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Nik’s favorite holiday is Christmas. It’s the day of the year when he got to shower his favorite people with gifts and attention and they couldn’t complain, he was just so full of love. He also loved that it’s a full day of family time and very very good food. He loved many things about Christmas, but his favorite was gift giving. He spent weeks scheming and theorizing about the perfect gifts and greatly relished in his giftee’s surprise and joy every single year.
This year, he had gotten all of his shopping done early and he had sequestered himself in the guest bedroom all morning on Christmas Eve to wrap presents and was very firm on “no peeking”, much to Price’s and their daughter Nina’s dismay. He may or may not have given her a hint about some of her gifts, he finds it very hard to say no to her. He did make her swear she wouldn’t tell John about it though.
“Papa, you have to come out soon! Aunt Kate, Mila, and Charlie will be here soon!” A small voice, most definitely belonging to their daughter, piped up from outside the guest room door. For a 10 year old, she had a set of lungs on her - she fully took after John in that aspect.
“Hold on, I’ll be out in a second,” he said back. “Don’t you dare peek when I open this door. I’m keeping these gifts safe for Santa.”
“I’m not little anymore, I know about Santa”, Nina giggled and pulled the door open. She came into the room and started to climb onto Nik’s back, slinging her little arms around his neck to gain traction. He smiled and put the last piece of tape on his final present. Reaching an arm back behind him, he grabbed her leg and pulled her out from behind him and hung her upside down for a moment, inciting vicious giggles from the girl, before setting her down on the bed in front of him.
“You are my little smart one, but Ded Moroz will give you coal if you don’t listen to me and peek.” he said, grinning at Nina as she pondered whether it was worth it to try to look at her gifts early.
“Nina, Nik, come on out of there! Kate and Mila just pulled into the driveway!”John's voice floated in from the kitchen and pulled Nina out of her decision fog. She immediately sprang through the doorway and ran to the front door. Nik just laughed and followed her out, she always wanted to be the first person to greet guests, even when she was just a toddler. She got especially excited when Charlie came to visit with his moms, which was often. The two of them got along swimmingly and the adults didn’t have the heart to keep them apart for long.
John was pulling the wine out from the fridge when Nik came up behind him and wrapped his arms around his middle, burying his nose in John’s neck.
“Dinner smells lovely”, Nik murmured, content to just stay like this for the rest of the evening.
“We’ll never eat any of it if you keep holding onto me”, Nik could feel John laugh as he tried to untangle himself from Nik, bottles of wine in hand.
Nik groaned and blocked from shooting back a retort by Nina opening the front door and Charlie sprinting inside, his moms coming inside behind him at a much more relaxed pace. The two kids immediately booked it to the trampoline that they had in their backyard and all of the adults could hear them screeching in delight.
“Good to know that they’ll tire themselves out tonight”, Kate remarked as she took off her coat and hung it over, turning to her wife to help her take her coat off as well. Mila gave her a quick peck and placed the two bottles of red that they brought over with them on the counter.
“Would you believe me if I told you that he wanted to run here from our house?” Mila sighed and sank down onto one of the couches in front of their Christmas tree in the living room. The tall tree (that Nik totally didn’t cut down in the woods behind their house) took up a quarter of their living room and thus far, only had twinkling Christmas lights covering the branches. Boxes of ornaments sat in front of the tree, waiting for the 6 of them to decorate it to their hearts’ content.
Nik scoffed at the mental image of little Charlie running to their house the entire way from the Laswell’s house across their neighborhood. His thinking was interrupted by John placing a glass of red in his hand as Kate walked over to Mila with their glasses of red and white, joining her on the couch. John and Nik joined them, only after John put a cheese board on the coffee table for the 4 of them to enjoy.
“Maybe you should’ve let him run, good for the body”, Nik said matter of factly, taking a sip.
Kate rolled her eyes and smiled, “It’s 20 degrees out Nik. Fahrenheit. And snowing. We can’t let him do that! He’s also ten.”
“What? He’s tall for his age. They’re jumping around outside in that temperature now, it’s good for the immune system.”
“Cultural differences, my love”, John bumped his shoulder, reaching in front of him for a snack. “And I’m sure they’ll get chilly and come inside at any moment.”
As if he had willed it, the back door flew open and two snow covered kids came slogging inside, looking very ready for some hot chocolate and to sit by the fire. Kate was right, they were all tuckered out and after shucking their coats off in the mud room and getting a cup of hot chocolate, Nina crawled onto the couch and nestled herself between her dads, leaning up against Nik. Charlie sat on the floor between Kate’s legs with a blanket around his shoulders and she mindlessly carded her fingers through his hair as the adults all caught up with each other, kids dozing off as they chatted.
The kids finally woke up in time for dinner to be ready and everyone got settled at the dining room table. John had been a magician in the kitchen and had whipped up a delicious Christmas ham, which was demolished in about ten minutes. One of Nik’s favorite parts of Christmas was to watch John do what he truly enjoys: cooking. After he had finally retired from 141 (very much at Nik and Kate’s insistence), he had gotten stir crazy and drove Nik up a wall until Nik came home from work one day and slid a cookbook across the counter in front of him. Nik just knew that John needed something to channel his unending energy into, especially before they had Nina, but he didn’t predict how much John would become passionate about cooking. So much so that prior to big dinners, Nik and Nina were banned from the kitchen because John always complained that the two of them were always exactly where he didn’t need them to be. Nik didn’t mind, more than anything he was ecstatic to sit back and watch John enjoy himself.
After dinner, Nina and Charlie were once again full of energy and had waited, not so patiently, for dinner to finish and even cleared the dishes from the table in record time, just so they could get to their favorite part of the evening - decorating the tree. Nina grabbed John’s hand and led him quite forcefully towards the tree, Charlie doing the same to Kate - each wanting to be the first to start hanging ornaments. Nik and Mila were never part of the esteemed helping crew.
Mila was assigned to the couch not by Charlie, but rather by Kate’s competitive nature and her desire to take charge. Mila didn’t mind though, she fully enjoyed sitting back and watching the flurry of activity around her.
Nik, however, was firmly assigned to the observation team by Nina. She often complained that “Papa, you have no design skills! You can’t put orange lights on the tree, it isn’t Halloween!”. He was swiftly kicked out of the design team after that and relegated by his little girl to just watch from the couch. He didn’t mind at all, he honestly preferred to be able to watch his favorite people spend time all together.
The rest of the evening went by in a blur. John had helped Nina compare the ornaments and pick the best ones for each branch. Kate carried Charlie on her shoulders as he strung lights around the tree. Mila tried, unsuccessfully, to provide some design direction. Nina made it very clear that she was the one in charge. For the final piece, the star, John and Kate held both of the kids up high so they could place it atop the tree together.
And nothing made Nik happier than a small, proud voice asking, “do you like it, Papa?”