Chapter 18
We had our Christmas celebration in the Monroe Room at the funeral home, which was named after Monroe County, which itself had been named after James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States, for reasons I could no longer remember. We always had our little celebrations in the Monroe Room because it had plenty of good places to sit, a widescreen television used for slideshows (one of my nieces had tuned it to the country music channel, which was playing Christmas videos by country stars), and a fake fireplace, which was now roaring and throwing off heat.
The room was filled with Gracie, her husband Bill, and their kids, plus Joel and his erstwhile girlfriend Marianne, Fancy and her two kids, Miss Shelly, looking decidedly merry and considerably older than anyone else, a
