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Marinette held the cup of coffee close to her, hoping the heat would combat the New England cold. While she had been interning abroad with a fashion company for the better part of two years now, the bitter-cold winters still got to her.
Normally, this time of year she would be home to celebrate the holidays with her family. However, due to a snowstorm over the Atlantic that had suddenly hit while she was away on an employee holiday retreat, she was stuck in America for now. She was thankful that one of her co-workers, Juliana, had extended a welcome to her family’s bed and breakfast for those who were stuck.
So here she was — in a cozy bed and breakfast in a snowy Christmas New England town. She was surrounded by a beautiful forest covered in white.
It was like the beginning of the many Hallmark Christmas movies her co-worker Amy watched all the time. The beautiful New England backdrop, a festive town full of snow, twinkling lights everywhere. The town was bustling with the holiday spirit. Yet out at the bed and breakfast, the air was still. The snowflakes swirled in lazy spirals on their serene journey from sky to ground. Time seemed to stand still in the space between the trees that surrounded the building. By all accounts, it was magical... Or rather, it should be.
While she was facing the forest, Marinette found herself far away — back to where her heart was. Back to Paris, to her partner in crime, her best friend, her soulmate. As she traced the charm on the necklace he got her, she closed her eyes. She wondered what he could be up to. Was he just as sad as she was when he got the news that she was stuck so far away from home? She hadn’t heard from him in a few hours at this point.
It gave her heart no solace to be surrounded by her co-worker’s cheer. It felt more like salt on an open wound. Most of her co-workers had been able to still make some sort of plan to get home; it was only her and a handful of others that were really stuck in this picturesque bed and breakfast. While she did her best to hide her melancholy, everyone could tell her mind — her heart — ached to be elsewhere.
Marinette took a deep breath in — the coffee had a sweet, spiced, chocolatey taste added to it. She had a feeling her co-worker Juliana had a hand in that. A small smile spread across her face at the thought. She always loved the way Juliana made coffee. The warmth of her friend’s care made her feel just a little better.
“Marinette! Come join us,” said Anne, one of the other interns from Europe —London, to be exact . Marinette turned and saw her friends sitting around one of the parlor tables, various sewing supplies in the middle, which piqued her interest.
“What are you guys up to?” Marinette asked, making her way over.
“We figured since we’re all stuck here, we might as well make the best of it and do a gift exchange since it’s Christmas,” Juliana explained. Marinette couldn’t hide her curiosity as she sat down at the table.
“And since we can’t really go buy stuff on the day of, we figured we would try to make something for a white elephant exchange,” Cecil continued. Cecil was an eccentric man from the desert out west. She always admired his bold way of thinking and how he constantly challenged the perceived norm with his fashion.
“So, let me get this straight,” Marinette started, “we’re making gifts out of stuff we have, to do a gift exchange? Is the deadline Christmas day?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” Anne answered. “We know that only gives one day, but we figured that’s where the fun in this is. Plus, then we all have something to open on Christmas day.” She smiled sweetly at Marinette. It made her remember how much everyone else must be missing home, too.
Marinette shrugged, trying to hide the excitement she held at the idea of the challenge before her. “Okay, yeah. Count me in.”
Everyone wrote their names on a piece of paper and threw them in a Santa hat. After a very dramatic shaking of the hat, Cecil held it out for everyone to pick a name from. They all took turns drawing names. Marinette reached in. She discreetly unfolded the paper to see she had gotten Adeline’s name. She was the other student intern from Paris. Marinette smiled to herself as she knew exactly what she could make for her. After everyone had their names, each person went to work finding things around the bed and breakfast, and from their luggage to use.
Marinette quickly found herself consumed in the creative flow of her present making that she found the ache of her heart to be almost a whisper. It was never completely gone, but it wasn’t all-consuming anymore. She had taken a light blue sweater dress that she had just recently gotten and cut it apart. She used her travel sewing kit to repurpose it into a beautiful hat and matching scarf. Then she had found some embroidering floss that had been put on the table of supplies that the students were allowed to use for their gift exchange. Marinette spent the rest of the night hand embroidering familiar sites from her Parisian hometown. She had known that Adeline had grown up near the same area she was from. So she made sure to put a little bit of all the things she knew they both missed.
Once at a place she was satisfied with, she settled in for the night and set an alarm. The last piece of her present would be making pan au chocolate for Christmas breakfast.
Sleep came quickly for Marinette, but her dreams seemed intent on not letting her forget what, and whom, she was apart from. It was the first Christmas that she and her partner had been apart in almost 10 years, a fact that did not shake when she woke. Even before they had started dating, they at least got to see each other briefly on Christmas, always to exchange gifts, or to see a movie. Moving slowly with morning sleep, Marinette slipped out of bed and made her way down to the kitchen.
As she entered the kitchen, she noticed Juliana’s mother shuffling around to make various breakfast items.
“Good morning Marinette,” Juliana’s mom said, extending a mug of coffee to her.
“Good morning Ma’am, oh, thank you,” Mari replied.
“What are you doing up so early?” she was asked.
“Well, I wanted to help with making some pastries for this morning’s breakfast,” Mari explained. “My parents own a bakery, and we would always make some pain au chocolat together for Christmas morning.”
Juliana’s mom nodded her head and stepped aside, “the kitchen is all yours then,” she said, sweeping her arm toward the rest of the room.
With a smile, Marinette got to work. She hummed along with the Christmas songs that came from the radio. She even sang some of them. It was true that she was far from home, but if she closed her eyes, the smells of the baking and the coffee made her almost believe she was there. She knew that everyone would appreciate the special treat, which also helped to lift her own spirit.
After the pastries were in the oven, Marinette set the timer and went out into the parlor to meet with the others. The tree which had only a few presents under it the night before now had various piles under it. Marinette walked closer and smiled. As she got closer, she noticed the names on the presents. One had “Cecil” scrawled in a curled script. Another had “Anne” and one wrapped in a light gold wrapping said “Marinette”. She noticed that there were several presents wrapped for each of the stranded students.
Marinette couldn’t help but smile at the kindness. Juliana’s dad came up, his own cup of coffee in his hands. “We couldn’t let you all have nothing to open today, so we went out and got a few things.” He smiled and looked down at her.
Marinette finished making her pastries just as the last of her co-workers woke up. Bringing the pastries into the parlor, she joined everyone else. As Juliana’s father passed around presents, everyone sat in the parlor and enjoyed Christmas morning chatter, coffee, and pastries.
The presents from Juliana’s parents were kind, and an attempt at personalization, but were a band-aid on the hurt that Marinette knew her other co-workers were feeling as well. They all may have been sitting there, but her heart was still back home. Her hand reached up for the pendant necklace she always wore. Just tracing it with her thumb brought her a little comfort.
“Why don’t we exchange our secret Santa gifts?” Anne asked. She reached down for a wrapped box at her feet and smiled. All the other student interns also grabbed their gifts. “Okay,” Anne started, “My gift is for Cecil.”
As everyone exchanged gifts and smiles, Marinette got up and brought hers over to Adeline. Adeline’s face lit up at the repurposed scarf covered in small pictures of home. The two Parisians shared a small look before Adeline pulled her quickly into a hug.
Marinette sat back down and Juliana placed a small Tupperware box in her lap. Marinette raised an eyebrow and looked down at it. Juliana just smiled and nodded. Skeptical, she carefully opened the container. Inside sat a sandwich.
“What is this?” Marinette asked.
“A fluffernutter,” Juliana replied.
“A what?”
Juliana laughed. “A fluffernutter. It is a sandwich. It is peanut butter and marshmallow fluff, and sometimes people add stuff, like bananas.”
“So… this is peanut butter and marshmallow,” Marinette stated, in a way that almost made it a question.
“And bananas,” Juliana concluded.
“Why did you add bananas?”
Juliana looked at her necklace, at the sandwich, and back at Marinette’s face. “I was under the impression you like bananas. You always wear that necklace after all,”
“Oh, this! My boyfriend back home gave it to me, it is sort of an inside joke we have...about the sort of first time we met.” Marinette explained, her voice getting slightly quieter with each word as she reminisced.
“Well,” Juliana said, “that sandwich isn’t all, and it is a little bit of a present for everyone, but I need you all to follow me.”
They got up and all moved toward the front of the building. As they got to the front door, Juliana’s parents started to hand out their jackets. Marinette couldn’t help the fluttering of curiosity that sparked in her stomach. She wondered along with her co-workers what it could be. As they all stepped out into the crisp bright snow, Marinette couldn’t help but squint.
She couldn’t believe her eyes when they adjusted to the light, there at the end of the driveway, were so many people; everyone’s families were there. She saw Cecil’s Uncles and Anne’s parents. She saw Adeline’s husband too. And there at the end of the row of people, there stood her Banana Noir. He stood with a giant candy cane with lights wrapped around his head.
Marinette ran as fast as she could through the snow. It had been a few years since Hawkmoth’s defeat, so she hadn’t seen Adrien as her Banana Noir in some time. She felt her heart flutter and her cheeks redden as she collided with his arms.
“Adrien,” she laughed, “what are you even doing here?”
“I came to see you, My Lady. You couldn’t come home for Christmas, so we came to you.”
“You got everyone together?” she asked. “But the snowstorm…”
Adrien chuckled, his voice muffled by the banana suit. “The storm had left up enough to fly to the states on the day after your party, but you guys had been snowed in. So I called up Adeline’s family, and Anne’s, and we figured where Cecil’s were and we all made it out here.”
A wave of happiness shook through her again as a few tears rolled down her cheeks. She couldn’t help but be moved by Adrien’s thoughtfulness. The fact that he made sure that not just she, but all of her co-workers who were also stuck, had their family to be with just warmed her heart. She pulled him into a hug and thought back on how such a moment in a beautiful setting really was like one from a Hallmark movie. Maybe there was some truth to those movies after all.