My Hollywood System - Chapter 200
The festival to give, share and spread love and happiness had finally arrived. The season was the same as Will’s previous world.
Considering how Christmas was one of the biggest festivals all over the world, after the shooting of Spiderman finished, Will gave a week break to every employee in Dream vision, DTA, Pixar and Marvel comics to celebrate Christmas and New year.
It was normal that almost everyone got to get a holiday off from work for Christmas because the festival itself was basically known as the eve where people spent time with family and their loved ones.
Will himself was planning to enjoy a good time with his family and friends before jumping into the releases of the other projects that were already ready. He had so many plans for the upcoming months, but Christmas Eve was something he could not ignore just because he had been thinking about all the work. In fact, he too needed a break.
As Will didn’t have a family of his own, which meant blood relatives of any sort, he thought of celebrating the festival with Uncle Ben.
Much to increase the happiness and the festival hype, different people had different plans for Christmas.
Robert and Susan were going to celebrate it with Robert’s family. And it seemed like Robert was very serious about Susan which was a part of the reason why he was getting his family to know her.
As for Leo and Andrew, they were also with their families. Since they had been working very hard for the past couple of months and in fact throughout the year, the vacation was something that they both looked forward to. Leo and Andrew both had agreed wholeheartedly and wished a merry Christmas for Will, when Will himself went to meet the two boys.
Jeffrey had invited Will to celebrate Christmas with him. It was because he and his wife were going to a resort to celebrate Christmas and new year.
But Will had rejected him as he had already planned to celebrate it with Uncle Ben and his aunt.
Further, even June hadn’t gone to her hometown this year. But she was celebrating Christmas with Will, Uncle Ben and Will’s aunt.
Considering how different people were at different places celebrating the same festival, the focus would be on Will and June who were currently doing their own thing in Uncle Ben’s house.
Will and his uncle were in front of the little wooden fireplace that was fired up inside their house. There were Christmas socks hanging on the wall, and the fireplace was one of the most peaceful things inside the house which Will genuinely liked.
On the other hand, the fireplace was most likely the only place which was warm enough to heaten up their freezing hands.
“It’s nice to have a rest weekend like this.” Uncle Ben sighed in contentment. “I’m going to catch up with my old college friends in a few days…” he said while looking at how the fires were dancing to a music that no one heard.
The rhythms, patterns of the fireplace attracted both Will’s and Uncle Ben’s eyes.
“It’s always good to take a weekend off… it seems like a lot of people knew my father,” Will said.
Uncle Ben who heard what Will said nodded and muttered, “If he was Alive, he would be bragging about you to everyone and the next thing you know is he’d close his restaurant and leave for a world tour,”
“Haha… yeah. But I’m sure both of them are in a much better place,” Will said implying to his mother and father.
“Hmm… I think so too,” Uncle Ben said while rubbing his hands together.
“The fire is decreasing, I’ll add some wood,” Will said and stood up from where he was.
“You should really spend Christmas Eve here, Will. Jennifer isn’t here, and now more than anything, even Grace has started to believe that you’re our own son,” Uncle Ben said, his eyes still on the fire.
“That is so kind of you Uncle Ben. You and this house feels like home too, and yes I’ll try my best to spend every Christmas here,” Will said, earning a slight smile from Uncle Ben.
He adjusted the fire and went back right where he was; beside Uncle Ben. They talked like that for a few more while. Different topics came up and both of them kept talking, laughing and thinking about so many things.
“Ahaha… I remember that day, he was literally shouting and running,” Uncle Ben said, talking about an incident which happened with Will’s father.
“How did he even end up there?” Will questioned back.
“We all challenged him saying he can’t do shit, and the guy was personally attacked. But he somehow did it…” Uncle Ben shook his head, still having a smile on his face. “So determined,”
Will chuckled at the words.
In the big picture, the house was decorated with so many things. The Christmas tree was decorated with beautiful ornaments and some traditional ornaments which Uncle Ben and his wife would put up every year.
Since Will and June were joining Uncle Ben for Christmas, during the decorations, they were asked by Uncle Ben to select their own ornaments for the tree. After searching a lot in the decoration box, Will chose a reindeer and June picked a beautifully carved snowflake.
The Christmas tree stood in the left corner of the living room, and under it there were so many gifts. All were wrapped in gold or silver.
The house was magnificently lit with colourful bulbs. The colours red and green were almost everywhere.
It was a day ago when Will, June, Uncle Ben and Uncle Ben’s wife decorated the house. They all had their own ways of decorating. June and Will had a conflicting decision on what the tree-topper should be.
After thinking and turning a lot with their options, Uncle Ben agreed he liked June’s idea the most.
All in all, the little Christmas spirit filled house was feeling home for all the four of them.
Meanwhile, Uncle Ben and Will were in deep conversation in front of the fireplace and Uncle Ben’s wife and June were preparing the turkey.
Grace Charles was a primary school teacher, who was genuinely a kind, innocent and a very wise woman who married Uncle Ben while they both were twenty-something. Even when Uncle Ben had invited Will and June to stay for Christmas, Grace was overly excited to celebrate the holiday with them.
Grace, being a Christian by heart, blessed both Will and June as soon as they stepped inside the house.
“No darling, stir it a bit more. If you can hold the container,” Grace said to June who was trying to stir the bowl of a mixture.
“Like this?”
“Oh yes, perfect, keep going… that’s enough, yes, perfect,” Grace said as June showed her the bowl.
Grace was a petite short woman but was capable of doing so many things on her own. She had this glorious smile which June mentioned, a sign of her kindness. Gloria simply said that God always blesses the Kind.
“Uh you need some help, aunt Grace?” June asked as she got closer seeing the turkey was being lifted by Grace alone.
“Yes please,” Grace let her help her even though she was used to doing all this stuff alone. She could not let June who offered help get rejected because she was aware how helping gives one’s self happiness.
Uncle Ben sighed again, getting comfortable in his seat.
“This is seriously nice, Will. You should try and do it more often,” Uncle Ben said, seeing Will trying to relax on the chair.
“Yeah, it does seem nice and from now on I’m going to take a lot of breaks as I can work better with proper rest,” Will muttered as he draped the blanket around his shoulders and hung his head back in relaxation. He felt at ease.
Uncle Ben who heard Will’s words nodded and then said, “I was thinking that maybe I might retire in a few more years. I’m old now,” He said loud enough for Will to hear.
Will would be surprised by the statement. His eyebrows rose and he looked at Uncle Ben.
“Are you for real?” He questioned.
Uncle Ben nodded at his question and said, “I was just thinking though. I honestly think it would be great for me to spend some time with Grace after things settled. It won’t happen right now but slowly when DTA will grow and it would be hard to handle it. Jennifer can take my place then.”
Will nodded at what he was saying, knowing that Uncle Ben was old, he knew that Ben probably wanted to just live without working day and night or thinking too much about businesses and troubles. Instead, thinking about life and wise words probably sounded great for Uncle Ben.
As it was a given that retirement was something basically everyone looked forward to.
Regarding the matters of the company, the original plan was Jennifer taking over DTA since Will did not think that Uncle Ben would be interested. Therefore, if any sort of such thing happened as if Ben was retiring from his position, Will knew what the next move would be.
“Ben… Will! Come over here,” Grace said loud enough for both the men to hear.
The food was finally ready, and it was the main deal of Christmas; family dinner.
After serving the food to the table, the four of them sat at the four sides of the squared-shape table. The tablecloth itself was green and red in colour.
“Okay… Hands please,”
Grace said and everyone held their hands with the person sitting next to them.
“Our dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this food. and help us to do our part in kind words and loving deeds. We ask in Jesus’ name.” Grace said while all of them had their eyes closed.
“Amen,” Will muttered and after a while everyone started digging in.
“The food is so delicious,” Ben said, holding his wife’s hand.
“June helped,” Grace said and smiled over at June.
“She’s the real cook, should’ve seen how she did the turkey,” June said and took a bite of her own meal.
The dinner ended after almost an hour of talking and eating.
After spending time at the dinner table, they all went to sit in front of the fireplace and started talking among themselves. June had her head on Will’s shoulder and Uncle Ben and Grace held hands looking at the fire.
They all had smiles on their faces, while continuing to talk about things that made them laugh, chuckle and cry happy tears.
And on the good side, now that Christmas was done, the releases of his movies were finally going to start.
