A Winter's Tale

FESTIVE THOUGHTS

  "Morning sleeping beauty" Max walker said, moving a piece of hair off of Zoe's face and behind her ear.
"Morning" Zoe replied yawning and then propping the pillows up against the bed post and sitting up, staring at the Christmas tree which was abandoned in the corner of the room. They had a bigger one downstairs which was full of lie, enveloped with lights, glistening with baubles, bring the whole Christmas spirit. But when they went into the garage, they discovered a smaller tree, which they put in the corner of their bedroom, but it only had a couple of plain silver baubles and some white lights on.

"Next year, we need to go full out with that tree, make it more colourful!" Zoe exclaimed.
"Erm, yeah.. Ok." Max said raising his eyebrow, he thought it looked OK, the more basic the better, but he would do anything to please Zoe.

It was December 27th, 2 days after Christmas, and all thanks to Zoe's brilliant idea of inviting both her and Max's family around for the day and for Christmas dinner seemed like a good idea at the time, but not when you looked at the star of their house. There was rubbish everywhere, abandoned cups and glasses dotted around and a mound of pots and plates at the side of the sink. They had started yesterday tackling the washing up, and ended up with Zoe losing the will to live. So today, they had the mammoth task of tidying and cleaning the rest of the house.

"Can we start up here today and then make our way downstairs? I can't be bothered to keep climbing up and down the stairs every 2 minutes." Zoe laughed, pulling the duvet off of him and wrapping herself intricately up in it.
"AAAHH, ZOEEEEE." Max screamed as the cold December air hit him; he was only wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

"Just 5 more minutes." She said, laying back and closing her eyes with a smirk on her face. Max tried to pull the duvet back, but because of the way Zoe had wrapped herself up in it somehow. So instead, he decided to make her suffer by going to strip the bedding. He went to the end of the bed and undid the poppers, pulling off the cover in some miraculous way, untangling Zoe from it and then made a start on the sheet, he pulled all 4 corners off and then managed to somehow flip Zoe over so that she was lying face first on the mattress and pulled the sheet off and threw it in a pile and the doorway. Zoe decided to then get up and pull the pillow cases off of the pillows and throw them at Max's head, who happened to be stood in the doorway at that time. Once the bed was stripped, they bundled it all up and took it downstairs and into the washing machine. Zoe's stomach rumbled, informing her that she hadn't eaten anything all morning.

"Maaaaxxx.... If I make a start on the lounge, will you make bacon sandwiches please?" Zoe asked, giving max puppy dog eyes.
"Yes of course, but you had better do a good job of it though." He replied smirking.
Zoe plodded off to the lounge, pulling the Henry Hoover with her. She sighed as she saw the state of the once spotless lounge; there was rubbish everywhere, plastic plates and cups scattered about, all the chairs were in the wrong places and dotted about. She scooped up all of the rubbish and put it into a pile and the same with the plates and cups.
"Max, can you bring me a bin bag please?" She shouted through to Max.
"Erm, bin bag or bacon sandwich?" Max replied knowing what the answer was, and soon enough Zoe came into the kitchen and got a bin bag from the drawer. Then she used it as a lightsaber to hit max with on the way out.

Opening the bin bag, she threw all of the rubbish into it and then looked around making sure she hadn't missed any before knotting the bag up and tossing it by the door... At the moment that max was coming through with the sandwiches.
"You know, I'm starting to think you don't want the sandwiches." He laughed.
"Oops, sorry Max. Thank you" Zoe replied sitting down and taking the plate off of Max and taking a bite, "but it was worth the wait and the whole nearly ending all over the carpet thing."
"Why thanks, and you've done a pretty good job too." Max said noting the rubbish's disappearance.
"Thanks" she laughed, "so all we need to do is move the furniture back and Hoover the carpet up."
"Ok, well you can do that." He said cheekily, trying to get out of the only chore he hated doing: the hoovering.

"Hahaha no." She said seriously, then laughing as she knew how much max hated the hoovering.
"Fine, I'll do half of the room, you can do the other half." Max sighed plugging in Henry and making a start on his side, shifting furniture as he went. Zoe then did the same to her half, whilst fighting Max with the long dusters that Max started hitting her with rather than dusting the ornaments and TV.
"As much as I loved it, all of our families being together, I'm not doing it again, tooooooo much hassle. It seemed ok at the start, but looking at the state of the house once everyone left was a totally different story." Zoe laughed.

"But you did a really good job, we had a lovely day and we all got to know each other better and everyone seemed to have a good time. You did the right thing Zoe, Christmas is all about families, spending time with those loved, and we did that and got the most out of it." Max said, pulling Zoe into a tight embrace, both of them smiling.
Once everything was once again spotless, the two sat snuggled up on the sofa with blankets watching the TV.
"Thank you Max, for your help today, I appreciate it." Zoe said, planting a kiss on Max's cheek.
"You're welcome Zoe, merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas Max, I love you" Zoe whispered.