are you coming over for Christmas?

December 2042 - Orlando Centowski is 48, Steffi Centowski is 47, Benjamin Grove is 24, Phoebe Centowski is 22, Nate and Theo Centowski are 20.

Phoebe stops by to visit her mom a few weeks before Christmas.

"I wanted to ask you about Christmas dinner," she says.

"You're still coming, aren't you?"

"Of course. I wanted to know if my friend Benjamin could come."

"Who's Benjamin?"

"He lives in my building. He's in the military, and he doesn't get enough days off for Christmas to go home, so I thought he could come here."

"Of course honey."

"Thanks Mom," says Phoebe. "I can't wait until Christmas."

"Me too. It will be great to have all of you kids back home."

Christmas is a busy time for the robot store. Orlando and Sheila can barely keep robots on the shelf. Andrew Carter comes by for some toy robots for his daughters.

Ricky decides to buy a servo for Jenny for Christmas so neither of them have to clean the apartment anymore.

The store does very well, so well that Ricky can buy a special surprise for Steffi for Christmas.

Phoebe and Benjamin come over in the early afternoon, but Steffi is busy in the kitchen and Orlando has to go over the finances for the store, so they don't get a chance to talk to him until dinner.

"So Benjamin," Orlando asks, "Phoebe said you're in the military."

Benjamin nods. "I'm a junior officer in the air force. I'm from a military family. My dad was in the army, and my brothers are also in the military."

"Did your family travel a lot?" asks Nate.

"Yeah, Dad was stationed all over the world. For most of my childhood we were in Virginia, but we also lived in Germany and South Korea."

"I can't imagine that," says Phoebe. "We lived in this house my whole childhood."

After dinner they all hang out in the living room. Benjamin is a nice guy, but Orlando can't help but wonder what's going on between him and Phoebe. They've never been introduced to one of her boyfriends.

Phoebe and Benjamin leave pretty early, and Orlando and Steffi decide to go to sleep early.

"Should we turn off the tree, or are you two going to be up much longer?" Steffi asks.

"We'll turn the tree off before we go to bed," says Nate.

"We have to wait to see if Santa comes," Theo adds.

Santa brings plenty of loot for the kids, but the biggest present is from Orlando. A few days after Christmas Orlando and Steffi leave to enjoy Orlando's Christmas surprise, a vacation for the two of them at a small cabin in Three Lakes.

*****

So this update was very short, partially because I've been very busy and partially because the Centowskis are cute but not terribly exciting. I'm trying to get through winter because I have some more exciting updates planned for the spring.