The Stewarts Family (and other shenanigans)
Sims player fourteen generation deep into a legacy. Here's their story! Also, art and builds.
And here we are… the Windenburg Museum. Used to be my favorite place in the world, and even now, sick with anxiety, I have to stop and marvel at its beauty under the layer of snow the blizzard has left behind. It’s still snowing, but here in Windenburg, the snow is now delicate, soft, magical.
For a minute I forget all about being anxious and everything is perfect again. How can you not feel at peace in such a landscape?
Just when you thought Winterfest couldn’t get more magical…
In Father Winter’s present, I find only one thing: a stroll of parchment, with a few words in cursive.
The Great Book of Windenburg.
I look up to ask Father Winter for details, and with a smirk he tells me that this is the answer to all my questions. And then, he vanishes in a swirling cloud of sparkling smoke.
The night falls on the second day of Winterfest, and on the strike of 8 o’clock, a coated figure appears in the living room window, seemingly out of nowhere, and I rush out of the poolhouse.
Well I sure didn’t expect that.
Father Winter is a very affable man, and he’s got more smarts than one might think from a man who willingly lives in the coldest place on Earth. He and I end up having a truly fascinating conversation about History. He’s seen many things in his long lifetime, so he has a lot to teach me, but he knows very little about the Omiscan culture, you see.
Cléo tries to play her excitement off by pretending she only wants to come in the living room to play with the cats, but we see through her.
I also see through Mom’s smirk, a smirk that says I told you so.
You can’t stay mad at someone in such a calming atmosphere. That being said, and though Mom’s stomach isn’t burning anymore, no one volunteers to go make snowpals with Cléo but her twin. And he’s genetically obligated to have her back.
To their credit, they end up making a pretty cute snowpal.
So we sit down to eat, in this truly enchanting atmosphere, with the blue and white stars hanging above our heads. But I don’t start eating, not right now. I’m waiting for Cléo to take the first bite of my beloved ham — bad move. While my eyes are on my siblings (who acts innocent), mom takes a forkful…
Then I swear I see fire blowing out of her mouth like a Shang Simlandragon’s. And I’ll remind you, my mother has wone quite a few Curry Challenges in her life. That couldn’t have been any small amount of spice that my fiend sister slipped between the slices.
“Mom!”
“Cléo!”
“Rats.”
There it is: everything looks perfect again. I’m particularly proud of the ham I baked, and it smells absolutely wonderful, if I do say so myself.
That being said, I would be about seventy-five percent more at ease if Cléo didn’t have such an evil look on her face.
What have you done to my ham, Cléo?
Our stomachs have recovered from yesterday’s dinner… so it’s time to cook some more for Winterfest lunch.
The food never ends.
Gram was only in charge of yesterday’s meal, so I instruct Mom to make herself a nice honey tea and I get cooking. I’d rather she did not touch anything one of us might eat. She’s made a lot of progress, but just in case…
And then there’s Loladorada, who I’d also rather she didn’t touch anything, but as it turns out she’s too busy acting superior to try and snatch the food away.
“When you were little,” Dad tells us, about the time when I was a two-foot-tall gnome, “you demonstrated to us exactly why you thought Father Winter couldn’t be real. You never were really good at math, but I always thought this was some algebra-level proof.”
“So what you’re saying is, she was always a killjoy?”
“I stand by it! Father Winter is such a weird myth! The Selvadoradians have never even heard of it!”
“The Selvadoradians don’t have chimneys, Ban-Hannah.”
“They do! And unless he falls down from ours in the next twelve hours, I’ll keep agreeing with two-foot-tall, gnome me.”
The gifts have been freed from their prisons of colorful paper, and the proof is right there on the wooden floor. Crushed boxes and ribbons abandoned on the ground, as a Winterfest morning should be. All that’s still intact is the gifts we mean for someone else.
Doesn’t mean Winterfest is at an end, though…
And it’s the perfect gift, because my family knows me well.
Nothing has ever made me happier than Selvadorada, and in the box, I find two plane tickets, framing a two-week trip to the Belomisian jungle, a new, high-definition camera, and a blank notebook. Blank, except for the first page, where each of the weirdos I call my family, wrote a note for me.
To keep track of your beautiful adventures —Dad.
Pretty sure you won’t let Cy and I read this. Still, enjoy. I picked it — C.
Ready to have this covered in scribbles in the blink of an eye. I’m so proud of you! — Mom.
Cléo totally did not pick it. I did. Merry Christmas, BanHannah — Cy.
Totally picked it. Also, our birthday is the day after you get back, keep that in mind when you choose souvenirs. — C.
The Stewarts Family (and other shenanigans) 