12 Days of Christmas

Day 3

"I cannot believe we just spent three hours buying Christmas presents," Damon said, as he was carrying their bags inside.

"What? I think that was somewhat fast. You know, our friends are really hard to find presents for, so that did make this more difficult than usual," Elena responded, looking around at the bags, "Now we just gotta wrap them!"

"Sounds good. Where do you wanna wrap them?" Damon asked.

"Uhm, let's just do it in the library. There's a big enough table in there," she said, grabbing the bags with tape and wrapping paper.

"Did you used to wrap gifts when you were a kid?" Elena asked, as they cleared a table in the library together.

"No. Christmas was... a lot different, when I was young . It was pre-war-time, a lot of things were different. Christmas wasn't a big party, it was about faith. There weren't many gifts," he said, "it was just...different."

"That is very different from what I know... I mean, sure there's the faith aspect, but Christmas now is mostly about the giving, spending time with family, putting up decorations, and the tree and everything," Elena said, thinking about the Christmases she'd had as a kid. The tree had almost always been hidden behind their stacks of gifts, and the house had been so decorated you couldn't enter any room without reindeer, Santa's or snowmen gleaming back at you . Her parents would buy all different types of cocoa, and they had special Christmas mugs. And even though Elena's mom would read them the Christmas story from the Bible, it had been more for tradition, as a way of spending time together as a family.

"Is there anything from your childhood you would like to include in our Christmas?" Elena asked, as she got the first gift out of the bag and put a roll of wrapping paper on the table.

"No, it's fine. Most of those memories are... different, now." Damon said, avoiding her look.
"How so?"

"My mother liked tradition. She was the one who led the Yuletide festivities in our home...when she died, well, when we thought she had died...things changed. We didn't celebrate anymore. And knowing the truth now," he shrugged off a memory, "As I said, it's different."

"Do you wanna talk about it?" she put her hand on his upper arm, caressing it slightly.

"No," Damon forced a smile before leaning over to kiss her forehead, "instead, you can show me how to get that piece of paper around that book!" Elena knew he didn't like to talk about everything that had gone down with his mother. Even though it had been a while since her death, and Damon had said he'd forgiven her, the subject was sensitive. And given the years of traumatic events they both still had to process, she was fine with leaving the whole Lily Salvatore situation as a discussion for another day. They might not have forever anymore, but they had years ahead in which to discuss those things.

"Alright, well, it's not very hard, really," Elena allowed the change of topic, "So put the book on the paper. And make sure the paper can reach all the way around..." She showed him how to measure the paper so the book would be covered, "Alright and just cut off the end."

"The scissors keep getting stuck," Damon said, sounding frustrated, as he tried to cut through the wrapping paper. Elena giggled.

"Yeah, it does that sometimes. Alright now, fold them over like this..." she showed him how to wrap it, noticing how focused he was on what they were doing. She had rarely seen Damon like this. Usually he was teaching her things, not the other way around. She had to admit that it made her feel good to take the lead, for once.

"And then just flap up the ends?" he asked, after they had taped down the middle part.

"Good thinking! Almost, yes. We just bend the ends first, so it makes the corners look nice," she said, doing it slowly so he could watch.

"I had no idea gift wrapping was so... elaborate," Damon said, taping the ends shut, so the gift was completely wrapped.

"Some people care more than others," Elena laughed, putting a 'to and from' sticker on it. She then took the gold marker she had bought and wrote Bonnie's name on it.

"I wanna do the next one," Damon said, grabbing a box from the bags. He measured up the gift wrapping, looking very serious.

"You're really focused, aren't you?" she asked, watching him with amusement. The concentrated frown on his forehead disappeared as he smiled.

"Well, I want to do it right," he said, taping it together.

"Well, while you finish that, I'm gonna go get my speakers, so we can have Christmas music!" Elena said, kissing his cheek before leaving the room.

***

A while later, the bags from the stores were filled with wrapped gifts, and Damon had sustained several papercuts from the wrapping paper, which he was still a little salty about. He kept muttering about the slowness of human healing under his breath while Elena tried not to laugh at him.

"So, where do these go now?" Damon asked, "We don't have a tree to put them under," he pointed out, looking around at the random strips of leftover wrapping paper and tape that was stuck to the table. Elena wrapped her arms around him and snuggled under his arm.

"Well, we hide them somewhere, and once we have a tree we put the gifts under them," she said, resting her head on his shoulder.

"When are we getting one?" Damon asked, looping his other arm around her too, so they were hugging.

"Don't you worry about that. I've got it all planned out," Elena said, kissing him softly, "Right now, I think there are better things we could be doing."