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I opened the door as quietly as possible, not wanting to disturb anyone who was already asleep or alert anyone who might have dozed off by the fire. Thankfully the main room was empty, and the guests had done a good job of cleaning up after themselves for once. The dishwasher was even running.
I smiled. I was starting to think like Holly about the place. My first thoughts were how I could get the place in order and take some of the burden off of her.
Holly followed me in and immediately took up residence in front of the fire. I smiled and headed into the kitchen. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to be in front of the fire, too, but I wanted to take care of her more. She laid the blankets down on the hearth and peeled off her socks, warming her toes by the fire while I got some mugs out of the cabinet and poured some cocoa and a purely childish number of marshmallows into them. Eggnog would come later, but for now it was time to warm ourselves up.
As I handed Holly her mug, she looked up at me and I felt my heart tug again. She was so beautiful. I sat down beside her and warmed myself by the fire as I took a deep sip of the cocoa. It was probably too hot to drink, but I didn’t care. I drank it anyway.
We sat in the quiet for a while, drinking our drinks until the ice seemed to melt from our bones. Eventually Holly reached over and grabbed the remote control, turning on a Christmas music station, and smiled at me. I shook my head and smiled back.
“Time to get some stuff wrapped,” she said. “Ready for a long night?”
“If it’s with you, doing this, absolutely.”
She smiled and ventured off to her room where the gifts had been hidden. Meanwhile, I went to the closet in the pantry where the wrapping paper was kept since it was brought in from the garage, and set up a little wrapping station. Then I dipped into the kitchen to make some rum-free eggnog.
Strictly speaking, eggnog without the rum wasn’t really eggnog as far as I was concerned. But we both were already exhausted and had a lot of wrapping to do before the guests woke up, so staying alert was a top priority. Therefore the rum had to stay in the bottle.
I flipped on a couple of lamps, giving the room some more light, and joined Holly on the floor, sitting cross-legged and grabbing my assigned pair of scissors.
“Shall we begin?” I asked, getting a laugh from Holly.
“We shall,” she said. “But first, I wanted to show you something.”
“What’s that?”
The bag that had held the toy we went out to get also had another bag inside. As she pulled it out, I recognized it as the crocheting she was doing in the car, which I thought she had left in it.
“What?” I asked. “You brought it!”
“I did,” she said. “I didn’t think I did, but it must have fallen in while I was scooting out of the car. I’m glad it did, though. I’ll have it finished in about five minutes and then it will be ready to give away.”
“What is it, exactly?” I asked. “All I can see is that really pretty pattern.”
“It’s a blanket,” she said, unfolding it and spreading it out for my first time seeing it. “I made a bunch of them. I was going to give them to the Children’s Hospital so they can give them to the kids as a special gift from Mrs. Claus. What do you think?”
“I think it’s beautiful,” I said. “And I think you are incredible.”
I leaned over our wrapping station and planted a soft kiss on her lips.
“Good,” she said. “Because I’m going to do this while you get to wrapping stuff, then I’ll make the gift basket and join you on the wrapping.”
“I just want you to know that I wrap gifts like an idiot,” I said. “I never quite got the hang of it.”
“I can help,” Holly sighed. “Show me what you do.”
Within minutes Holly was crouched over me, showing me where to fold, where to cut, and where to tape. I knew she suspected I was doing it on purpose, but it didn’t stop her. I was glad, too, since I absolutely was.
After I started to get the hang of it, Holly went back to doing her gift baskets. We chatted a little, mostly continuing our conversation from before about good Christmas memories, of which for her there weren’t many. I took the lead on making sure the conversation stayed lighter, and regaled her with various stories of our family Christmases.
Each present was tucked under the tree with great care. And when we finally got to the last one, the toy that had sparked our crazy journey, Holly put a big red bow on it and placed it right in front.
“You know,” I said, “these cookies have to be eaten before the guests wake up in the morning.”
“Uh-huh,” Holly said. “Those are supposed to be for Santa.”
“Well, see, here’s the thing,” I said. “Santa is on a diet. I, however, am not.”
“Well, if we’re just looking out for Santa’s diet,” Holly said, laughing and reaching over to take one of the cookies. “I suppose it’s okay.”
Sitting on the couch, facing the tree and the fire, we sat down and dug into the cookies. The sun was going to be rising soon, and we didn’t have a whole lot of time before things got crazy around there. But sitting there with Holly, watching the fire and eating milk and cookies, was as good a way to spend a little bit of time as any.
“I can’t imagine spending Christmas morning at a bed and breakfast,” I said, staring at the toy that caused so much grief, wrapped in some jaunty wrapping paper with its giant bow. “Nothing against this place, but it would be so weird not to be at home.”
“I guess,” Holly said. “He seems to be having a good time, though. He’s got his family with him.”
“That’s probably all that matters,” I said, nodding. “Wherever his parents are, that’s home. It’s just a big deal not to be home when Christmas comes.”
“You’re not home,” she said. “And you seem to be all right.”
I pulled her tighter and kissed the top of her head.
“True,” I said. “I feel pretty good being here on Christmas.”
“Sun is coming up,” Holly said, gesturing to the window. “I have a feeling we’re going to have guests up and about in a couple of hours at the latest. We should get some sleep.”
“A nap sounds good,” I said. “And then a second nap later sounds even better.”
Holly laughed, maneuvering herself up and off the couch and holding out a hand to me. I took it and stood, letting her lead me upstairs. We went into her room, shut the door, and stripped down to just our underwear before crawling into the bed. It was still cold in the house, even with the heat on, but nothing could be as cold as we were in the car. Comparatively, we were very warm.
I laid back in the bed and Holly curled up in the crook of my shoulder, resting her head on my chest and draping one arm over me. I held her there, letting one hand drape over her shoulder, and kissed the top of her head. Within minutes, we were both happily and deeply asleep.
