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December 2nd:
If you had asked Brooke Lynn Hytes and Vanessa Mateo to describe what their future together would look like, this definitely wouldn’t be the first idea that entered their mind. Ten years ago, they had just gotten back together and had gotten engaged pretty quickly after that. They got married as soon as they possibly could, had the most perfect wedding and were so in love that their friends often made fun of them for it whenever they were around them. Brooke imagined that she would be one of the head partners in her legal firm and would eventually start working part-time so she could spend more time travelling the world with her beautiful wife. Vanessa thought they might have a kid or two and live a relaxing life in a gorgeous house that they owned, where she could still work on her clothing designs from home but more importantly to her, could focus on being a fulltime mom too.
What they failed to imagine was that they would be at their local mall waiting in line for three hours to see Santa at the beginning of December with three young children, who seemed like they would rather be doing anything else other than waiting. They had adopted the twins – Lucia and Lina – when they were babies and they were now eight years old. Four years later they adopted Leo - who in Vanessa’s mind was the cutest little baby boy she had ever laid eyes upon - and their family finally felt complete. Vanessa loved her kids and she loved Christmas so every year, she was determined to make sure that they had the best Christmas ever. She wanted them to be able to look back on their childhoods and remember all the fun times they had at Christmas time and she hoped that they would grow up loving the holidays as much as she did.
Brooke Lynn on the other hand had never hated her life more than she did in that moment and wanted nothing more than to go home. She agreed with Vanessa, she wanted her kids to have the most magical Christmas memories that they would be able to look back on for their entire lives…she just didn’t think that needed to be done in a busy mall with hundreds of screaming kids. She couldn’t even complain about the screaming kids in question considering one of them was her own.
“Leo I swear to God, I will tell Santa to put you on the naughty list if you don’t quiet down!” Brooke whispered furiously, not wanting to draw attention from the other parents in line as she scolded her son. There were velvet ropes all around them to keep everybody in line and Leo had decided he would swing out of them to keep himself amused whereas Brooke was about to have a nervous breakdown if he didn’t stop it immediately. He had also decided to yell about how bored he was and how much he hated waiting and whilst Brooke agreed with him, the headache she could feel coming on didn’t need to hear about it every few seconds.
“Brooke that’s a serious threat, you can’t just go around saying things like that, especially when Santa is so close”, Vanessa joked and laughed under her breath when she saw how miserable her wife looked. She took Brooke’s hand in hers and squeezed it gently, trying to comfort her before she got even angrier. “It’s gonna be over soon, babe. We’re almost at the top of the line and then we can go home.”
Brooke took a deep breath, rubbing her thumb against Vanessa’s hand in response and had to laugh at her wife’s attempt to comfort her – it sounded like something she would have to say to the kids, not her wife, but it worked. Brooke just focused on the fact that when they got home she could relax with a glass of wine and put this trainwreck of a day behind them. It was Vanessa’s turn to cook dinner that night and Brooke loved her wife’s cooking more than anything, so maybe the day had potential to get better. She looked down at the twins, Lucia was sitting on the ground reading one of the many books she had borrowed from the library and Lina was watching Tiktok dance videos on Brooke’s phone. Brooke didn’t understand the app at all but as long as it kept her daughter quiet and entertained, she was happy.
The twins were identical in looks but completely different personality wise. Lucia was the exact same as Brooke had been when she was a child. She always got good grades, was a perfectionist, loved ballet class and was always reading. Brooke and Vanessa were convinced that they didn’t need to get her any Christmas gifts as nothing made her happier than her monthly trip to the library. She was a lot quieter than Lina and found it a lot more difficult to make friends than Lina did. Lina could walk into a room and become best friends with everyone in a matter of minutes. She was always talking and could very rarely sit still, constantly wanting something to do to keep her occupied. She was a bit like Vanessa in that way, Brooke thought. Despite all of the twin’s differences, they were still the best of friends and it melted their parent’s hearts to see them always getting along. Brooke had to remind herself of the cute moments when the kids were testing her patience, especially now.
“Mom, what is Gmail?” Lina asked, holding Brooke’s phone up to her. Brooke immediately noticed that the screen was displaying an email to one of her most important clients, with nothing but a Tiktok link in the subject line.
“Lina, what did you do?” Brooke screeched as she snatched the phone from her daughter, trying to assess the damage. She clicked the link and it was a dance tutorial for a song in Spanish, Brooke didn’t know the song but she really didn’t care about that right now. She quickly sent off another email to the client explaining that her daughter had sent it by mistake and apologised way too many times than was necessary. As she locked her phone and put it in her pocket, she looked down to see Lina with tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry mom, I was just trying to send the video to mamá so we could learn the dance later, I didn’t mean to mess up.” Lina choked out in between sobs and Brooke immediately calmed down, not wanting her daughter to be upset. Brooke wrapped her arms around her daughter and hugged her tightly, not able to stay mad at her.
“Lina, baby, it’s okay. I know it was an accident, you don’t have to cry, okay? Look, we’re almost at the front of the line and you can’t meet Santa with tears in your eyes, can you? Do you know what present you’re gonna ask him for?” Brooke spoke to her daughter so sweetly and Vanessa smiled, laughing at how whipped Brooke was for their kids. She always acted like she was the tough parent but as soon as one of them started to cry, they had Brooke wrapped around their little finger – anything they had done was instantly forgiven.
The grumpy looking teenager dressed as an elf motioned to them that they were next to meet Santa and Vanessa was more excited than the kids. The three children walked up slowly and Brooke swore she had never seen Lina look so shy before – there was nothing like the promise of gifts to make a kid quiet and well behaved. Vanessa basically had to have the conversation with Santa on behalf of the girls as they suddenly were unable to say anything other than tell Santa their names and say “thank you” when he finished speaking to them. Leo didn’t seem to have the same problem as his sisters and confidently stated that he would like a python for Christmas, as well as a cage so that he could keep it in his room. Brooke and Vanessa wished he had never opened his mouth.
“Absolutely not, Santa is getting you that train set that you already asked for. Isn’t that right, Santa?” Vanessa cut her son off immediately before he could get any further in asking for more reptiles. There was no way in hell she would be letting one of them into her home. The man with the white beard slowly nodded and agreed with Vanessa that Leo would have much more fun with a train set. Brooke had to hold in her laughter as Santa agreed with his wife, knowing that if he had even tried to disagree, it wouldn’t have ended very well for him.
They took some pictures of the kids with Santa, Vanessa directing it like it was a photoshoot. Once she was satisfied that she got a picture with all three at least looking in the direction of the camera with their eyes open, they left and the next family took their place. Vanessa insisted on getting hot chocolates for the ride home and since Brooke couldn’t deny her wife anything, that’s exactly what they did. As soon as all of the kids were sitting comfortably in the car and had their seatbelts on, they were ready to go. As Brooke drove away from the mall, Lucia spoke up.
“I never want to wait in a line that long again.” She stated firmly, like nothing could change her young mind.
“I agree, Lu. Never again.” Brooke agreed with her daughter as Vanessa turned around in her seat, speaking to her daughter directly.
“What if we go to Disneyland one day, Lucia? How are you gonna get on any of the rides if you won’t wait in line?” Lucia’s eyes opened wide in realisation at her mamá’s words because she knew she was right. Vanessa turned back forward in her seat to catch Brooke rolling her eyes. Vanessa giggled and Brooke rolled her eyes again at the fact that she had been caught, but smiled softly at their shared secret. They were surprising the kids with a trip to Disneyland in March as part of their Christmas present. It had taken an extremely long time for Vanessa to convince Brooke to agree to it but Brooke had to admit that she was excited. Vanessa had been planning it for months now and she was so excited to see her kid’s reactions to all of the different parks and their favourite characters, but deep down a part of her was excited to see just how much her wife was going to have to pretend like she didn’t want to cry whilst waiting in lines. Her wife’s face whilst waiting for Santa today had proved her point and she was way too excited to laugh at her pain. She turned on the radio to a station that was playing Christmas music and took out her phone, continuing to order presents for the kids so that they would get delivered on time.
Brooke looked out at the road ahead of them and smiled softly. Before she had met Vanessa, Christmas was just considered as a day off work for her. As a kid, she never liked it that much as she had to spend the day in whatever ugly and uncomfortable outfit her mother had picked out for her. The day was also usually spent in her grandparent’s house and most of her memories of Christmas as a child involve being bored. As the music played on the radio, she took a peek in the rear-view mirror and melted – the three kids were fast asleep, Leo’s head resting on Lina’s shoulder.
She couldn’t believe that Vanessa had changed her life so much in such a short space of time. She had grown up with such a different plan as to what her life should look like and now all of that had changed. She knew that all she needed to be happy was Vanessa, her kids and her cat Thackery. Maybe getting another couple of cats would make her happier, she knew she would have to work hard to convince Vanessa of that one. But as far as Brooke was concerned, her life was perfect. There was nothing she would rather be doing than celebrating Christmas with her family and that was a fact.
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Later that evening, they arrived home and everyone started to feel more relaxed. Everyone but Vanessa. Allowing the kids to sleep for the entire journey home was probably a foolish mistake but neither Brooke or Vanessa had it in them to wake them up. They were now full of energy and were running around the house playing some new game they had invented.
Brooke was trying to get them to settle down so they could get changed out of their clothes and into their pyjamas. She wanted to put them down on the couch in front of the TV and let a Christmas movie entertain them for 90 minutes so they could calm down a little bit before bedtime. All Vanessa saw, however, was potential for disruption to her precious Christmas decorations.
“Brooke I’m not joking, if they break something I will cry.” Vanessa stated in a very serious tone, pleading with her wife to back her up on this one.
“Guys, come on. Remember how hard we all worked making the house look super pretty for Christmas, we can’t ruin it, okay?” Brooke spoke directly to the kids as she picked Leo up and carried him as far away from the Christmas tree as humanly possible. He had decided that crawling underneath it and shaking the branches would be a fun thing for him to do and the thought of the tree ornaments breaking was making Vanessa want to scream.
She had a flashback to two weeks ago when all of the new decorations she ordered had finally arrived. They had all gone to pick out the perfect Christmas tree (the kids didn’t seem to care and just wanted to get back in the car because of how cold it was) but Vanessa was bursting with excitement to get home and start decorating. She had failed to remember that the standards of three young and hyperactive children wouldn’t match her decorating standards and had to redo the entire tree once the kids had gone to bed to make it perfect. Thankfully they didn’t notice that the entire thing had been changed, she would’ve felt bad if they did.
Brooke had to sit her down and have a serious conversation about letting her standards of perfection go because with three young kids, they were unattainable.
“I know you want it to look like a Winter Wonderland in here babe, but it’s just not realistic. Leo can’t even keep his room clean for more than thirty minutes and the girls are obsessed with anything that sparkles or has glitter on it,” Brooke chuckled as she rubbed her wife’s back, her arms wrapped around her as she tried to comfort her and calm her down at the same time. “The house looks absolutely beautiful, you did an amazing job, but I think we just have to remember that it’s not gonna stay perfect the entire time. We can always bring it back to how it was if it starts to get a little messy, right?” Vanessa nodded at Brooke’s words and removed herself from Brooke’s embrace so she could look her in the eyes.
“You know that sounds hypocritical as fuck coming from the bitch who had a breakdown last week when she sent a document to a client where the font was a size 13 instead of size 12, right?” Vanessa laughed and Brooke rolled her eyes as her wife brought up the memory that was definitely not one of her finest moments.
Memories of Brooke comforting her were always some of Vanessa’s favourites to replay in her mind when she was feeling stressed or overwhelmed. She knew that no matter what life threw at her, she would always have Brooke. Brooke would always be there to hold her and whisper in her ear while she cried or to help her focus on her breathing when she was stressed -- and nothing made her happier than remembering that. It was as if Brooke could read her mind as when the kids were finally sitting down on the couch watching the Grinch and Vanessa had just started making dinner, Brooke appeared in the kitchen doorway to check in on her wife.
It was only then that Vanessa looked down at Brooke’s hands to see what she was holding – the small bit of mistletoe that Brooke loved to keep hanging on their bedroom door during the holiday season. She would take it down all the time and use it as an opportunity to get extra kisses from her wife (it’s not like Vanessa was ever going to say no), particularly when she felt that Vanessa wasn’t feeling her best. Vanessa just thought it was cute.
Brooke pecked her wife on the lips and wrapped her arms around her from behind while Vanessa kept stirring the sauce she was making. They stood in silence for a while before Vanessa’s mind started to wander.
“Where’s Thackery?” she asked, feeling Brooke shrug her shoulders from behind her.
“I’m not really sure, he’s probably napping. But don’t worry, he’s definitely here somewhere,” Brooke’s tone of voice sounded like she was hiding something and Vanessa needed to know what. Vanessa swiftly turned her head and raised one eyebrow at Brooke, asking her to elaborate. “He may have ripped a couple of the stockings down from the fireplace but don’t worry, I fixed it.” Vanessa rolled her eyes and couldn’t help but laugh at Thackery’s behaviour, he was 11 years old now and still acted like a little kitten.
“Which one’s did he take down?”
“Lila’s and your nephews. Everyone else’s escaped the damage.” Vanessa’s sister and her two nephews were coming to spend Christmas with them so naturally, Vanessa decided to get them their own stocking so they didn’t feel left out. She knew the fireplace looked a bit crowded and clearly Thackery thought the same if he felt that it was necessary to rip some of them down. Brooke gave her wife one last kiss before going to find the cat, making sure that he didn’t do any further damage.
Vanessa added some pasta to a pan of boiling water and returned to her sauce, tasting it to see what she needed to add more of. In the distance, she could hear Brooke yelling at the kids to be quiet while they watched their movie and the kids not caring at all, continuing to be as loud as they were before. She couldn’t wait for dinner to be ready so she could go and join them.
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December 15th:
Staring at the giant mountain of kids toys in front of her, Vanessa knew she had made a mistake. And that mistake was telling Brooke that she wanted to take care of the kids presents by herself without any help from Brooke.
In theory, it had seemed like a fun thing to do. She was looking forward to sneakily interviewing the kids to see exactly what they wanted, making lists and shopping for them. Brooke was more than happy to let Vanessa do it herself, toy stores not really being a place she wanted to spend her free time in, but Vanessa regretted her decision now more than ever.
It was now Saturday morning and with Brooke at home, Vanessa thought this was the perfect time for Brooke to keep the kids occupied while she locked herself in her design room and started to wrap the presents. The only problem was that she couldn’t remember where she had put a lot of them.
Vanessa saw a lot of her own personality traits in her children. Leo was mischievous, Lucia was a perfectionist. But when Vanessa reminisced on her own childhood, she couldn’t help but notice that Lina behaved the exact same way that Vanessa had when she was her age, which is exactly why Vanessa always had to be one step ahead of her. At nine years old, Vanessa had already discovered all of her mom’s hiding places and knew exactly what she was getting for Christmas before December had even begun. Vanessa knew she had to get inventive with her hiding places and that is exactly what she had done…and they were good hiding places. So good that Vanessa couldn’t remember where she had put some of the stuff.
Vanessa didn’t want to admit defeat but she finally admitted to herself that not letting Brooke help out was a big mistake. She texted her wife, who was probably in their living room playing whatever game their kids had invented that week, and asked for help. Immediately, Vanessa could hear Brooke’s footsteps coming up the hallway and when Brooke opened the door, the last thing she expected was to find her wife sitting on the floor surrounded by, what seemed to be, fifty different kinds of kid’s toys.
“V…what’s going on?” Brooke asked her wife as she sat down opposite her, trying to understand the situation.
“I should be more like you, Brooke.” Vanessa stated with a sad tone to her voice.
“What?”
“You would have made a list. You wouldn’t have forgotten your hiding places. I literally lost some of the kids Christmas gifts because I can’t remember where I put them. Who does that? Who hides something and doesn’t remember where they put it? You would’ve made an Excel spreadsheet with everything’s location written down and I can’t even remember where I put them and—” Brooke cut her wife’s rambling short by putting her hands on Vanessa’s cheeks and telling her to breathe. After Vanessa’s breathing stabilised a bit, Brooke held her in her arms so that Vanessa’s head was resting on Brooke’s chest.
“Babe, I know that our house is much bigger than the apartments we used to live in but…it’s not a mansion. It’s not possible for you to lose these gifts, have you even looked for them?” Brooke asked as she looked down to find Vanessa with a guilty look on her face.
“…no. I just panicked when I didn’t immediately remember,” Vanessa sighed and wrapped her arms around Brooke’s waist even tighter. “I’m just so stressed out, B. I really want the kids to have the most magical Christmas this year. They’re at the perfect ages for it, soon they’re gonna grow up and stop believing in Santa and it’s not gonna be as magical for them anymore. I wanna make it really special while it still counts.”
“V, you could give Lucia a new book, let Lina go on your phone for an hour and give Leo a cardboard box to play in and they would all think it was the best Christmas ever. Everything here is just a bonus. Don’t beat yourself up because there’s a small problem, I’ll help you find everything and it will all be okay,” Brooke kissed her wife on her forehead when she suddenly had an idea on how to cheer her up. “I think you should go and get dressed, there’s something we need to do right now.”
Brooke immediately stood up and grabbed her phone from her pocket, sending off a text as she walked out of the room. She left Vanessa with a confused look on her face but she decided to just accept whatever mysterious plan her wife had come up with. She went to go get dressed and put some makeup on, not being able to hold back her smile as she knew she was going to spend the day with her favourite person.
One hour later, their best friend Nina was at their door with arts and crafts supplies in her hand. The kids loved when Nina was babysitting. They always got to make fun things and she always brought the snacks that they loved. Brooke and Vanessa never had any issue leaving their kids with Nina as they trusted her more than anyone to take good care of their babies.
They got in Brooke’s car and after ten minutes of Vanessa trying to guess where they were going, Brooke decided to finally let her in on the secret.
“When you made your list of everything you wanted to do as a family for Christmas, what was the one thing I said no to?” Brooke asked and Vanessa immediately began racking her brain trying to remember her list. There was visiting Santa, picking out a real Christmas tree, going to see the lights in the city and…ice skating. Brooke had said no to ice skating as soon as she saw it on her list and while Vanessa was sad she wouldn’t get to complete her entire list, she understood why. Leo was accident prone at home, let alone when he was on ice with a big blade attached to his feet. Brooke said it would be in the interest of everyone’s safety to keep that kid off the ice rink, at least until he was a teenager and Vanessa had to agree.
“There is no way Brooke Lynn Hytes is taking me ice skating right now.” Vanessa said in disbelief but also full of excitement. Brooke’s idea of fun was…well, anything but this and the fact that she was taking her out on her day off to do this meant so much to Vanessa.
“Of course we are. You didn’t think I’d let your list be incomplete, did you?,” Brooke winked at her as she pulled into a parking space. “When was the last time you went ice skating?”
“Uh…never?” Brooke looked at her in shock and couldn’t help but laugh.
“So you wanted to bring our children ice skating for the first time…even though you have never done it before yourself. Do you have a death wish?” Brooke asked sarcastically and it was Vanessa’s turn to roll her eyes.
“I figured since you’re Canadian, you’d be really good at it and could teach us all,” Vanessa replied as she took her seatbelt off and they got out of the car to start walking towards the ice rink. “If that little kid out there can do it, then how difficult can it be?”
The answer to her question was that it was very difficult. Vanessa had fallen on her ass twice and did not appreciate Brooke laughing when it happened. Just as she was about to give up and walk off (or more likely, crawl off) the rink, she started to get the hang of it. Brooke was skating backwards so that she could hold Vanessa’s hands and pull her forward but soon enough, she didn’t need the help.
They were skating side by side at quite a slow pace, so slow that kids were zooming past them, but Vanessa was very proud of herself. She thanked Brooke for saying no to doing this activity as a family because Jesus Christ, if Vanessa was falling on her ass, the kids would have had no chance.
They decided to stop when it started to get extremely cold. Vanessa wanted to get a coffee to warm up but Brooke said no.
“We’re not going home yet, babe. We still have one more place to go.” Vanessa wondered where they could be going. They drove for about ten minutes and as soon as Brooke turned onto the street, Vanessa knew exactly what Brooke’s plan was.
Eleven years ago, they met at a club for their friend Detox’s birthday party. Since then, the club had been shut down which had upset both of the women, but it had been replaced by a beautiful restaurant that they had grown to love. They went there every year on their wedding anniversary and clearly, Brooke knew how much Vanessa needed a magical moment like that to cheer her up. She saw her wife working so hard to create perfection for everyone else that she figured it was the least she could do to give back to her a little bit.
They ordered the same thing that they did every time they went there – Brooke got a steak and Vanessa got seafood pasta. They decided to get a taxi home and shared a bottle of white wine and Vanessa had never been happier. Just a couple of hours ago she was crying on the floor and now she was in one of her favourite places with her wife. As if things couldn’t get any better, Brooke had another small surprise for Vanessa.
“I might have kept note of every hiding place you told me about and wrote it down…just in case you did forget. Not that I didn’t have faith in you, it’s just a lot to manage and—” Vanessa shut her wife up by leaning across the table and planting a kiss on her lips.
“I fucking love you so much, do you know that? You have saved my ass big time, thank you so much!” Vanessa felt like all of her worries were just melting away and Brooke was to thank for that. They went home shortly after, Vanessa resting her head on Brooke’s shoulder the entire way home. She was so content after spending the day with her and after seeing the beautiful surprise that Brooke had pulled off for her, it made her even excited for Christmas morning so she could return the favour with a surprise of her own.
Brooke had been begging her all year to get another cat and all year long, she had lied and said that she didn’t want one. Well, technically it wasn’t a lie…Vanessa didn’t want one, she wanted two. The kittens – Henry and Apollo – were waiting in the shelter until Christmas Eve, where she would take them to her sister’s house for the night so Brooke wouldn’t be suspicious. Then when Alexis and the two boys came over in the morning, she would surprise Brooke with the kittens.
Vanessa couldn’t wait for the two tiny new additions to their family but more importantly, she couldn’t wait to see Brooke’s face.
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December 24th:
It was 10pm and Brooke’s hands were stinging from the amount of papercuts she had. They had been wrapping presents for the last hour and arranging them under the tree so the kids would know that Santa had visited. They had even gone to the trouble of precisely nibbling on the carrots that were left out for the reindeers, just to make it all more believable. It was crazy what parents would do to keep their sceptical 9-year-olds believing in the magic of Christmas for as long as they possibly could.
“Next year can we hire someone to wrap all of this crap? My hands are about to fall off.” Brooke said dramatically and with the look she earned in response from her wife, she knew the answer to her question was “absolutely not”.
“The smiles on their faces in the morning will be worth your busted hands, I promise.” Vanessa replied, trying and failing to contain her excitement.
Vanessa always thought that Christmas Eve was more fun than Christmas Day – it’s a day full of excitement and preparation and always spent with family. In the afternoon, they decorated Christmas cookies and they loved to see how differently their kids approached it. Leo picked the brightest colours of icing he could find and slathered them onto the cookie without thinking twice. Lucia spent her time meticulously drawing faces onto the snowmen cookies and drew perfect little designs on the snowflakes, whereas Lina chose to use pink icing and didn’t switch to any other colour for the entire time. She also added a lot of sprinkles and edible glitter.
That night, they all got changed into the matching Christmas pyjamas that Vanessa had bought them (she had to convince Leo that Santa would give him an extra present if he wore the same outfit as his older sisters) and naturally, she made them have a family photoshoot.
Vanessa uploaded the pictures from her photo to her laptop and sat with the twins who giggled at each picture. There was always one person who ruined the picture – Leo had his eyes closed, Lucia wasn’t smiling, Lina was rolling her eyes, Brooke was looking at Vanessa instead of at the camera. But there was one perfect picture amongst all of the other ones and it was already Vanessa’s favourite picture she had ever taken. She couldn’t wait to hang it up in their living room and look at it every single day.
Thirty minutes later, they finally finished with all of the wrapping. They decided that checking on the kids to make sure they were actually asleep was a good idea, considering how excited they were when their parents tried to put them to bed earlier.
Lucia and Lina were fast asleep, both sleeping with their unicorn stuffed animals. Brooke knew they were growing up super quickly and that they would probably grow out of sleeping with stuffed animals, but she hoped it wouldn’t be anytime soon. It was so adorable how they still clung onto the same toys that they had when they were babies every time they went to sleep. Leo was also in a deep sleep in his own bedroom. Thackery was asleep at the end of his bed so they quickly closed the door and left before they disturbed them and woke them up.
Vanessa dragged Brooke back to the living room so they could continue another one of their Christmas Eve traditions – watching a Christmas movie. Vanessa had already decided they would be watching Love, Actually and Brooke had no choice but to agree. They cuddled up on the couch, Vanessa assumed her favourite position of wrapping her arms around Brooke’s waist and resting her head on Brooke’s chest. She felt her wife kiss the top of her head before whispering;
“You’re gonna fall asleep in about five minutes, babe.” Vanessa rolled her eyes in response.
“No I won’t, this is one of my favourite movies of all time.” Brooke wrapped her arms tighter around her wife and allowed herself to focus on the movie. She couldn’t help but notice her wife’s breath starting to get heavier. She gently shook Vanessa in an effort to remind her to not fall asleep, but all she got in response was Vanessa muttering something about this being the best Christmas ever. Again, Brooke had no choice but to agree.
Twenty minutes later, Vanessa was in a deep sleep and Brooke knew she had to make the executive decision to pause the movie and go to bed. She picked her wife up and carried her to their bedroom, placing her gently on the bed. Vanessa was in such a deep sleep that she didn’t even notice that she had been carried to a different room.
Thankfully, they were already dressed in their Christmas pyjamas so they didn’t need to get changed. Brooke was starting to feel sleepy which she knew was probably a good thing, considering they were going to be woken up by three excited children in a number of hours.
Brooke brushed her teeth and hopped into bed, checking the clock on her nightstand. It had just turned midnight, meaning it was officially Christmas. She wrapped her arms around her sleeping wife and gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek before snuggling into her. She could smell Vanessa’s coconut shampoo, a scent that always calmed her down and in some ways, helped her sleep since she associated it with Vanessa. Brooke was so excited for tomorrow morning that all day she had been thinking she would find it difficult to sleep. She felt like a young kid again, anticipating the excitement of Christmas morning. But she knew that was all thanks to her wife, who had taken it upon herself to restore the magic of Christmas in Brooke’s adult life. Vanessa was like her comfort blanket, always making her calm and extremely happy. She could start to feel herself becoming more and more drowsy as she finally let herself succumb to sleep.
“I love you, V. Merry Christmas.”