Quinn and Patrick are about to celebrate their first Christmas as husband and husband, and the way things are going, it might also be their last. They are stretched financially paying for a house they don’t like that needs a lot of repairs, Patrick offered to host Christmas without checking with Quinn, and they aren’t communicating. Things look grim when Patrick mistakes Santa for a burglar and smacks him with a frying pan, twice. Now Patrick and Quinn have to save this Christmas and next Christmas by agreeing to be Santa and the Merriest Mister for a year (they are the first same sex couple to hold the office of Santa and Spouse). They have the opportunity to take a year away from their lives and see if they can save their marriage. The complication is, the magic of the North Pole runs on the love they have for each other, and they aren’t sure how solid that love is.
The Merriest Misters isn’t really The Santa Clause, but make it gay. It’s less geared towards hijinks and more an opportunity to explore expectations, assumptions, and the ways we make ourselves small for the people we love. Janovsky gently plays with gender assumptions both through the North Pole welcoming Quinn as Santa’s husband and Patrick’s family’s assumptions about the ways Quinn should behave and present himself. Removed from the stresses of their daily lives, Patrick and Quinn are able to rediscover the love they have for each other, but they shy away from the underlying issues until it comes to a crisis.
I love that Janovsky grounds their conflict in the internalization of other people’s expectations, and neither of them are bad people. The Happily Ever After is a glorious celebration of compromise and creating a marriage that allows each partner to flourish.
I like Timothy Janovsky so much. His writing has become more confident since Never Been Kissed. He approaches his stories in ways that always surprise and delight me.