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Christmas is Chanyeol’s favourite time of the year. He likes the music with the tinkly bells and how Christmas always comes with warm smells, all the gingerbread men and spiciness of cinnamon in the air. He likes sipping hot chocolate on chilly winter mornings and waking up curled up next to Junmyeon as the snow falls gently outside.
This year is extra special because it’s Jongin’s first Christmas .
“Christmas?” Jongin sounds out carefully, drawing out the S with a little pout. He has his cheek rested against Junmyeon’s thigh, all of them on the couch with Chanyeol sandwiching Junmyeon between them.
“Yeah, and Santa leaves money under our pillows!” Chanyeol says, already out of breath after he went on a ten minute ramble about how Christmas is the bestest! holiday! ever!
“I think you’re mixing it up with the tooth fairy, Yeollie.” Junmyeon musses up Chanyeol’s hair affectionately and Chanyeol leans into the touch, snuggling into Junmyeon’s palm. “Santa leaves presents under the tree.”
“Presents!” Chanyeol nods eagerly, still preening from Junmyeon’s touch. “Under the Christmas tree.”
Junmyeon smiles at the sudden furious tail wagging from both pups that was ignited by the idea of presents. “But only good boys get gifts,” he reminds them, tapping both Jongin and Chanyeol’s noses.
“I’ve been a good boy!” Chanyeol says, perhaps too fast and defensively. His tail stops wagging immediately, feeling affronted at the potential accusation that he, Chanyeol, was not a good boy.
“You have,” Jongin reassures, reaching across Junmyeon to grasp Chanyeol’s hand and they both look at Junmyeon for confirmation.
“You’re both good boys. If we want Santa to put presents under the tree, we actually need a tree. Would you two good boys help me decorate our tree?”
Chanyeol shoots up right and runs over to the rack by the door, pulling down his scarf and wrapping it around his neck. “Can we go shopping now?
ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ °☆
They end up buying a good sized tree, twice the size of Chanyeol and Jongin, and they spend a quiet afternoon decorating it with all the little knick knacks that give a Christmas tree life.
They string blue tinsel all around the tree because Jongin said it reminded him of the sea when they saw it at the store, and Chanyeol almost fell over himself trying to get Junmyeon to add the tinsel into the cart.
As Christmas carols play and Chanyeol progressively gets more glitter on himself, the tree turns into a sight, blue and white baubles and snowflakes hanging among the twinkling lights. The tree is bottom heavy because that’s the only place that Chanyeol and Jongin can reach, but Junmyeon makes sure to ask for the two pups’ opinions on what should go where on the top layers to make it truly theirs.
“You ready to put the star on, little guy?” Junmyeon asks Chanyeol when they’ve deemed the tree properly decorated. It has always been tradition for Chanyeol to place the final star on the tree even when it was just the two of them helping the next door lady decorate her tree. Junmyeon has never bothered to get a tree before because they’ve always just spent Christmas at Yunho’s or Minseok’s or just some other friends’ house.
All three of them signed their names on their star this year, Chanyeol’s messy squiggle and Jongin’s doodle of a fish with ears right under Junmyeon’s neat print, so for the first time, they properly have a star. Their star .
“No!” Chanyeol says, and Junmyeon raises his eyebrows in surprise. “This year, we let Jongin do it.”
Jongin lets out a small gasp but holds out his hands for Junmyeon to lift him up. “I want to do it.” He’s become so much better at expressing what he wants, no longer painfully shy and keeping all his emotions bottled in. It’s a good thing that Chanyeol is getting better at indulging Jongin.
With Junmyeon holding him out Lion King-style, Jongin fixes the star on the tree and cheers, “Done!”
Chanyeol runs around the tree in his joy, almost tripping over his feet because he overhead Jongdae coo over “sweater paws” and is now obsessed with the idea of looking adorable in oversized sweaters, except he hasn’t quite grasped the concept of how to move around in a sweater too big. No one has the heart to tell him he just looks like a (cute) drowning pup.
“Our first tree," Jongin whispers, a little overwhelmed and a lot emotional. Safe in Junmyeon’s arms, he hugs him tighter and Chanyeol starts pawing at Junmyeon’s legs to be held too.
“Come here.” Junmyeon scoops Chanyeol up with a free arm and holds both pups close to him. “It’s time to take some family photos with our first tree.”
⁝⁝⸃₍⁽΄˙̥΄ ⁾₎⸜☂
The next weekend, Junmyeon suggests for them to bake cookies together.
“When Santa comes, we put out cookies and milk to welcome him,” Junmyeon explains, setting out the ingredients. “Chanyeol, don’t touch that-” Chanyeol shrinks back from the powdered sugar guiltily. “-so I thought we could try making them together.”
Together, they bake three batches of cookies, although it’s mostly Junmyeon doing all the work while Jongin hands over anything that Junmyeon asks for and Chanyeol gets a lot of sugar all over himself.
Junmyeon brings out animal shaped cookie cutters and lets them make any shape as they please. Jongin chooses to make a whole batch of differently sized puppies and Chanyeol grabs anything he can reach.
Chanyeol scrunches his nose in concentration at his newest creation, carefully breaking two animal shaped dough in half, then fusing half of a puppy with half of a fish tail. “Merpuppy!” He cheers triumphantly, and sends Jongin into a fit of giggles that sends his body shaking so hard, he almost flattens the elephant cookie in front of him.
Junmyeon manages to stop Jongin just in time when he tries to sneak a dollop of cookie dough into his mouth and the cookies go into the oven relatively unharmed, filling the whole house with a warm and inviting scent.
It’s a practice of self restraint from then on as Jongin and Chanyeol have to practically sit on their hands to stop reaching for the cookies while they cool down.
“What now?” Jongin asks, leaning on his tippy toes to peer at the cookies. That one lopsided puppy looks so delicious and surely Junmyeon wouldn’t notice if he just-
Junmyeon gently bats Jongin’s hand away. “We’ll put the cookies out and wait. But Santa won’t come if we don’t sleep. Let’s wash up and go to bed.”
Later, when all three of them are cuddled in bed and Jongin has his face mushed in Junmyeon’s neck, he whispers just loud enough for them to hear, “I’m so glad we’re together for Christmas.”
It takes much too long for Junmyeon to blink the sudden gush of emotional tears that comes to his eyes after that.
❄☃❄
Chanyeol wakes up much too warm, arms heavy around him and the gentle sounds of Junmyeon’s snores washing over him.
“Good morning, Junmyeon,” he murmurs, getting a grunt in return.
“Good morning, Jongin,” he says next but instead of the melodic reply he usually gets, he only hears Junmyeon making sleep sounds.
“Jongin?” Chanyeol rubs the sleep out of his eyes and looks around but Jongin is nowhere to be found.
Maybe Jongin went to the bathroom and he isn’t too good at being alone, so Chanyeol climbs down the bed and hurries to peep into the bathroom in case Jongin needs help.
He’s not there either, and Chanyeol’s pattering around while throwing open doors has awakened Junmyeon. Chanyeol naturally asks to be held and Junmyeon picks the pup up to continue their search of Jongin.
They look in the laundry room in case Jongin is sleeping in the laundry baskets again, in Jongin and Chanyeol’s shared room, and Chanyeol would’ve felt panic rising in his chest if it wasn’t for Junmyeon peppering soft kisses on the top of his head.
It’s when they go to the kitchen that Chanyeol notices something amiss.
“Junmyeon, look! Someone ate the cookies!” Where there were five cookies, now there are only two, cookie crumbs scattered around the plate that was pulled close to the edge of the table.
Junmyeon hides a knowing smile but wipes it away when Chanyeol looks up at him. “I wonder who it could be? Should we go look at the tree?”
“Santa? Santa!” Chanyeol yelps, wriggling around so hard Junmyeon has to tighten his hold. “Go, now! Hurry!”
*ଘ₍ᐢ•ﻌ•ᐢ₎ɞ* ੈ✩‧₊˚
Under the tree, there are no new presents and no Santa.
“Oh!” Chanyeol gasps, and Junmyeon sets him down so he can investigate.
Instead of more wrapped gifts or some reindeer antlers, there is one curled up puppy nestled among a mess of cookie crumbs.
“Jongin,” Chanyeol crawls close, close enough to gently bat his ears at Jongin’s cheeks and whispers. “What are you doing?”
Jongin rouses from his sleep slowly and yawns. There’s a smattering of sugar powder on his cheeks that Chanyeol just wants to lick away. “I wanted to see if Santa would come.”
“Santa didn’t come, I think.” He wipes the sugar powder away from Jongin’s cheeks, marveling at how large Jongin’s eyes look under his long, long lashes.
At that, Jongin’s ears droop, his forehead creasing and lips pulling into a pout. “I just thought…. Maybe, for my first Christmas…”
Chanyeol hastens to reach out to comb his fingers through Jongin’s matted fur on his ears, always ready to comfort Jongin whenever he’s sad. “But that’s okay. We’ve already received the best present of all.”
Jongin sniffs at him, cocking his head and looking like a picture of adorableness.
Chanyeol plucks a bow off the tree and carefully places it on Jongin’s now fluffy ear. “It’s you! You’re the best gift that came to us this year!”
“It’s me!” Jongin echoes in wonder. He takes the bow off his ears and grins as he puts it on Chanyeol’s head. “It’s you!”
“And Junmyeon,” Chanyeol adds and the two pups scamper to hug Junmyeon’s legs, pulling a laughing Junmyeon down until they’re all a giggling heap on the carpet, stealing kisses on each other’s cheeks.
This year will be a good Christmas indeed.