Andrey stood in the middle of the empty living room, unable to believe how lucky he was. The cramped twenty-eight square meters were finally behind them — now they had a real apartment. Seventy-two square meters, three rooms, and a kitchen where you could actually turn around instead of squeezing between the refrigerator and the stove.
“Lena, just look at this!” he said, throwing his arms wide. “A huge couch will fit here. And over there — a table where people can sit properly instead of bumping their elbows against the walls!”
Lena smiled, leaning against the doorway. Her hair was tousled, and there was a dusty streak across her cheek — they had spent the entire day carrying boxes. But her eyes were shining.
“Do you know what I keep dreaming about?” she said softly. “The two of us living here. Having breakfast in this kitchen on weekends. Watching movies on the couch. Falling asleep without hearing the neighbors next door cheering at a football game.”
Andrey walked over and put his arms around her shoulders.
“That’s exactly how it will be. Now we finally have a place of our own.”
The phone in his pocket vibrated. Mom. Andrey pressed the green button and regretted it immediately.
“Andryusha! So, have you moved in already?” His mother’s voice rang with excitement. “I’m so happy for you! At last you’re living like human beings instead of in that shoebox!”
“Hi, Mom. Yes, we’re here already, unpacking.”
“Listen, I had a thought… Now that you have so much space, why don’t we celebrate New Year’s at your place this year? We can barely squeeze into my two-room apartment anymore, you know that. Your sister and Vovka, Aunt Valya and Uncle Petya, Nadya with her crew… And your apartment is so lovely, so new! Mine stopped fitting everyone a long time ago.”
Andrey felt Lena tense beside him.
“Mom, I don’t know… We still need to do some work here, and we haven’t even arranged the furniture properly yet…”
“Oh, what work? There’s still plenty of time before New Year’s! I already told everyone, and they were so excited! Just imagine what a holiday it’ll be — in the new apartment, with the whole family!”
“Listen…”
“All right, Andryush, I won’t keep you. You must be exhausted. I’ll call later and we’ll discuss the menu. Of course I’ll help with the cooking, but most of it still falls on the lady of the house.” She laughed. “All right, kiss you, bye!”
The line went dead. Andrey slowly lowered the phone.
“That was your mother,” Lena said evenly. It wasn’t a question — just a statement.
“She suggested we celebrate New Year’s here,” he muttered, still not fully absorbing what had just happened. “She says there isn’t enough room at her place.”
“And what did you say?”
“I… I didn’t get the chance to say anything. She said she already told everyone we’d be hosting.”
Lena closed her eyes and leaned the back of her head against the doorframe. She stayed silent for a few seconds, then exhaled.
“Fifteen people?”
“Possibly…”
“In our brand-new apartment. On New Year’s.” Lena looked straight into his eyes. “I have neither the money nor the desire to feed a whole mob of relatives your mother invited over for New Year’s!”
“Lena, come on, what’s so terrible about it? It’s family. Getting together once a year…”
She looked at him again, long and hard, and Andrey could not see even a trace of the sparkle that had been there a minute ago.
“All right. Let’s do the math.” Lena took out her phone and opened her notes app. “The mortgage we now pay for this apartment. Utilities. Food for the two of us. Transportation, phone bills, household supplies. After both our salaries come in, we have maybe twenty thousand left. Out of that, I put ten away for an emergency fund, because if something happens to the car or some other disaster comes up, there’s no one we can turn to for help.”
Andrey was trying to understand where his wife was going with this.
“And with those ten thousand, we have to make it through the rest of the month,” Lena went on. “Buy you a decent jacket, buy me boots because mine should’ve been replaced ages ago. Pay for the internet, which isn’t included in utilities. And you know, sometimes it would be nice to go to the movies. Or to a café. Remember how we used to do that on weekends?”
“I remember,” Andrey said quietly.
“I’m not complaining,” her voice softened. “I knew what we were getting into when we traded the old apartment for this one. I wanted this just as much as you did. But Andryush… we are barely scraping by. The first six months will be the hardest, until we get used to it and learn how to manage the expenses better. And your mother wants us to set a holiday table for fifteen people.”
“Well, not fifteen exactly…”
“Fine, twelve. What difference does it make?” Lena stepped closer and looked him in the eye. “Andrey, do you even realize how much a proper New Year’s table costs? Three kilos of Olivier salad so there’s enough for everyone. Herring under a fur coat. Meat — either roasted pork or cutlets. Poultry — turkey or chicken, and not just one, at least two. Salads, cold cuts, fruit, champagne, juice for the kids…”
“Mom said she’d help.”
“Your mother always says she’ll help.” There was no anger in Lena’s voice, only exhaustion. “Then she shows up with two bottles of soda and a kilo of mandarins, and that somehow counts as her contribution. Everything else falls on the hosts.”
Andrey paced across the living room. Suddenly the empty apartment didn’t seem so spacious anymore. He pictured the room full of relatives. His sister Nadya with her children running and screaming. Aunt Valya, who would definitely start talking about all her illnesses. Uncle Petya, who always tried to sing after his third shot.
“All right, I get the food issue,” he said, trying to come up with some counterargument. “But it’s only once a year…”
“Andrey.” Lena sat down on the windowsill, and in the glow of the streetlight he could see how tired she was after the long day. “You wanted a good power drill for New Year’s, remember? You spent a month looking at them, comparing them.”
“Yeah…”
“It costs twelve thousand. I was going to buy it for you. I’ve been putting money aside little by little since summer. But if we feed your relatives, that money will only cover groceries. And we might still need to find another five thousand on top of that.”
Andrey felt his joy drain away completely, replaced by something heavy and bitter.
The drill… he had really wanted it. He wanted to put up shelves in the new apartment, assemble cabinets. He even had a list of projects ready.
“And another thing,” Lena continued, and he realized she still wasn’t done, “think about what this holiday would actually look like. The three days before New Year’s, we’d be slaving away in the kitchen. Not just cooking — slaving away. You can’t prepare for fifteen people in a couple of hours. I’d be chopping, boiling, frying, roasting. And you’d have to help me, because there is no way I could manage it alone.”
“Of course I’d help…”
“So instead of resting during the holidays, we’d be working. Then the guests would arrive, and I’d be running between the kitchen and the table, reheating food, carrying dishes out, cleaning up. And after they finally leave, we’d spend God knows how long washing dishes and tidying the place.”
Andrey sat down beside his wife on the windowsill. Outside, the first snow was falling — light and uncertain. Just a short while ago he had been looking at those snowflakes and thinking how wonderful it was to welcome winter in a new home.
“And one more thing,” Lena added quietly. “Your Aunt Valya will definitely invade the kitchen, start lecturing me about life, and criticize the way I cook. Nadya will make comments about how we still don’t have a children’s room and hint that maybe it’s time already. And Uncle Petya, after his fifth shot, will start hugging everyone and telling us how wonderful we are.”
He knew she was right. Every New Year’s at his mother’s house had always been like that. The only difference was that before, he had been a guest. He came, ate, drank, talked, and left. He never thought about how much work it took to organize it all, cook it all, and clean up afterward.
“Lena… what if we’re not here?”
She turned toward him.
“What do you mean?”
“Well… what if we’re not home on New Year’s?”
Lena stayed silent, studying his face.
“And where exactly would we go? Tell your mother we’re sick? She’d come rushing over with a thermometer and chicken broth.”
“No.” An idea was beginning to take shape in Andrey’s mind. “We’ll go away. We’ll buy tickets and leave. To St. Petersburg, for example. We’ve wanted to go there for ages. It’s so beautiful at New Year’s — the decorations, the atmosphere… My old classmate Petya has been inviting me for years.”
“Andrey…”
“Wait, let me think.” He got up and started pacing the room. “Or we could rent a small place online. For three days — from the thirty-first to the second. It would cost… it would cost less than feeding fifteen people!”
“And what would you tell your mother?”
“The truth. That we’ve been invited somewhere and have been planning it for a long time. She can’t really object to that.”
“She can,” Lena said with a faint smirk. “Very easily. She’ll say you’re selfish, that family matters more, that you can’t just abandon everyone on a holiday.”
“So what?” Andrey was surprised by his own determination. “Let her say it. They’ll gather at her place like always. Or at Nadya’s — her apartment isn’t tiny either. And you and I will walk along Nevsky, drink mulled wine, take pictures in Palace Square.”
Lena looked at him, and he could see that familiar sparkle slowly returning to her eyes.
“You’re serious?”
“Absolutely.” He stepped closer and took her hands in his. “Lena, if we want to spend New Year’s alone, in another city, that’s our choice. Mom will be upset — she’ll survive. She’s been hosting holidays at her place for thirty-two years, she loves gathering everyone together. What’s one more year?”
“And what if she gets offended?”
“She’ll get over it.” Andrey shrugged. “You know, I’ve spent my whole life doing what my mother wanted. I studied where she told me to. Worked the job she approved of. Got married…” He caught himself. “Well, with you I insisted on my own, that’s true. She was against it, remember?”
“How could I forget,” Lena said with a crooked smile. “To her, I’m still ‘that girl.’”
“Exactly. And nothing happened — we’re still here, living our life. She got over that somehow. She’ll get over this too. And we’ll have a real holiday. We’ll actually rest. For the first time in how many years?”
Lena said nothing, thinking it over. Then she slowly nodded.
“You know what the scariest part is? I really like this idea. I like it a lot.”
“Then it’s settled!” Andrey pulled out his phone. “I’ll check for tickets right now. Petersburg, right?”
“Wait.” She stopped his hand. “What are you going to tell your mother? Are you really just going to say: we’re leaving, celebrate without us?”
Andrey fell silent. He pictured the conversation. His mother’s outrage. The wounded tone in her voice. I already invited everyone! How could you do this to me? I’m your mother, I was trying so hard…
“I’ll tell her honestly,” he said at last. “Just in a different way. I’ll say we’re thrilled about the new apartment, but that’s exactly why we want to settle into it peacefully, without chaos. That we need time. That next year, when we’re fully settled, we’ll gladly host everyone.”
“And what about the trip?”
“And the trip… I’ll say I’ve wanted to show you St. Petersburg for a long time. That you’ve never been there. That it’s my housewarming gift to you.”
“Sounds nice,” Lena smiled. “Almost believable.”
“It is the truth.” He kissed her on the forehead. “Just not all of it. I’m not going to tell my mother, ‘We have neither the money nor the desire to feed the mob of relatives you invited for New Year’s.’ Though that would be the absolute truth.”
Lena snorted.
“I can just imagine her face if you actually said that.”
“She’d probably have a heart attack,” Andrey agreed. “No, I’ll say it gently, diplomatically. But firmly.”
They stood by the window a little longer, watching the snow fall. Then Andrey opened a ticket website and started looking at the options. Lena settled beside him, resting her head on his shoulder.
“Look, there are tickets for the evening of the thirtieth,” he said, showing her the screen. “We’d arrive on the morning of the thirty-first, check in, spend the whole day walking around. In the evening — праздничный dinner somewhere in a café with a view of the Neva…”
“A view of the Neva will be expensive,” she pointed out.
“Then maybe dinner at home. Once, we can afford it. And back on January third.”
“It sounds like a fairy tale.”
“It will be a fairy tale. Our fairy tale.” He turned to her. “Deal?”
“Deal.”
Andrey had planned to call his mother that evening, when she had already had dinner and would be in a good mood. He had even rehearsed what he would say. Thought through every possible objection and how to respond. He had even written down bullet points so he wouldn’t lose his train of thought.
But his mother beat him to it. She called first, at lunchtime, when he was sitting at work and had no chance of giving the conversation the attention it deserved.
“Andryusha, are you busy? I’ll be quick.”
“I’m at work, Mom…”
“This won’t take long. I was talking to Nadya about your New Year’s plans. She had a wonderful idea — let’s make it a themed party! Something like old Soviet movies. Or retro. Everyone could come in costume…”
“Mom, wait…”
“Or you know what, maybe a masquerade! Everyone comes in masks. Wouldn’t that be fun? And I was also thinking — we need to plan some entertainment. Contests, games. Maybe even hire Father Frost for the children…”
“Mom!” Andrey raised his voice, and several coworkers turned to look at him. He gave them an apologetic wave and stepped over to the window. “Mom, listen to me. We are not going to celebrate New Year’s at home.”
A pause followed. Long. Heavy.
“What do you mean, you’re not?”
“Lena and I were planning to go to St. Petersburg. For the New Year holidays. I want to show her the city, we’ve dreamed about it for a long time…”
“Andrey.” His mother’s voice changed, turning cold. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I already invited everyone. Everyone is expecting to celebrate at your place…”
“Mom, it’s not our fault you invited everyone without asking us.”
“Without asking?!” Her voice shot up an octave. “I thought it went without saying! You have a huge apartment now, where everyone can fit! Or what, are you planning to hide from us?”
“We’re not hiding. We just want to rest. The two of us. After the move, after all this chaos…”
“Rest! From family!” She said it as though he had suggested something indecent. “Do you hear how that sounds? I raised you, gave you everything, and now you don’t even want to spend the holiday with your family!”
“We will. Next year. Or all of you can come over on March eighth, we’d be happy to host you then…”
“March eighth?!” she was nearly shouting now. “Are you mocking me? New Year’s is a family holiday! It’s a tradition! We have always celebrated it all together!”
“You’ve always celebrated it at your place,” Andrey corrected her. “And that’s where you’ll celebrate it this time too.”
“There’s no room in my apartment! I told you that already!”
“Mom, you managed to fit everyone for twenty-three years, you’ll manage one more time. Or gather at Nadya’s place, she…”
“You are letting me down!” his mother cut in. “I invited people, and now you’re making me look like an idiot!”
Andrey felt something boiling inside him. There it was again — his mother’s trademark way of shifting the blame. She had invited everyone without asking. She had made the decision for him. Yet somehow he was the guilty one.
“Mom, I’m sorry, but that’s your problem. You invited them — you can cancel, or change the location. But we have other plans.”
“This is all her!” his mother snapped, moving onto familiar ground. “Your Lena put this in your head! She always wanted to drag you away from your family!”
“Mom, don’t start…”
“No, I will finish! I can see exactly what’s happening! First she convinced you to move out from my place, even though you could have stayed with me and saved money for an apartment! Then she pushed you to sell the old place and take on a loan! And now she’s gone so far as to stop you from seeing your own family!”
“Mom, be quiet.” Andrey spoke softly, but there was so much steel in his voice that she actually fell silent. “You are talking about my wife. The woman I love. The woman who, by the way, has spent the last ten years putting up with your jabs and little insults, and never once answered you rudely. The woman who smiles through every holiday and pretends not to hear your comments about her background and the fact that we don’t have children. So listen carefully — Lena has nothing to do with this. This is my decision. Mine. And it is final.”
“Andryusha…”
“No. Listen to me. I understand that you’re upset. But this is our life. Our apartment. And our right to decide how and where we spend the holidays. We’re not kicking anyone out, we’re simply not inviting anyone. Because we’re not ready. Because we’re tired. Because we want to be alone together. And that is normal. It doesn’t mean we don’t love you. It means we have needs of our own.”
“But…”
“Mom, I’m at work. I have to go. We already bought the tickets. We’re leaving on the evening of the thirtieth and coming back on January third. Happy holidays. Love you.”
He ended the call before she could say anything else. His hands were shaking. His temples were pounding. But somewhere deep inside there was a strange, unfamiliar feeling. Freedom. That, he thought, must be what it feels like when people finally tell the truth. When they stop lying and pretending.
The phone rang again immediately. Mom. Andrey declined the call. She called again. He declined it again. A minute later, a message came through: You upset me. I never thought I raised such a selfish son. I hope you come to your senses.
Lena met him at home with a worried look.
“Your mother called me,” she said instead of hello. “At work.”
“My God.” Andrey took off his jacket. “What did she want?”
“At first she cried. Said you had betrayed her, abandoned her on the holiday, had no respect for her. Then she started hinting that this was all my doing, that I had turned you against her. And then…” Lena hesitated. “Then she offered me money. She said that if the problem was money, she would give us fifteen thousand for groceries.”
“What?!” Andrey could hardly believe his ears. “She offered you money?”
“Uh-huh. She said she understood things were hard for us after the move. That she was willing to help. That family mattered more than money.”
“And what did you say?”
Lena walked into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water.
“I said it wasn’t about the money. That we really did want to rest. That we were tired and needed a reset. Your mother said I was lying. That it was all about money because I’m greedy and don’t want to do anything for the family.” She gave a bitter little laugh. “You know, Andrey, I’ve put up with this for ten years. Ten years of hearing how I’m not good enough, not right for you, how I ruined your life. But today… today, for the first time, I answered her back.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her the truth.” Lena looked at him with calm, exhausted eyes. “I said, ‘Galina Petrovna, I have neither the money nor the desire to feed the crowd of relatives you invited over for New Year’s!’”