On Christmas, I awoke to the sound of my cousins knocking on our door so that we could watch them open their presents. Despite going to bed early, I still felt like I could sleep for a few more hours. Opening my eyes to look at Chris, I could see him already looking at me before he pulled me closer and held me tight to his body. “We should probably get up so that we can watch them open their gifts,” Chris says, his voice muffled as he buries his face into the top of my head. 

“We should,” I replied, reluctantly disentangling myself from him. As I stand up, I walk over to the mirror at the corner of my room and make sure to straighten my pajamas and redo my bun. As I finish fixing my hair, I look at Chris as he stands behind me. Despite just waking up, he still looked perfect and his messy hair looked like he styled it that way on purpose. Turning around, I ask, “Are you ready to head downstairs?”

“Yes,” he answers with a smile as he takes my hand and we walk out into the hallway. As we get into the hallway, I could see the younger kids pulling my aunts and uncles downstairs and my parents had just started down the stairs. As we all exchange greetings, we make our way downstairs to see all of the impatient kids open their presents. 

The next hour is spent in a rush as the kids all open up their presents. Before long, there were bows, wrapping paper, ribbon and gift bags strewn all over the living room. After all of the kids finished unwrapping their gifts, we exchanged a few gifts for the adults and the kids left as soon as they could to try out their new gifts. Toys were opened, new games were being downloaded, and new clothes and shoes were being tried on. Chris and I both take a bit of time to help clean up the rest of the mess before joining my parents in the kitchen to get started on brunch. 

As we enter the kitchen, my mom immediately hands over two aprons and we quickly get suited up and wash our hands. Before we could ask what needed to be done, my mom was telling us a list of things that needed to be done. Turning to me, she says, “There is some fruit that needs to be washed, peeled and cut. There are strawberries, grapes, apples, plums and blueberries.” She then looks at Chris and says, “I have a bunch of ingredients, and we were hoping that you would be able to recreate the cinnamon rolls you two brought yesterday. We finished them off last night, but thought that they would be good this morning too, especially as a treat for the kids.” 

With a smile, Chris says, “They don’t take too many ingredients to make. It looks like you have most of them out already.” As he follows my mom around the kitchen to find the rest of the ingredients, I get to work on the fruit salad. Despite the fact that my mom seemed happier about him being here than me, I couldn’t help but feel glad that he fits into my family so well. 

By the time that I finished cutting all of the fruit to make a massive bowl of fruit salad, I looked over to see that Chris was shaping the cinnamon rolls to go into the oven and my parents were pulling the bacon and biscuits out of the oven. Waiting until the oven is closed, I turn to mom and say, “The fruit salad is done, what would you like me to do next?”

Grabbing the lid for the fruit salad bowl she puts the lid on it and puts it in the refrigerator before pulling out eggs and milk. Handing them to me, she says, “Here you go, can you mix these up for scrambled eggs.” 

“Of course,” I reply with a small smile before scrambling the eggs. After mixing them up and adding some salt and pepper, I hand them over to my dad who puts them in the pan and starts to cook them. Turning to look at the food that is done, I realize that we only have a few things left to do, so I help my mom set the table and the kids table. After getting both tables set, I go back to the kitchen to help Chris put icing on all of the cinnamon rolls. Just as the two of them finished the cinnamon rolls, all of the eggs were done, so everyone was called to come in to eat. Looking at the food on the counter we had: cinnamon rolls, fruit salad, scrambled eggs, bacon, biscuits, and I could see that my mom had made some of her french toast. 

Sitting down to eat, I notice how easily Chris slips himself into the conversation adding tidbits of information he knew or his own experiences to add to every conversation. Fortunately for me, everyone’s curiosity about him means that all of the questions they normally ask me were forgotten. Until they weren’t.

“So when are you two thinking about marriage?” my aunt asks as she looks at Chris and I. “Have you two thought about having babies yet?” she asks as a grin fills her face. 

Looking over at him, I honestly had no idea how to answer her questions. Although we talked about taking the relationship seriously, we haven’t talked about the future much since we’ve been so busy with everything else. Fortunately for me, I could tell that he planned to answer since I wasn’t going to. “I would love to marry her, but we haven’t been together long enough to think of having children yet. Besides, I like the idea of enjoying my wife for a while before we add any babies to the mix.” As he ends his sentence, he looks over at me lovingly with a soft smile.

Everyone choruses with various iterations of ‘wow’ and ‘how sweet’ as they begin to ask him even more questions. Feeling a bit overwhelmed, I excuse myself to go to the bathroom to escape the chaos for a little bit. I hadn’t even been gone 5 minutes before I heard a knock on the door. “I’ll be out in a minute,” I say. 

“Take your time,” I could hear Chris’s voice on the other side of the door. “I just wanted to check on you, I know you were uncomfortable back there.”

I quickly go over to open the door and hold my arms out for a hug. Without speaking, he quickly engulfed me in a tight hug. After holding me for a few minutes, he asked ”Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I reply as I continue to hug him. “I know that they all love me and care about me, but sometimes their questions are too much. I do appreciate you deflecting all of their questions away from me though. It helps a lot.” Deciding that it is probably best that we get back before they realize how long we’ve been gone, I slowly separate from him and say,  “We should get back, I’m sure that they need help with the dishes.”

“Okay,” he says with a concerned look on his face. Despite that he lets me take his hand and lead the way back to the dining room. As we arrived, we could see that many of the younger kids had already finished eating and were already playing with their gifts again. Many of the adults had finished as well and were chatting over coffee. Hearing my parents in the kitchen, the two of us make our way in there to find my parents already had the teenagers doing the dishes. 

As she looks over at the two of us she says, “Do you two need something? I think you need a bit of a break, you didn’t look too well earlier.” she says, looking at me. Turning to Chris, she says, “And I expect you to look after her young man, go take her upstairs to get some rest.”

I turn to find Chris looking down at me before he scoops me up his arms and carries me out of the kitchen and through the house to my bedroom upstairs. On the way, we passed the dining room and I could hear all of the laughter and jokes that came about as we passed the doorway. Burying my face in his shoulder, I could feel heat creep up my face. Aware that the blush covered my face, I decided to continue hiding my face until we got up to my room. 

Before I knew it, we were entering my room and he turned to lock the door behind us before gently laying me down on the bed. Within seconds, he joined me and pulled me tight to him. “Is there anything else that I can do for you when you feel overwhelmed like that?” he asked. 

Turning to look up at him I respond, “Not really, you did everything you can. Holding your hand helps sometimes too. It was just a lot going on at once, holding your hand keeps me feeling grounded.” As I finished my sentence, I could feel a blush coat my face as I answered him honestly.

Grabbing my hand, he said, “Okay, that can be arranged. I love holding your hand as well.” he says as a sincere smile fills his face. “Your mom says that you need to rest so I think that it’s best that we stay here for a little bit at least. If you want to take a nap, I don’t mind going down by myself to help cook dinner.”

“I want to help,” I say. I couldn’t help the yawn that left my mouth as I got more comfortable. “A nap does sound good though. I don’t think it helps that we are still in pajamas either.” 

“Okay, nap time it is.” he says with a smile as he pulls me closer and begins to gently rub circles on my back. Before I knew it, I had fallen asleep. 

Waking up from my nap, I knew that he had been gone for a while because the bed was cold where he was sleeping. Looking over, I could see his pajamas in the chair and knew that he had gotten dressed and probably already went down to help with dinner. Grabbing my matching christmas sweater, some jeans and putting on my shoes, I looked at the clock to find that there was only one hour until dinnertime. Rushing downstairs I can see my parents and Chris finishing up some of the last components of Christmas dinner. Walking into the kitchen, I ask everyone, “Is there anything you’d like me to do? I can set the table.” 

“That would be fantastic,” my mom says before gesturing to the pile of plates, silverware and napkins that were waiting to be placed on the tables. I quickly grab a stack of items and begin to carry them into the dining room and get everything put in the correct places. I finish setting the table and help set out the drinks just before dinner is served. I watch as Chris pulls out two cheesecakes and a regular cake to add to the pile of desserts for dinner. As we finish eating dinner I think to myself that I would love to spend the rest of my Christmases with Chris by side. Gently squeezing his hand, I join in the conversation with him and enjoy spending this quality time with my family.