The Rise And Fall Of The Stag And The Doe

It's Christmas Time

"Your snowman looks weird." Dorcas informed Lily cocking her head to the side. Her dark wavy hair peeked out of her knit hat.

Lily wrinkled her pink nose and tilted her head to see what was wrong with it. She put on the buttons, the carrot and the hat on it. For the past few minutes as her skin grew paler and her toes grew numb she began to wonder whether or not to add a hat and glasses. For the past week they had built an army of plain snowmen and fought a mock war. Dorcas won of course, but Lily won the snowball fight they had engaged in the night before, mostly because Lily, who was tired of losing by this point, decided to cheat and just tackle Dorcas down to the ground.

"Are you going to name him?"

"I don't know…I've always been rubbish at naming things." Lily frowned, "Does he look like a Thomas to you?"

"If you add the glasses he will," Dorcas nodded thoughtfully. "You know you should really stop doing that."

Lily looked at her in confusion. "Doing what?"

"Assuming that if you do something wrong once or twice that you are bad at it. You are a hard worker, but if you can't do something after awhile you assume that you can't do it." Dorcas said in a solemn voice. "Why don't you trust yourself?"

Looking down Lily shrugged. "I don't know."

"Well," Dorcas said, in a much lighter tone, "I think Thomas is a lovely name for a snow man."

"Thanks." Lily grinned adding the scarf and glasses on him. "There we go."

Dorcas smiled at Lily's work. "Yes! Now let's watch Christmas movies and make our gingerbread houses."

"Aye aye captain!" Lily agreed happily.

Once they moved inside, Lily couldn't stop smiling. The whole house was decked out in all her mother's Christmas decorations and smelled like cookies. The Christmas lights in the front were hung by Lily and her father with Dorcas's strict supervision, but the inside was Petunia's doing. Petunia was always better at decorating things; it was something she always did with their mother when she was alive. A small pang of nostalgia floated up inside of Lily as she picture her mother dragging out the box of ornaments, carefully deciding where to place each one. It always used to annoy Lily because she never saw why it mattered where the ornaments were put, but now that she was gone she knew it was something Petunia took time with. Dorcas took off her winter coat; boots, gloves, hat and scarf, diving into the kitchen, but Lily paused for a second.

Christmas may have been Dorcas's favorite holiday, but it wasn't for Lily. For Lily it was just a holiday that reminded her that her mother was gone. Taking a shaky breath, Lily tried to ignore the green and red pillow on the couch, the wreath on the doorway and the lights strung across the mantel of the fireplace. Instead she grabbed the channel control and turned on the television.

"This is my favorite!" Dorcas gushed rushing into the room, taking the controller away from Lily. "You can't change this movie! It's a Wonderful Life is American gold!"

Lily rolled her eyes and moved to the kitchen. She sat on a high chair and began assembling her gingerbread pieces. "I thought you said you hated black and white movies."

Dorcas came over and moved her chair so she could work and watch the movie from the counter. "This movie is an exception."

"It's the exact same story as Scrooge," Lily shrugged looking away as she focused on fixing the roof of her gingerbread house with white icing. "They just made the main character more likable."

Dorcas frowned, her brown eyes growing sad as she looked over at Lily. "But Scrooge has no emotional depth at all, Lil. I love George and Mary, he wanted to give her the moon."