Mallory's Christmas Wish (RS#92)

Original Publication Date: 1995

Ghostwriter? Yes, Peter Lerangis

Synopsis:

In response the commercial insanity that Christmas brings, Mallory proposes that her family have a low-key Christmas with as much things homemade as possible, including the gifts. Sounds pretty nice. Nice enough that when Vanessa enters the Pikes' holiday plans in a contest, they win the privilege of having their Christmas season filmed for broadcast next year. The BSC also helps the retirement home put on a holiday boutique, selling hand-made gifts.

Unfortunately (and predictably) the camera crew gets in the way of everything Mallory and her family are doing, boutique included. They decide together that the substantial check they'd receive for sticking it out isn't worth it, and cancel. And give back the check for ten grand. What kills me though, is that they wait until Christmas Eve. They only had about 30 hours to go!

Established or continued in this book:

The Girls (and Logan):

Claudia candy: Heath bars behind an easel, chocolate coins in her pants pocket (melted, as these are the pants she's wearing), Fritos

Kristy's still trying to get the BSC on TV.



Their Families:

The Pikes' finances haven't quite recovered from the time that Mallory's dad was laid off. Apparently they had to dip into their savings more than was comfortable.

Several of the Pikes know how to knit, although from the description of the hat Mr. Pike gets for Christmas, they don't know how to knit in the round. Should you ever want to knit things in tubes, like hats, sweaters, socks, and so on, I highly recommend learning to knit in the round, either with circular needles or double-pointed needles.



The Club (and clients):

The Robert issue is still a bit of a tense one.



SMS: nothing new.


PSA Time: nothing stood out.



Misc:

Right now I have only one child. But reading about how Mallory stresses over picking gifts for all her siblings, I promise that if I end up having nearly a complete baseball team, the kids will draw names and each give to just one sibling.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I'm working on some big sewing and knitting projects. But I'm close to done, AND I'm getting my wisdom teeth removed later this summer, so I should able to put up a couple posts during my recovery.


The numbers:

Starting 8th grade: 8

Halloweens in 8th grade: 5 (plus one in seventh)

Thanksgivings in 8th grade: 2

Winter holidays in 8th grade (that BSC members celebrate, not just reference): Christmas-2, Hanukkah-1, Kwanzaa-1

Valentine's Days in 8th grade: 2

Summers after 8th grade: 8

BSC Fights: 10

SMS Staff and Faculty: 54

Students (other than the BSC): 177; 113 8th graders, 6 7th graders, 42 6th graders, 15 unspecified. Baby-sitters' Winter Vacation tells us that SMS has about 380 students.

Clients: 33 families

Types of candy in Claudia’s room: 117

Crushes:
Stacey-11
Claudia-9
Dawn-5
Jessi-3
Mallory-2
Mary Anne-2
Kristy-1
Abby-0