Beyond Education [Jemily]

Cherry on Top

December 25, 2007
— JJ's POV
"JJ? Are you up?" I heard soft whispering teasing me out of sleep this morning, with no concept of who it was until they said, "Jenny bear? Get up, baby."

"Emily? What's wrong?" I groaned as I rubbed my eyes and started to sit up.

She whispered in a cute singsongy voice that is only used around me, "Good morning, my angel. It's Christmas."

I smiled a little and stretched before looking up at her, "Merry Christmas, Em." She was sitting up on her side of the bed already clad in her set of Christmas PJs, with one leg draped over the edge and two mugs in her hands. I furrowed my brows, "What's this?"

"I made hot chocolate. Want some?" She handed me one of the mugs.

I sat up and quietly giggled, "Sure, baby." I took a sip and hummed, "Ooooh this is good. When did you make this?"

"Just now. It's early and no one's up yet so I snuck downstairs."

I booped her nose and swooned, "I love you."

She scrunched her nose adorably and blushed, "I love you too." A sip. "So what are the Christmas plans in this house?"

"Well presents come first, per Reese. Then we all eat breakfast together in the dining room. The middle of the day is spent helping mom in the kitchen— no arguments there, you have to help. Then Uncle Mark'll probably be here around 3:30 with his family and we'll eat dinner at 4."

"Phew all right. Sounds good." I got up for a minute to use the bathroom and put on my Christmas PJs, seeing as I was still in lingerie from last night. The matching pajamas I picked out for us were both red onesies with little Santa hats sprinkled all over them. Emily thought they were a little childish, yet she was the first one dressed in them this morning. Go figure.

I climbed back into bed, scooted closer to Emily, and rested my head against her chest before quietly asking, "What's Christmas like with your family?"

She scoffed, "Ugh what's the point? Mother never cares enough to come home so why should I care?"

"I just wanna hear about it. Even if it's frustrating to think about right now because of how things turned out it's still good to remember the traditions that you grew up with." I rubbed over Emily's chest as she started to talk.

"You're right." She took a deep breath and then explained, "Christmas morning was always really hectic because Mother took over the whole operation of opening presents. My cousins and I would try to do it ourselves but we'd get so excited that it would completely fall apart into chaos. So Mother had to hand everyone one present at a time around a circle of us."

"How many cousins do you have?"

"Well let's see... I have 6 first cousins but I got a lot of second cousins. 18 of those I think."

"Wow. That's a lot."

"Yeah but most of them couldn't come. Almost everyone in my family is a diplomat and they do something that requires them to be overseas. I guess that was just foreshadowing in my life for what Mother would turn into."

"It prepared you for it then."

"Good way of looking at it. Anyway after that we didn't do any kind of breakfast thing because we'd all be so fixated on whatever presents we got that we'd just play with them on repeat for the next three hours." Emily smiled when she said that part, something that made me feel better about reminiscing with her. "For Christmas dinner Mother would help the cooks make baked ham and roast duck, the latter being something I always thought was repulsive."