Ella & Evan - Xmas Coupons Pt. 01

This is an alternate version of my Christmas Coupons story. It is the same until the first coupon is presented, at which point it branches into a very different story. Same characters, different responses. Less romance, more sex than the other version of the story.

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Tuesday, 24 December 2019

The rain was just starting to turn to snow as we drove past Squamish. Traffic slowed down on the narrow mountain highway as the road conditions worsened, which suited me just fine in the back seat of my parent's SUV. I was a bit nervous with my dad's driving through the mountains, he may drive a big SUV but he's definitely more of a Lower Mainland guy and driving around the drizzle of downtown Vancouver is more his speed.

The four of us were going to spend Christmas in a rented cabin in the mountains north of Whistler. In summer, the drive there from our parents home in West Vancouver would take about 2 hours, but in winter, with the usual rain/snow/rain you get in the Sea-to-Sky Highway in winter it took far longer.

Honestly, I was looking forward to it. It may sound lame, for a 19 year old guy to be happy to spend a week with his family in a cabin instead of hanging out with his friends but since starting university and moving to an apartment near the campus I've kind of missed being at home.

My family is me Evan, my twin sister Ella, and our parents Scott and Rebecca Gardner. My dad is 44 and my mom is 41... I don't think you really need to know that but while writing this story of what happened on our Christmas vacation I spent some time figuring out their ages before I realized you probably don't really care but fuck that, I'm going to include that tidbit now.

Dad is a pretty standard middle-aged guy. Getting a bit doughy, but his graying hair is still thick thank god (that means I'm less likely to lose my hair too, right? Or is that determined by my mom's side of the family? God I hope not because my mom's dad has always been totally bald). Dad is the managing partner of an advertising agency in Vancouver. He works a lot but is a pretty good father all around. Allow me to paraphrase the Simpsons when I say that his half-assed underparenting style really suits Ella and me.

Mom works for the local city government in West Van but honestly I have no idea what she does. Some sort of office work for the planning department I think. Mom is still a very attractive woman, she's in good shape for her age, and she clearly takes pride in her appearance. She has strawberry blonde hair and green eyes, and she's medium height with a slender frame.

As for Ella and I, well we do both share some features in common as fraternal twins. It used to really annoy me as a young boy when people would say how much alike we looked but luckily puberty kicked in. Also, I grew up a bit and stopped thinking being compared to a girl in any way was some mortal insult. We both have darker hair than our mom's, more medium brown, and we both have brown eyes like our dad. Ella is quite curvy but in good shape from her love of running, and she's an inch or two shorter than our mom. I am 4 inches taller than Ella, and playing hockey and soccer all through high school gave me a reason to work out semi-regularly so I have that going for me. I'm pretty average looking honestly, somehow Ella has the same nose, eye and hair color etc as me but on her it all combines into an attractive young woman but on me I just look slightly goofy.

The sunset comes quick in the mountains, and it was just getting dark when we pulled into the driveway at the cabin. It was beautiful, with great views of the valley before us, all the trees covered in fresh snow. You could see the lights from some other houses in the area but not many, and none were closer than a kilometer or so away. The line of car lights from the highway at the bottom of the valley was partly hidden by the trees, so it made the cabin feel even more secluded than it was.

"Here we are, everyone grab some bags and boxes so we get the car unloaded ASAP," my dad called out. We had a big pile of luggage and stuff packed into the cargo area and on the roof rack. Since we were going to be there a week we all brought a good deal of luggage, and also mom had packed away a lot of food to stock the kitchen. There were some small stores not that far away, and even a restaurant at the big gas station down the road, but we still needed to bring a lot. Naturally we also brought our Christmas gifts to each other with us. We would open one of them at midnight, and the rest on Christmas morning the next day as was the tradition in our family.

Ella was as excited as I was, which made me happy. I am never quite sure how Ella will react to a situation, despite being twins we have very different opinions on a lot of things. When this trip was announced I had been worried she would complain and be difficult about it, but she had seemed enthusiastic.

Once we had unpacked, Ella and I quickly explored the house. It was very nicely furnished, with a big fireplace in the main living room and huge windows facing out over the valley.

"I call dibs on this bedroom!" Ella called out, dropping her bags in a small but serviceable room on the second floor with a nice view of the mountain. That left me with the third bedroom, which was even smaller, with a twin bed barely bigger than a cot and a small window that looked out over the driveway. I had a great view of our SUV. Ah well, should have checked out the sleeping situation instead of wasting time getting my phone on the WiFi.

Mom and dad prepared supper for us all and we had a fun Christmas Eve meal, laughing and talking together more than we had in years. After Ella and I cleaned up everyone spent some time in the living room, enjoying the cozy fire and chatting. Mom took our stockings and set them out in front of the fireplace well away from the heat, the mantle didn't really have a place to hang the stockings and with a fire actually going it wouldn't be smart anyway.

In no time at all it was midnight, and time to open our one small gift (as children, it was the one from Santa, now it was just a supplemental present our parents had bought us, like a sweater or a iTunes gift card sort of thing) and get our stockings. Mom always spent a lot of time and effort on the Christmas stockings, jamming the large socks full with thoughtful little gifts we needed or could really use but rarely bought for ourselves.

"Here you all are, Evan, here you are Ella," she said, handing our stockings to us just after the clock struck 12. She then handed dad his stocking, bending over to whisper something to him as she did. Dad then handed mom her own stocking, which he had filled for her. Normally, he put some gift cards to the shops mom liked and little trinkets he thought she would appreciate.

We all talked happily and went through our stockings. I got some chocolates, some inexpensive workout earbuds (always nice to have), some toiletries in a nice little travel bag, socks, a neat little flashlight (I love flashlights), and so on. Looking over, I saw Ella get much the same but with some makeup accessories and hair clips and what have you.

As everyone was laughing and expressing thanks for the little gifts, I reached into my stocking and felt some paper. I pulled it out, it was a small bundle of thin paper cards, connected on the side with a large staple. At a glance, it looked like half of the paper slips were red and half were purple and they appeared to have been printed out, but had handwriting on them too.

"Naughty & Nice Coupon Book" was written on the front. I frowned and flipped open one near the end at random. It was one of the red ones, and had "Naughty" printed at the top. Underneath it said "redeemable for:" with a line beneath it. Handwritten on the line in pen was "1 lap dance". The one behind it was purple and said "Nice" and the handwriting on the line promised "breakfast in bed".

Ah. If I wasn't quite so slow I would have immediately handed the coupon book to my mom without a word. But I had opened it and read one, and for some reason seeing my mom's handwriting on it made me quickly stuff the book back in the sock and look around.

My parents were talking to each other and hadn't noticed, but as I hid the book away I noticed Ella giving me a strange look.

I waited a few minutes, hoping mom would go to the kitchen or something so I could go hand her the coupon book without anyone else noticing, but of course she didn't. In fact, everyone just kind of sat around for another few minutes and then said their good nights.

Ah well, I'll just slip the coupon book to her in the morning, when no one else is around. Less embarrassing for everyone that way.

Chapter 2

Mom and dad had gone to bed around 12:30AM, annoyingly staying close to each other so I never had a chance to slip mom the naughty coupon book. I debated just putting it in her purse or something but that would be even weirder than just giving it to her.

I had the crappy, small little bedroom on the main floor that was probably supposed to be a broom closet or something but it would be fine for 6 nights. The twin bed was small and none too comfortable but at least there was a place to plug my phone in on the bedside table. I was just about to turn off the lamp when I heard a small knock at the door.

"Yeah?" I said, and Ella opened the door and walked in, smirking as she looked around at my jail cell of a room. I was in my boxers and a tshirt but that was standard sleep attire for me, and since Ella and I live together in an apartment on the UBC campus we were pretty casual with anything less than actual nudity. She was wearing pajama bottoms and an old tshirt as she normally did - the pajamas were pretty standard but I have to admit her butt looks good in them and I have perhaps once or twice given her ass a second look as she walked by in our apartment. She has a generous bust so she usually wears a sort of bra-like undershirt with her tshirt so I rarely get a hint of nipple from her. Not that I'm like looking hard, but you'd notice nips if they were on display even if it was your twin sister.

"Just came to say good night," Ella said.

"Yeah right, came to rub it in that your bedroom is about a million times better than this."

She chuckled and replied, "Maybe a bit yeah. I find it funny they get to advertise this place as a three-bedroom chalet style cabin in the listing when this is clearly not a real bedroom." She sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the box of stuff I had put there from my stocking. The room was so small I couldn't walk past her without brushing against her knees, which I had to do to shuffle between her and the dresser that was next to the door. Not a big deal but stepping sideways like that meant I could feel my dick swinging back and forth in my boxers and I felt briefly self-conscious because Ella glanced up at my junk as I scooted by.

My one gift that I had opened was, typically, a sweatshirt. I had dumped all the candy and random things I had gotten from my stocking in the cardboard box along with the sweatshirt and then quickly put the coupon book with it, out of sight. Naturally, Ella dug through the trinkets and socks and immediately pulled out the coupon book.

"Ahh this is the thing you so quickly but ineffectively hid. When will you learn that you can't hide anything from your big sister?" Ella is the eldest by 12 minutes, which used to really annoy me.

I rolled my eyes as she turned the book around to get a look at it, her smirk of sibling superiority quickly changing to surprise as she read it. "What the fuck? 'Naughty & Nice Love Coupons'?" She quickly flipped one open and, blushing deeply, read "Oh my god, 'Sex, anytime, anywhere'?" What the hell is this?"

"Well obviously mom put it in the wrong stocking. I just tucked it away so I could give it back to her without everyone else noticing so she can give it to dad."

Still red faced, Ella kept reading through the 20 or so coupons, shaking her head. She said, "God damn mom has a real dirty side huh, this isn't like 'redeemable for one shoulder rubbing' shit, this one just says 'anal'!" and burst out laughing.

I was getting uncomfortable by this, mainly because it was clearly something intimate that mom had intended for dad and Ella was treating it like a joke. But also because I was standing 4 feet away from Ella, with her head at groin height, and my slowly hardening cock would be very noticeable in my boxer briefs in like a split second if Ella kept talking about mom taking it up the ass.

"Ell put it away, I feel bad enough I saw it," I said, using my childhood nickname for her and sitting down on the bed to hopefully conceal the effect this talk about mom's sex life was having on my anatomy.

Ella nodded and closed the book, saying, "Ok fine. I'm just surprised, I thought mom gave you some awesome extra gift I didn't get and that's why you tried to hide it, she always spoiled her wittle baby Evan. But this doesn't shock me that much really. Mom's talked about with me before."

"What do you mean?"

She shrugged, "Oh just that mom treats me more like her friend now, which is awesome, but it means she kinda sorta tells me about being unsatisfied in some parts of her relationship and how she's trying to spice things up in the bedroom. I love that mom and I are getting closer now that she treats me like an adult, but hearing that she wants more from dad in the bedroom is more info that I really want."

I recoiled, holding my hands up, "Ugh it's more info than I want to! I was happy not knowing that, thanks!"

Ella laughed and poked me in the side, "No way, if I have to know way more than I wanted to about our parents 'mismatched libidos' then you should too! When mom and I went clothes shopping last month we stopped at a lingerie shop to get some things. While we were there she bought some really sexy things and I complimented her for being so daring - I mean this was stuff I wouldn't wear! - and she told me she wanted to get dads attention. I guess she really doesn't have any friends she talks with about that stuff because she opened up to me about it."

"Well, she didn't open up to me about her love life so maybe she doesn't want her son to know," I said, giving my sister a look.

"Yeah yeah you're right. I shouldn't have told you but it helps explain this coupon book." Ella picked it up and looked at it again, "I like how she wrote 'Legally Binding' on the front, a nice touch."

I nodded, "Yeah I saw that, that's totally her sense of humour. Probably trying to tell dad that she really does want him to cash in on those coupons, based on what you're saying."

Ella handed me the coupon book back, and as I took it one of the slips of paper fell out. I frowned, it was just a series of coupons printed out on normal printer paper and held together with a single large staple so Ella and I flipping through it a few times was enough to make it start to come apart. I tucked the loose coupon back and hoped mom wouldn't notice.

"Well anyway, good night Ev." Ella said as she stood up. This time she had to walk sideways past me to get to the door, and I was gratified to see her boobs swinging around. Only fair after she checked me out doing the same. "And have fun giving mom her coupons back tomorrow, make sure she knows you're not trying to cash them in yourself, even though legally I think you could!"

I rolled my eyes and groaned as Ella ducked out of my room, laughing at my discomfort to her joke.

Chapter 3

It's funny how in most families at some point the parents and children swap the Christmas morning wake up routine. When we were kids Ella and I would wake up at 6AM and then go crazy waiting until our parents would finally get up at 7 so we could open the presents we were desperately pawing at. Then, as teenagers, we would sleep in more and more until finally mom and dad would get us out of bed at 10 in the morning because they couldn't wait any longer.

I got up just before 10, tossed on my plaid pajama pants (I don't sleep in them, but I wear them as lounging-around-the-house pants) and staggered to the half bathroom on the main floor to freshen up. Once I was more or less fully awake, I got myself a cup of coffee and joined my parents in the big living room area where our gifts were all gathered.

Mom and dad had clearly been up for a while, drinking coffee and relaxing in their sleepwear and housecoats. Dad was just suggesting someone go get Ella up when we heard water running upstairs and sure enough 10 minutes later, she graced us with her presence.

"Merry Christmas!" our mother said as we all found a spot to sit down to open gifts. The next half hour was spent opening our presents to each other, in my family we take turns so everyone can show off what they got and express appreciation to whoever gave it to them.

I got a new iPhone (as I expected, it was what I wanted) and some clothes, including a really nice ski jacket I was excited to wear that day while we were doing outdoor stuff in the mountains. Ella got even more clothes, a bunch of gift cards to boutiques for her to get what she really wanted from them, some AirPods, expensive perfume and a bunch of other girly things.

We both got some cash; our parents always give us like $200 in cash pinned to a package of underwear or something. We also both got a new TV, which my dad said was at home, but we'd get it to take back to the apartment we shared at university. I was thrilled to have a decent sized 4K TV for our place, but Ella was less interested as she mostly watches her shows on her laptop. I'm more like our dad, I love a good home theatre and always want to watch movies and TV shows on the biggest screen available.

As in most years, Ella and I got our gifts to mom and dad together. We bought mom a nice set of earrings (El picked them out), a big coffee table book of art from Indigenous communities across the world, and a framed photo of our family from when we were kids. I found the photo at my cousins place months ago, I guess my uncle took it, and I had a print made. We are all smiling on a dock at some lake and mom started to cry when she saw it, and my dad gave me a proud clap on the back, clearly impressed I found something so meaningful. My parents spent a few minutes lost in their memories, trying to remember exactly where and when that photo would have been taken. Ella gave me a smile and squeezed my arm as we watched them.

Dad, as is usually the case, didn't get any gifts quite so impressive but he seemed pleased with his standard haul of cologne, a couple of ties, and a media player I got him. Last time I was at his office he had complained about how annoying it was for him to watch videos in his office on his TV. As an advertising exec he often watches commercials and stuff sent to him digitally or on physical media so I found a specialized media box that he should be able to use to easily watch anything more advanced than a VHS tape.

I know, I know, you're reading all this wondering why the hell I'm spending so long telling you about the cool shit I got for Christmas. Honestly, I'm not sure why I felt the need to get into that much detail. I think part of it is as I'm getting older the sheer privilege of my upbringing is becoming more and more obvious to me and I have weird guilt about it. If you had called me a rich kid even a couple of years ago, I would have laughed at you, but now I see just how comfortable and fortunate Ella and I are. I mean, we don't have to worry about paying for school or anything, we don't have 3 part time jobs to scrape together tuition or to have spending money (in fact, neither of us work at all while we're in school). We have a nice apartment that lets us walk to our classes instead of spending two hours a day fighting Vancouver's shitty traffic and we have never paid a dime in rent ourselves. I don't *think* we're spoiled, but maybe we are.