The Staff Christmas Party

It was the evening of the school's very unofficial Christmas party at AP Kenning's house.

“Think it will be as good as last years?” Jonathan asked as they drove toward the party, the evening was already dark with the winter month in full swing.

“I am sure it will be fine.” Leah said staring off at a house decorated with colorful Christmas lights and a blowup snowman.

“Didn't you say it got pretty wild after we left last year?” Jonathan asked as he turned a corner slowly to also admire a particularly tasteful house with white Christmas lights with accented red around the columns.

“That is what I heard. Everyone always needs to blow off some steam this time of year. I think someone ended up in the pool.” Leah laughed.

“Jesus ha ha ha” Jonathan joined her, imagining the scene in his head “That must have been funny, I wonder who it was. Teachers really do have stressful jobs.”

He put his hand on her knee and squeezed it gently giving her a soothing smile.

“Yeah...we do.” she smiled back at him.

“But hey, you are great at it. Be sure to enjoy tonight. We can always get an Uber home if we need to.” he smirked.

“I don't think we will be getting that crazy.” Leah laughed.

“Look,” Jonathan said turning a bend “I just wanna see how wild you teachers can really get.”

“You put the dirty Santa gifts in the back right?” she asked, back to being practical.

“Yeah of course.” he nodded with a grin. “Going to get something good this year?”

“Gotta be better than last year. How do you get socks of all things from a dirty Santa game?” she asked, still remembering the horrible socks she got—they weren't even funny.

“Hey...at least they weren't...Dirty socks.” He laughed.

“Oh my god...” she joined him with a smile. They both laughed as he drove the final stretch of road that was beginning to be littered with cars parked in every conceivable way in a well-to-do culdasac.

“Are we late?” he asked double checking the clock.

“No,” Leah glanced for parking “we are fashionably late. Can't be early to a party.” Jonathan just shook his head.

“Oh there!”

“I see it. Gonna be a tight squeeze but should be okay.”

Jonathan managed to get the car parked and they grabbed their gifts for the game of Dirty Santa and headed inside.