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“And-and then I opened the calendar! And it was a picture of a snowman!” Hamish, 4 years old, stood beside John in the kitchen. The Doctor was at the sink washing up after breakfast while Sherlock was in the shower. Hamish’s little hand was gripped on John’s jeans.
“A snowman? That’s cool! Do you remember when me, you, and papa made a snowman last year?” John smiled fondly down at his and Sherlock’s little firecracker of a son. His curly blonde hair was constantly messy recently, the child ‘too busy for a hairbrush, daddy’, and it shook as he nodded excitedly.
“Yeah! And papa fell in the snow and you and me tickled him! Maybe this year Lottie can play too!” Hamish smiled.
Their youngest, Lottie, had been a newborn last Christmas. Now she had just turned one and Hamish was absolutely thrilled as she began walking and playing more. She was currently sat in her bouncing chair in front of Pingu in the living room.
“Yeah, maybe! Why don’t you go and watch telly with her while I finish up here? And we are going to go and get our Christmas Tree soon! Won’t that be fun?”
“Yeah! But daddy, I don’t want to watch telly! I want to be with you!” Hamish gave him those big wide eyes that John couldn’t say no to.
“Want to dry some plates for me?” John put a tea towel and a plastic peppa pig plate into his son’s hands.
Hamish grinned and tried his best to help his daddy, feeling very old and important that he was doing a chore.
“Ah! Darlings!” Sherlock strode into the kitchen dressed in his suit, a wine red shirt on today which was about as festive as Sherlock Watson-Holmes got.
“Papa! I’m helping daddy! I’m doing the drying!” Hamish beamed up at him.
“Good boy. So helpful.” Sherlock ran a hand through Hamish’s curls then pressed a kiss to John’s cheek “Nearly ready to go?”
“Mhmm, five minutes! Go get Lottie ready.” John smiled, turned his head to kiss his husband on the mouth.
Sherlock, in his usual whirlwind manner, left the room and John couldn’t contain his smile at hearing the great detective doting on their daughter as he dressed her in the reindeer fleece onesie Molly had bought for her last week.
They’d rented a car for the day – a jeep. John plugged Lottie into her car seat while Sherlock sorted Hamish out. The boy was absolutely beside himself with excitement, he had a Santa hat on and was excitedly kicking the back of the front passenger seat with his Marvel trainers that flashed red every time he did.
“Someone is excited.” John smiled across as Sherlock struggled with the plug and his wiggling son.
“We can get a really big tree, daddy! Big as the ceiling!” Hamish grinned.
“Perhaps not that big, sweetheart – we need to put the star on top.” John smiled fondly and shut the door. He got into the passenger seat, Sherlock was the driver of the two.
Hamish continued to tap his feet against his seat until John turned around “Don’t kick my chair, poppet.”
“Sorry, daddy.” Hamish jutted his bottom lip out which earned him a hair ruffle from Sherlock before the man shut the door and got into the driver seat.
“All ready?” John asked.
He got a squeal from Lottie and a cheer from Hamish and the car pulled away from the kerb.
Arriving at the pop up Christmas Tree Shop, Hamish had his face glued to the window. The venue was outdoors and there were row upon row of trees of all sorts of styles and sizes.
“Look!” Hamish tapped the window.
“I know! So many trees! One of them will be ours!”
“Can I pick it, daddy?”
“Of course! Me and papa will have final say though – it needs to be the right size for the living room.” John reached back and tickled Hamish’s knee.
Once they’d parked up and got out the car, Lottie in John’s arms and Hamish on Sherlock’s shoulders (it was apparently the best viewpoint, according to the young boy), the family of four went through the entrance and wondered around.
Hamish wanted almost every tree he saw.
“We can’t have all of them, darling.” Sherlock said.
Hamish leant forward on the back of Sherlock’s head and sighed “What about a big one?”
“How about a 6 foot one? That’ll be as tall as papa!” John smiled up at him.
“Tall as papa!?” Hamish gasped excitedly.
“Indeed. Will that be tall enough for you?” Sherlock asked.
“Yes! Yes!” Hamish wiggled excitedly and John made a beeline for the 6ft tree section, bouncing his little girl as he walked which made her giggle.
After picking and paying for the best tree there (according to Hamish - Sherlock and John bit their tongues when they saw a lack of branches on one side because their son was so taken with it), one of the assistants put it through the netting tube and carried it to the jeep for them.
Sherlock stood aside with one child on each hip and watched as John and the man tied it to the roof.
“That’s brilliant, thanks mate!” John shook the man’s hand once it was secure.
“Come along then, let’s take it home and get to decorating.” Sherlock surged forward, he enjoyed the decorating process a lot – mostly because he always enjoyed seeing his children being creative.
In the car, Sherlock leaned over to John and whispered "You looked so sexy lifting the tree onto the roof."
"Oh really?" John quirked an eyebrow and watched Sherlock from the corner of his eye.
"Oh yes, with your arms and your muscles... just beautiful."
John chuckled and turned to give Sherlock a brief kiss "It's not the only thing I'll be lifting today."
"I look forward to it." Sherlock pressed one more kiss to John's lips then pulled away as Hamish loudly declared "Papa drive! We have to take the tree home!"
"Well aren't you a bossy-boots today." Sherlock looked at his son in a mirror.
"Of course he is. He's your son." John laughed.
"Your son, Mr No-pudding-unless-the-broccoli-is-eaten." Sherlock exclaimed, referencing last night's dinner argument between John and Hamish.
"Well then he had no chance. Double bossy equals bossy."
"Indeed." Sherlock reversed out of the parking space and sped off towards home.
Arriving back at Baker Street was a bit of a mission. They had to take the children in and have Mrs Hudson mind them while they returned to the car to attempt to get the tree down and upstairs.
"Pull it, Sherlock!"
"I am pulling it, John! Push it harder, a branch has escaped the net and is caught in a bannister rail."
"Well just wiggle it left! No- your left!"
"How am I to know it was my left? People usually refer to their own left!"
Hamish watched in wonder as his parents lifted the tree into the stand, removed the netting, and turned it to an angle where the bare back was facing the wall.
"We can do the lights now, and the baubles after lunch." John suggested.
Twirling lights around the tree took about twice as long as it should have because Lottie kept stealing them and tangling them up.
"Oh, darling! If you keep tying these in knots we'll never get this done." John sighed as he picked her up and watched Sherlock tackle the job of untangling.
Eventually it was done, but to say that Hamish was impatient to bauble up the tree was an understatement. The boy left the kitchen table three times during lunch, and three times Sherlock carried him back to his chair.
“But papa! I want to put the bobbles on!” Hamish cried, big tears welling up.
“Baubles, Hamish. And you can, but after lunch. The tree isn’t going anywhere.” He assured him and gestured at the plate for Hamish to return to.
John put Christmas music on the radio and pulled out the boxes of decorations for them all.
Lottie sat at John’s hip and touched some of the branches curiously. “Snow is falling… All around us…” John sang quietly into her ear as she touched the tinsel, mesmerised.
Hamish danced around the tree putting the baubles on, with Sherlock following behind and readjusting them so they wouldn’t fall off the branches, and John watched as his oldest decorated the tree with the same approach he had for everything in life: with excitement and wonderment. And the Doctor took a moment to treasure the sight of it. He hoped Hamish always felt this wonder.
After dinner, with lights and baubles and tinsel covering most surfaces of the home as well as the tree, Sherlock and John lay on the sofa with Hamish and Lottie in their arms. The two children were sleeping on their chests, exhausted from the day.
“I think we did a good job.” John said as he looked at the glow of the tree, basking in the warmth it gave the room.
“Mmm… Disguising the bald patch wasn’t as hard as we thought.” Sherlock smirked and pressed a kiss to John’s temple.
They were silent for a few minutes.
“Thanks for this.” Sherlock whispered.
“For what?” John tilted his chin up to look at his husband.
“For giving me this life. This family. You are the greatest gift to ever walk into my life.” Sherlock’s heart was all over his face, in his expressions and the eyes that bore into John’s own.
John pressed his lips to Sherlock’s softly before saying “Thank you too.” They rested their foreheads together and stayed like that for a while longer. Basking in the glow of the tree and their cosy little family too.