandon exclaimed.  "I know
you said there were millions, but I didn't expect that
many millions."

"Yes, that's what you have," Mark confirmed.  "Your
father must have played a very key roll with his firm, if
this indicates the kind of money he made."

"Yeah, he was pretty smart," Elliot reflected.

Over the next several minutes, Mark had them sign all the
necessary paperwork and he explained everything he had
done with the money.  He also told them he'd provide
them with quarterly reports on how the investments were
doing and advised them to call any time they had a
question or to let him know if Elliot needed any of the
money.  He had set a small amount up in a savings
account and a little more in short term certificates of
deposit, in case they needed to get their hands on the
money quickly.  Other than that, he'd tried to maximize
the returns Elliot would make on his investments.  He
worked hard to come up with a bold, but balanced,
portfolio that would protect Elliot's nest egg in the event
of another drop in the market.

Once Mark finished this detailed explanation, the three of
them thanked him again and then they rejoined the rest
of us.  Mark stayed for a little while longer, before Amy
and he left to go to his mother's place.  I knew we'd see
them again later tonight and on Christmas day, so we bid
them a pleasant drive, as we sent them on their way.
They didn't have that far to go, so it really wasn't a big
deal.

Some time later, we were still sitting in the family room
and enjoying each other's company, when I heard a
scream.  At first, I couldn't make out who it was or what
the person was shouting about, but it definitely sounded
as if someone was in distress.  I rushed out into the foyer,
to see if I could pinpoint where all the noise was coming
from.

"Will someone come here and help me," I heard the voice
shout again.  "I need help.  Pleeeeeeze."

It was Ricky and he was calling out from upstairs.  I
rushed up the steps and entered the room he was staying
in.  I looked at him concerned, because I wasn't sure what
the problem was, but when I spotted the reason he had
called for help, I burst out laughing.

"It's not funny," he screamed, "and I want to know which
bastard did this to me."

While Ricky had been sleeping, someone had entered his
bedroom and used a bunch of very large safety pins to
immobilize him.  Not only did they pin all of his clothes to
the bedding, but they also made certain he was connected
to the mattress as well, so he was unable to get up without
assistance.  I believe he was unwilling to struggle too hard
to break free, for fear he would rip his clothing and do
damage to the mattress.  Slowly, I began unfastening the
safety pins and released him from his predicament.  There
must have been at least sixty or more connecting him to
the bed.

A few of the others had followed me upstairs, to see what
all the ruckus was about, and when they saw Ricky's
dilemma, they started to razz him.

"Looks like Ricky's grown attached to his bed," one of
them teased.

"That's one way to get out of doing anything to help,"
someone else offered.

I was too busy trying to unfasten him to look about or try
to determine whom the speakers were.

"This isn't funny!" Ricky screamed.  "Someone is going to
pay for this."

I thought it ironic that our biggest prankster felt he would
have to get even with the person who had pulled this
prank on him.  This was especially true, knowing Ricky
hated it when the others tried to get even with him after
one of his pranks.

It took us about fifteen minutes to get him completely
unhooked.  Once I had his shirt unfettered, he was able to
sit up and help me free his pants.

"It's a good thing these aren't my good work clothes," he
shouted, "or else someone would be paying for the
damages."

"Calm down, Ricky," I urged.  "You can't complain about
this, since you get so much enjoyment out of doing things
like this to everyone else."

He flashed me a dirty look, followed by an unamused glare.

"Don't go sticking up for whoever did this," he challenged,
annoyed.  "And I never ruin anyone's clothing when I do
things."

"And no one ruined anything of yours," I countered.
"Those little pin holes are hardly noticeable."

Ricky shot me another disgusted look and then went
downstairs to begin his investigation into who had pulled
this prank.  I could tell he was determined to discover who
the instigator was.

My older children and grandchildren began to arrive
around 4:00, with the last of them pulling in about an
hour and a half later.  Fortunately for them, they had
missed Ricky's little outburst, although the others were
eager to fill them in about what had happened.  We also
made sure everyone got to meet Elliot and he understood
whom each one was.  I felt sorry for him, because the poor
kid had to learn and match another bunch of names to a
new set of faces.

The O'Haras showed up just before the last of my older
children's families did and Elliot, Brandon and Danny
greeted them warmly as they entered.  Brenda was
extremely excited about seeing Elliot again and gave him a
tremendous hug and affectionate kiss on the cheek.  I
could tell this meant a great deal to Elliot and he hugged
her warmly in return.  Once they had broken their
embrace, she turned her attention to Danny and Brandon,
while Elliot greeted Patrick.  It was obvious a connection
had already formed between them, which I think they all
needed and would benefit from.

We were all pleasantly surprised when it started snowing a
short time later.  I was happy to see we might have a
white Christmas, but I was also grateful it had waited to
start until after everyone had arrived here safely first.
Unfortunately, we still had to go out in this in a little
while, because we would be eating our Christmas Eve
dinner out.  Just before 6:00, we loaded into the vehicles
and drove down to the restaurant.  We arrived without
incident, but I was a little concerned about how the ride
home was going to be.  I hoped the road conditions
weren't too bad by the time we were ready to leave, but
only time would tell.

We had both a wonderful time and a great meal at the
restaurant, but I tried to prod everyone to move a little
more quickly, so we would finish before too much more
snow had fallen.  There were still a couple of inches of
snow on the ground as we departed the restaurant, and it
was also starting to get a little slippery, but we all
managed to make it safely to our place.

Once we were inside the house, I had everyone join us in
the family room again.  It was getting awfully crowded in
there, primarily because the family was continually
growing, but it was also due to the addition of the piano.
No matter how tight the fit was, we all managed to
squeeze in.  I thought it was cute that Joshie, Lucas and
Kylie sat under the piano this evening, as if it was their
private box at the theater.

The piano also made me do some other things a little
differently this year, because it took up much of the space
I normally used to put up the tree.  Instead of trying to
squeeze it in here too, I set the tree up in the rec room,
which is located at the back of the house.  Unfortunately,
this also meant it couldn't be seen from the road, as had
been the case in the past, but our options had been
limited.  I could have put it up in the living room, but we
would need that space for the extra tables we used during
the meal, so the tree got shoved to the back of the house
this year.

We began the evening's activities with Elliot playing
Christmas carols, which the rest of us sang along to.
Since my older children and grandchildren had never
heard Elliot play, this came as a pleasant surprise to
them.  It also got Elliot a bit more attention from
everyone, which I think he also enjoyed.  If you ask me,
Elliot is actually a closeted attention seeker.  He enjoys
others noticing his accomplishments, but he doesn't want
to go out of his way in order to attract this attention to
himself.

Once we finished singing, I sat in my chair and began to
read, 'Twas' the Night Before Christmas,' which is another
part of our family tradition.  My grandchildren, Elliot and
Jesse were gathered around me, as I began reading this
enchanting poem to them.  Just as I was finishing, and
right on cue, Santa appeared at the picture window.  His
appearance excited Kylie, Lucas, Joshie and Megan, but I
think Elliot also found it amusing as well.  Even though
Elliot is too old to still believe in Santa, I think he was
curious as to how we'd set this up.

What had happened this time was that no one had noticed
that Dustin did not come into the family room with us.
Once we reached the house, he went and changed into our
Santa outfit and then listened for me to begin reading.  At
that point, he snuck out the backdoor and walked around
to where he could see into the family room.  Then, he
waited and watched for me to close the book, which was
his signal to walk up beside the picture window and peer
inside, so the little ones could see him.

The children squealed with delight when they saw Santa
and then their parents began urging them to get to bed.
The kids were told Santa couldn't drop off their presents
until they were sleeping, so without putting up a fuss,
they did as they were asked.  Before long, they were in
their rooms and drifting off to asleep.

"That was pretty clever," Elliot told me, once the little
ones were gone.

"We do it every year," I explained, "so they have an extra
incentive to go to bed and not stay up."

"Cool!  I wish I'd had such a big family when I was little.
This is fun," he added, as he got up to walk away.

Once we felt the little ones were asleep, some of us began
to put together the toys that needed assembling, as others
wrapped the final few gifts.  Then we began carrying
everything into the rec room and arranging the items
beneath and around the tree.  Once again, the room was
filled with gifts waiting to be opened in the morning.
Then we all went to our bedrooms, knowing the little ones
would probably be getting us up fairly early.

It actually wasn't too bad this year.  The kids didn't start
coming downstairs until shortly after 7:00.  I had been up
for about a half-hour by then and had already made a pot
of coffee.  When I saw my grandchildren running back to
the rec room, so they could check things out, I jumped up
and told them they had to wait.  I said they wouldn't be
able to unwrap their gifts until I got everyone up, which
wasn't exactly what they wanted to hear.  Once I was sure
they were going to comply with my request, I went around
the house and knocked on bedroom doors.  After I made
sure everyone was up and moving, I came back downstairs
to make certain the little ones weren't trying to get a head
start unwrapping their presents.

A few minutes later, I heard my daughter-in-law scream
and some of the others begin to laugh.  I went out to see
what was up and they were all staring and pointing at
Ricky.

"What?" he snapped, annoyed.

"What are you supposed to be?" Elizabeth asked in return.

"What are you talking about?" Ricky challenged, growing
irritated.

"Have you looked into a mirror this morning?" I asked
next.

"No!  Why?" he wanted to know.

"Just go do it," I told him.  "You'll understand."

Ricky went into the downstairs bathroom to do what I'd
asked and then I heard him shout.

"Which one of you assholes did this," he screamed.

While he had been sleeping, someone had snuck into his
room and applied makeup to his face.  When he came
down this morning, he looked as if he was a member of the
rock group, 'KISS.'

"Who the fuck keeps doing these things to me?" he
shouted.  "Some son-of-a-bitch is definitely going to be
sorry he decided to screw with me."

"Ricky, please watch your language," I advised him.
"There are little ones around."

Ricky wasn't happy, but I was finding this highly amusing.
I had no idea who was pulling these pranks, but I was a
little concerned about how far Ricky might go to seek his
revenge.  Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble and
done a lot of planning to pull these two pranks off, but he
was also very fortunate that Ricky was a sound sleeper.

As I thought about it, these pranks had taken a great deal
of effort.  First, the person doing this needed to round up
a multitude of safety pins to fasten him to his bed, and
now he had to dig up some of our left over makeup from
Halloween to do what he did to Ricky's face, even if he
hadn't done a very good job.  The application of the
makeup was kind of a rough, but we definitely got the idea
of what he was trying to accomplish.

Ricky rushed off to clean the makeup off his face and the
rest of us waited for him to return, before we began
opening the presents.  We made certain that everyone had
one gift with his name on it before we allowed anyone to
begin unwrapping.  Once the okay was given, a flurry of
excitement was unleashed and wrapping paper was being
ripped off of packages and tossed in a multitude of
directions.

It only took about forty-five minutes before all of the gifts
had been unwrapped and then we began checking out what
everyone else received.  Elliot looked quite pleased and I
thought he'd done quite well.  Danny and Brandon had
purchased him an iPod and a cell phone, along with some
new clothes, and he got some games for the Wii -- a sports
package, from his grandparents, along with some more
clothes.

"We hope you like the Wii games, dear," Brenda told him.
"We weren't sure what types of things you were into, but
you had said you used to play tennis and took kung fu.
This has tennis, baseball, golf, bowling, boxing and Wii
fitness training, so we thought you might find something
you'd like."

"I'm sure I will.  The tennis and fitness program sounds
like a lot of fun, but the boxing might also be good," Elliot
confirmed.  "Thank you for getting this for me and thank
you for the clothes too.  They're very nice."

The O'Haras seemed very pleased with his response, but
that wasn't all of Elliot's gifts though.  His uncles had
chipped in and purchased him some music CDs, which he
could load on his iPod and then listen to them whenever
he wanted.  These CDs were by various artists and selected
merely because the ones who had selected them liked the
music and thought Elliot would enjoy them too.  Elliot
seemed pleased with the various selections and thanked
them.

I had given him a couple of items from Jake and me, the
first being a hardcover edition of 'The Collected Works of
William Shakespeare.'  This was one of the things Elliot
had told me he was interested in, although he also added
that he hoped it didn't make him look like too much of a
geek.  I told him it didn't and stated it merely highlighted
his intelligence and intellectual curiosity.  He seemed
satisfied with my response.

In addition to that, I picked up the DVD set of the
complete first season of 'Rome,' because he told me how
much he liked history, especially ancient history.  I
thought he'd get a few hours of enjoyment out of watching
the videos as well.  I also bought him a very nice sweater,
for those cold Pennsylvania days and nights.

"Wow.  The stuff you got for Elliot was kind of lame,"
Jesse told me, when he thought we were alone.  "You
usually pick out better gifts than that."

"No they weren't.  They were great," a voice behind us
offered.

When we turned around, we discovered Elliot had
overheard Jesse's comment.

"I thought those gifts were great," Elliot continued.  "You
know what a nerd I am and I love this kind of stuff."

Jesse seemed surprised by Elliot's response, but didn't say
anything more.  I'm not sure if he mentioned this to Elliot
again later, to see if he was just trying to be nice and
spare my feelings.  Regardless, I knew they were what
Elliot wanted, because he was the one who had given me
the idea, although he hadn't specifically mentioned those
exact items.