We make it all the way to the mini desserts stage before the questions about my new boyfriend start.

“So,” Mandy asks, “how did you and Diego meet?”

“Through work,” I say, keeping my answer vague, as planned.

“Yeah, you said that,” Julia intervenes. “But how, exactly?”

I launch into our fake narrative. “Diego was auditioning for a commercial I was producing, and when I called him in to tell him he got the part…”

“I told her I’d rather have a date,” Diego ends the story for me.

I love that we appear like one of those couples who can end each other’s sentences. It’s cheesy and soppy, but it’s making me feel all warm and fuzzy, as if what Diego and I are saying was actually true.

Julia arches an eyebrow. “Really?”

Diego casually twirls his finger around a lock of my hair and stares right into my eyes. “Couldn’t let the prettiest producer I’ve ever met slip through my fingers.”

Okay, this is not the lengthy and super-detailed list of all the reasons he wanted to date me I’d asked him to come up with, but strangely, it’s more than enough. It’s the way he says it, and the way he looks at me as he speaks. I’m sold. And so, it seems, is everybody else.

“What was the ad for?” Julia asks.

“Deodorant,” we say in unison, sharing a secret smile.

“MOM!” One of Mandy’s boys—Jarred, Jake, Johnathan, I don’t know, they all have J-starting names—barrels into the room. “I want to open my presents.”

Mandy’s sitting next to the tree. She wraps one arm around his legs and pulls him toward her to kiss him on the cheek. He can’t be older than four or five. “Go call your brothers and cousins and we can all open our presents together.”

“Yaaayyyy,” he yells, running away.

I can’t help but think, Tasmanian devil. How does she handle three of them?

The kids flood into the room shortly after, followed by the old folks. Those of us who were perched on the sofa or armchair leave the more comfortable accommodations to them and find new spots on the rug, so that almost every inch of the living room’s floor is now occupied.

Once everyone’s settled, the complicated gift-distribution operation starts. All the packages under the Christmas tree get passed around, along with the presents my relatives brought with them. We don’t each buy a gift for everybody else—Mom buys the presents for the extended family circle, with one gift per family plus a toy for each of the kids. Still, there are a lot of wrapped boxes passing hands, and delirious quantities of colored paper being torn and scattered around.

I reach into the red-and-white-striped plastic bag where I stuffed my presents for everyone and start handing them out. Now I feel super silly for having spent so much time researching the perfect gift for Paul. Luckily, I didn’t go too overboard with it. He’s still getting a book like everyone else, only a bit more special.