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23

It was now Christmas Eve and we had just returned from Church, signaling the time for fun to begin.

It was nearing six pm which meant we only had an hour until dinner. To pass time so we could somewhat ignore our grumbling bellies, Charlie and I turned on the tv to begin our Christmas movie marathon.

The movie that just so happened to be on was How The Grinch Stole Christmas. It wasn't a favorite of Charlie, mine or Mr. Adams but seeing as we had nothing else to do until Mrs. Adams called us for the food that she had been preparing over the last couple of days, we had to sit and wait. Yes, considering there was only four of us, there wasn't that much food to be made but every year on Christmas Day, Charlie's whole family would come over and they would spend the day together, so most of that food was for tomorrow.

I sat down on the couch as Charlie turned the lights off in the living room. When he came to sit down next to me however, he was abruptly stopped as Mr. Adams sat next to me instead. He had a smile on his face as he looked at me but when he turned to Charlie, he narrowed his eyes as Charlie glared at him. What was that all about?

I decided to ignore the weird behavior between the father and son and just pay attention to the movie, but it was growing extremely hard to as they began to flick each other in the arm every few seconds as their way of fighting silently. I just rolled my eyes and laughed, but before I could witness their reactions, Mrs. Adams walked into the room, announcing it was time to eat and I couldn't have been more grateful.

After dinner, Charlie begged Mr. Adams to go watch Christmas movies in another living room because he had been so annoying before we had eaten our Christmas Eve meal. Mr. Adams went to protest but Mrs. Adams stepped in by bribing Mr. Adams with a bowl of popcorn. Charlie smirked at his father, knowing he had won, for now.

With Mr. Adams gone, Charlie grabbed my hand, pulling me towards the couch. He sat down, patting the seat next to him and began to grin like an idiot. I rolled my eyes and shook my head, but sat there anyway.

Almost four hours later, I was curled up into Charlie's side with at least five blankets over me and I began to grow tired. We had watched Elf which was Charlie's favorite movie, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation which was my favorite movie, and we were now onto Miracle On 34th Street.

I did enjoy that movie but it wasn't something that could keep my interest piqued at 1 a.m. I had my head resting on Charlie's shoulder as my eyes began to get heavy.

I think Charlie felt the same way as me about the movie because he changed the channel so we were now watching The Polar Express. I smiled, remembering that being my favorite Christmas movie since childhood but the magnetic pull to close my eyes was much stronger and right before the main boy of the movie boards the train, my eyes closed and I fell asleep.

~

The sun was barely up but I couldn't contain my excitement. It was the one day of the year that I actually woke up early and was never tired.

I opened my eyes to see it was still dark out. I looked around realizing I was in Charlie's room. He must have brought me up here after I had fallen asleep. I looked to Charlie's alarm clock to see that it was five thirty in the morning. It was way too early for me to be awake but I was up and there was no way I was going back to sleep.

Moments later, Charlie stirred from his sleep as I turned my body to face him. He still had his arm wrapped around my waist from throughout the night and I couldn't help but smile. As he opened his eyes, a small smile appeared on his face as he spoke. "Merry Christmas AJ." Charlie leaned towards me and kissed my forehead, something he had been doing a lot recently.

"Merry Christmas Charlie." I smiled back at Charlie, taking his appearance in. He had crazy bed hair and when he spoke, he should have had morning breath, but for some reason he didn't. All I smelled was his normal scent of peppermint and coffee that I have always loved.

Charlie and I got out of bed and I headed to the bag that was on his chair at his desk. It had two matching red flannel pajama sets that both Charlie and I bought, except mine had shorts and his had pants. We thought it would something cute considering Christmas was both of our favorite holiday.

Before Charlie could take his pajamas from the bag I grabbed the long sleeved shirt that belonged to his set. Charlie looked at me questioningly before he spoke. "What are you doing with my shirt? Your pajama set is in the other bag." I looked at him seriously. "I know that, but I'm gonna wear yours."

Charlie looked as confused as ever. "AJ, I can't wear your set so how do you suppose taking my shirt is going to work?" I looked at him as if the answer was as clear as day. "We're going to share. You get the pants and I get the shirt. It's what we normally do anyway." Charlie looked from me to him realizing I was right.

It took Charlie a few seconds but then he spoke again. "Why don't you just wear only your shirt from your set?" I pouted and gave him puppy dog eyes. "But yours are so comfy."

Charlie didn't speak, causing me to groan in frustration. Now he was just being difficult so I decided to solve the problem for him. I quickly slid off my T-shirt from Charlie that I had been wearing through the night and replaced it with the long sleeved top of his flannel shirt.

I looked over to see Charlie staring at the floor and biting his lip. His face was slightly pink and it seemed as though he couldn't bring himself to look at me.

As smile came to my lips as I realized that he couldn't look at me because I had just changed in front of him. It isn't like he hadn't seen me in my bra and underwear before though.