An Apple Family Hearth's Warming

by Quixotic Mage


Food, Drink, and Knives

Family trickled into the festive Apple home over the next few hours. Applejack was kept busy channeling Rarity’s demeanor for all she was worth, all while greeting the guests, insuring the steady flow of food and drink, and soothing ruffled fur when it arose.

For all the effort it took, it did her good to see her old home so full of the happy ruckus of a family celebration. Somepony, possibly Big Mac, had found an old phonograph. The records that spun on it were so familiar that Applejack could anticipate every crackle and hum of the rich tones that boomed forth from that golden speaker. Her hooves moved to the rhythms of familiar Hearth’s Warming carols like “Filly it’s Cold Outside,” “Silent Neigh,” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Pegasus.”

Applejack danced the dance of a host as she wound her way through the crowd.

“Pardon me, Apple Fritter.”

“No problem. Great party Applejack!”

“Thanks! And how are you Braeburn? Great to see you down from Appleloosa.”

“Yee Haw! Cousin, you sure throw a wild shindig!”

“I sure do,” Applejack agreed. She spoke in an undertone to Big Mac as they passed one another. “You mind watering Braeburn’s cider down a bit? Don’t want him getting too wild.”

“Eeyup,” said Big Mac, before his own tasks swept him off into the crowd.

Applejack continued threading her way through the crowd, heading for the kitchen. “Yes I am getting more snacks, Gala Appleby. Restroom’s third door on the right down that hallway, Jonagold. And how are you enjoying the party, Great Aunt Crab Apple?”

Great Aunt Crab Apple was a wizened old pony with a pale yellow coat and a mane that had once been bright red but was now faded almost to grey. She perpetually wore a sour expression, as if she had bitten into a juicy apple and found a lemon instead.

In answer to Applejack’s question she sniffed and turned her head aside. “Well, I suppose you did your best, but it’s not nearly as nice as the celebration your parents threw.”

Applejack didn’t stop moving and tried to ignore the barb. “That’s mighty cruel of you to say, but I appreciate your honesty.” She slipped through the kitchen doors and let out a sigh of relief as the noise of the party was cut off.

“That old Crab Apple say something nasty to you?” Granny Smith asked distractedly as she managed three dishes at once.

“It was nothing,” Applejack insisted. She walked over to another side of the kitchen where the dishes she was responsible for were in various stages of preparation. Casting a careful eye over the mess she pulled a knife out of a drawer and started chopping up celery and carrots for one of the salads.

“Sure, nothing,” Granny Smith grumbled. “That old nag might be my sister, but she’s got a mean streak wider than a field feels on plowing day. Don’t pay her any mind, if you can.”

“Will do Granny.” The two mares fell into a companionable silence as they put the finishing touches on the official Apple family Hearth’s Warming dinner. Applejack darted back into the melee once or twice to deliver refills on the snacks or to check up on things. Still, it wasn’t too long before the last timer dinged and they were ready to start serving the evening meal.

“Soups on everypony!” Applejack shouted out into the chaos of the party. Few of the guests could hear her over all the noise so instead she went to the cupboard and brought out the traditional triangle used to call ponies working in the field in to eat. “Plug your ears Granny, this is going to be loud.”

Granny Smith nodded and sat back, covering her ears with her forelegs. Applejack took the small metal rod and swirled it in the center of the triangle, banging it hard against the sides. The discordant jangling easily cut through the party and everypony fell silent and turned toward where Applejack stood in the doorway of the kitchen.

“Dinner is ready y’all. Big Mac, Red Gala, Caramel Apple, you mind setting up the tables so we can all get to this grub?”

“Eeyup,” Big Mac said. He and his cousins shooed guests away from the center of the room and pulled the wooden tables from where they’d been stacked and folded against the wall. It was traditional for Apple family dinners to have three tables: two rectangular tables for the littluns and the honored elders, and one large square table in the center for everypony else.

While Big Mac got the tables set up, everypony else pitched in by bringing over the chairs and table cloths from where they’d been queued up along the sides of the room. Meanwhile, Applejack closed the half-door between the kitchen and the living room turned dining room. She started moving the dishes up to the wide shelf on the half-door. Apple Bloom grabbed the cutlery and placed it near the food.

The Apple family had long since learned that trying to serve each individual member meant that the food would go cold long before the final pony was served. The had further learned that serving the elders first, as might have been polite, led to the hungry littluns kicking up quite a fuss. Therefore, the Apple family method of food distribution was close to an assembly line with the littluns first, the elders next, and the adults last.

So, even as Big Mac finalized the dining room by placing a massive wooden Lazy-Susan on the center of the square table, the littluns were lined up by the food drooling in anticipation of the feast Granny Smith and Applejack had concocted.

As the oldest littlun and a host besides, Apple Bloom took charge of the first stage. “Come on you lot,” she said, directing the fillies and colts to pick up plates and serve themselves. “Make sure you get some green beans, now. You need some vegetables on that plate. And you, leave some sweet potatoes and marshmallow for the rest of us. Let’s go, chop chop. I’m sure you moms and dads are hungry too.”

Applejack spared a proud smile for the skill with which Apple Bloom was managing the littluns. In short order they’d been settled at their table and the elders took their turn filling up their plates. Granny Smith went out the kitchen the back way so she could direct, while Applejack kept rotating dishes out as they emptied.

In many ways the Apple family elders were even fussier than the littluns. Granny Smith had her hooves full dealing with all the ornery old ponies, though she could be ornery right back with the best of them.

“No, Goldie dear, there is no wheat in that there mushroom and onion stew,” she reassured one worried family member.

“That’s good. You know it does a murder on my bowels. Why if there was any in there I’d be up all night tootin’ away!”

Granny Smith nodded patiently. “I know, and that’s why there ain’t none. Now ladle yourself some stew and move along please.” She turned to answer another questions from the next family member. “No, Carnivorous Apple, I’m the head cook and I’m pretty durn sure every dish is vegetarian. I wouldn’t know how to cook a dish that wasn’t anyhow.”

The other pony frowned but, placated by Granny Smith’s offer to learn such a dish the next time the family gathering was at her house, finally did move along.

When Crab Apple reached the front of the line she surveyed the offerings with disdain and sniffed. “You’re losing you touch if this is the best you could serve to your family on Hearth’s Warming. Still I suppose it will do. By the by, where is that delicious pear and blue cheese salad you served last time we celebrated Hearth’s Warming here?” she asked, far too innocently for a genuine inquiry.

Inside the kitchen Applejack had to bite her tongue to keep from snapping back that she wouldn’t have served that dish to
the mean old mare even if they’d had it. Fortunately, Granny Smith had a better rein on her temper.

“I’m so glad the dinner my granddaughter and I spent all day slaving over is good enough for the likes of you,” she said, amazingly managing to sound completely sincere. “That pear salad was a specialty of my daughter-in-law and, as anypony can plainly see, she ain’t here.”

“That’s right,” said Crab Apple. “You let a Pear marry into this family. I suppose that’s why this Hearth’s Warming celebration is so lacking, because the hosts are barely even Apples.”

That was the last straw. Applejack unlatched the kitchen half-door and marched out, planning to give Crab Apple a piece of her mind. Getting around the door delayed her for a few seconds so Apple Bloom got there first.

“How dare you talk about my momma like that, you nasty old biddy,” she shouted up into Crab Apple’s face. “She was twice the mare you ever were and if she were here right now she’d throw you out on your end for talking to family that way.”

“Apple Bloom! How dare you talk to your elders like that,” Granny Smith said sharply. “Apologize to Elder Crab Apple this instant.”

Hearing Apple Bloom giving Crab Apple a piece of her mind did Applejack a world of good. Having somepony speak out was enough of a release that she was able to play peacemaker as a good host should.

“Y’all are causing a scene. And we’ve got hungry ponies waiting for their meal,” she said, gesturing to all the adult ponies that hadn’t yet gotten food. “Now Apple Bloom, do you think you could honestly apologize to Crab Apple right now?”

“No,” said Apple Bloom sullenly, looking at the floor.

“Well, I won’t stand for any lying in this family, so you just run off back to the littluns' table now. I think I see Peachy Sweet getting ready to throw her mashed potatoes at Lavender Fritter so you’d better hurry.” Apple Bloom looked up in surprise and Applejack winked at her, tilting her head so Crab Apple couldn’t see.

“Sure thing, sis,” Apple Bloom said, darting off back to her seat and moving rapidly to stop an incipient food fight.

“And as for you,” Applejack said, turning back to Crab Apple. “You appear to have all the food you care for of what we cooked, so if you could take your seat I’d appreciate it.”

Crab Apple scanned the room, but found no supporters among the hungry ponies in line. She sniffed once more before snatching up her plate and retreating to the far corner of the elder’s table.

“Well done, Applejack,” Granny Smith said. “I snapped at Apple Bloom by reflex. Guess I’ll owe her an apology tonight.”

Applejack felt a warm glow of pride at Granny Smith’s praise. She had deescalated the situation and saved the peace of the evening, and that was indeed something to be proud of. She smiled at Granny Smith and returned to her post in the kitchen as the line resumed its slow march toward food.

Thankfully, the adult ponies proved less troublesome than the elders or the littluns and in short order everypony save Applejack had loaded their plate and was seated around one of the three tables. While the politer family members like the Oranges from Manehattan had refrained from eating until all were served, most ponies had already started tucking in.

The clink of silverware and the low hum of dining conversation filled the room as Applejack scrapped the bottom of a glass bowl containing cranberry sauce before trotting over to take her seat at one of the heads of the square table. She savored her first bite, relishing the delicious food after the hard day’s work she’d put in.

Unfortunately, before she could take her second bite a call came from the littluns table for more apple juice. Sighing, Applejack stood up and grabbed the pitcher from their table, smiling at her little cousins as she did so. She returned a moment later with a refilled pitcher and deposited it on their table to a chorus of thank-yous.

Applejack just managed to sneak a second bite in before the elder’s table called her over and asked her to puree the steamed carrots since even steamed the vegetables were still too hard for their old teeth. Applejack collected their carrots in a serving dish and took them back into the kitchen. She dug through the cupboards until finally she found a dusty old hoof-powered blender. After washing it out, she poured the carrots in and laboriously turned the hoof crank until the carrots’ consistency closely resembled that of orange juice.

Scarcely had she brought the carrots back out to the elders and settled back into her seat when she was called upon to run another errand or smooth away another minor irritant. On and on it went throughout dinner. Every bite she took was punctuated with chores for needy family members and she had to do it all with a smile.

It all reminded her of something Granny Smith had once said. ‘A perfect hostess is like a duck: calm and poised on the surface, and paddling like Tartarus underneath.’

All told, Applejack barely made it halfway through her meal before everypony else was scrapping the last few morsels – usually Brussel sprouts, those always were the last to go – off their plates. It didn’t seem right to force everypony to wait on her, no matter how hungry she was, so she cleared her plate along with the rest.

Granny Smith’s legendary pies were brought out in stages. Pear, blueberry, boysenberry, strawberry, strawberry rhubarb, and the king of them all, apple pie all were placed carefully on the huge Lazy-Susan in the middle of the room. Applejack passed around dessert forks and small plates so that everypony was ready for the pies once they’d been cut.

Then, she took up her knife and readied herself to cut the pies. Now an ordinary pony would have had each pie placed in front of them so they could carefully make a few incisions before moving on to the next one. Applejack, however, was far more skilled than any ordinary pony.

“Give me a beat, Apples!” she called out.

Starting slow, the gathered family stomped on the ground in a two-part beat. Applejack nodded along for a moment then smirked at her family. She cast an eye over to the littluns table. “Come on, Apples, you can go faster than that!”

Whooping, the littluns stomped faster and faster, and with good natured grins the adults let themselves be pulled along by the infectious enthusiasm.

“That’s more like it!” Applejack called out. She could almost hear the familiar twang of a good old fashioned country fiddle stringing along to the beat. “Hold it there now.”

The room shook with the rhythm of a galloping pony as Applejack tossed the knife from hoof to hoof, getting in time with the music. “Swing that Susan in a do-si-do.” She worried that that particular instruction was a little too opaque, but if there was one thing her family knew, other than apples, it was folk dancing.

Brown Betty Apple and Paula Red stopped stomping and reached up to the Lazy Susan. They pushed it along counterclockwise, speeding it up in time with the beat. The pies on top of the spinning Lazy Susan moved to the outsides before being stopped by the raised outer edge.

Applejack’s eyes narrowed. She focused as closely as she could on the pies, tracking each and every twitch with laser-like intensity.

“Yee-Haw!” she shouted and out came the knife. Snicker-snack went the blade and the blueberry pie was expertly carved into eighths.

Cheers came from the watching Apples but Applejack wasn’t done. Her blade moved in time with the beat and with snick after snick she expertly carved each pie into perfect slices. At last only one apple pie was left, waiting for the most impressive display of all.

Her free hoof shot out and slapped down on the edge of the pie tin so that it flipped up in the air, rotating slowly. The beat ceased at once as the Apple’s gasped, sure they were about to witness that most heinous of crimes: a wasted apple pie.

Applejack’s hoof shot out again knocking flat against the bottom of the pie tin. The tin had been well greased and Granny Smith was an expert baker so the pie popped right out of the tin and seemed to hang in the air for a single brief second.

In that second Applejack moved faster than the eye could follow. Her knife flashed out and carved the pie not into eighths as with the others, but into ninths. Beyond simply cutting the pie, she gave an extra flick to her hoof with each cut and each piece of pie went sailing away.

There were sobs now from the audience. Foals covered their eyes that they not have to witness something so awful. So great was the despair that the flight of the pie slices themselves was almost unwitnessed. Only the youngest of foals, little Tiddly Pomme, was brave or naïve enough to keep watching.

She giggled and gasped in delight as she saw where the pie slices landed. “Look, look everypony,” she chirped. “Look at what cousin AJ did.” Slowly, the downcast eyes were raised and everypony saw what it was that Applejack had done.

Each slice of pie was resting on a pie plate in front of a pony. Three slices had gone to the littluns table, three to the adults, and three to the honored elders.

As the dumbstruck Apples watched, Tiddly Pomme raised her spoon and took the first bite. “So good!” she declared.

The calm was broken as the Apple’s went wild. Cheers and whoops filled the room as the nearest Apples proudly slapped Applejack’s back. The orange pony stood there, slightly out of breath and grinning from ear to ear.

This was what all her hard work had been for. These moments of rejoicing family left indelible marks on the soul and it was from those marks that Applejack drew strength year-round. A warm feeling of satisfaction filled her in place of the hunger from the dinner that she hadn’t had time to finish. She stayed standing, watching as her family set to the important business of dealing with desert.

Conversation buzzed and she could still hear the foals exclaiming over her performance. Even Crab Apple’s too-loud mutter of “show-off” couldn’t bring her down. As the pie tins were emptied of their contents, Applejack gathered them up and carted them off to the kitchen. With the pie tins added the mound of dishes was looking more like a mountain than a molehill. As that warm feeling of contentment filled her veins with energy, Applejack turned on the water and set to work.