This was originally a contest
entry for a Christmas contest,
so I wanted to also post it here
instead of just my Treehouses
book because I wanted to make
it longer and into a reader
insert for you lovely people!
This is slightly inspired by the
Misfit Christmas videos. Merry
Christmas/Happy Holidays!
Word Count: 2830
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It was that time of year again, the time when it starts getting colder and colder, snow was falling, and everyone starts becoming cheery and merry.

But not Y/N, she on the other hand was always alone on this dreadful holiday, she had no family left to be around, no friends, making her holidays worse when she sees everyone happy with their family or friends.

It was currently December twenty-fifth, Christmas Day, and Y/N was aimlessly searching for an open restaurant to get something to eat when she spotted the flashing neon of the open sign above Denny's.

Y/N shuffled her feet quicker as she hurried to get into the warmth of the heated Denny's and get her some nice warm food to eat in the basically empty restaurant.

The little ding of the bell above the door made her turn her head to it before walking to the front counter to order her food.

"Merry Christmas, what can I get you?" Says the cheerful voice of the male cashier.

"Oh uh, you too, I want two grilled cheese, some fries, and a coca-cola please." Y/N mumbles out quickly.

"Alright. Have a seat and I'll bring your food to your table." He replies as he eyes the girl suspiciously.

She takes the seat farthest from any people and near a window so she can look out at the snow falling and accumulating on the ground.

Lost in her own thoughts she didn't hear the bell ringing on the door as a group of rambunctiously loud men made their way into the restaurant, dusting the snow off their coats as they approached the counter.

All the noise intrigued Y/N and caught her attention, she was now watching the group as a tall curly haired man with his hair pulled back into a bun suddenly shouts, "Yo Joe! Where are you buddy?"

The voice of the man who took her order calls from the restaurant's kitchen, "Hold on James! I have an order and then I'm free but we should eat first!"

"Fine we'll get a table then!" The man she now knows as James replies before the group start searching for a table.

Hannah has one of her headphones in blasting Yule Shoot Your Eye Out by Fall Out Boy as she hums along with the song, averting her attention back to the snow so they hopefully don't notice her.

"Merry Christmas, I could care less." Hannah sings to herself quietly as she listens to the song.

The group of men would, of course, choose to sit at a table right behind hers so she had to be near them and be reminded that she was alone on yet another Christmas.

Staring out of the window the sound of the plates clanking against the table make Y/N jump and snap her attention towards the waiter she knew as Joe.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." Joe says sheepishly as he sat down all of her food and drink in front of her.

"Oh, it's no big deal I scare easily. Thank you for the food." Y/N mumbles quietly before starting to eat her food.

Joe then slides into the booth behind her with his friends, before they all call out, "Joe! Finally."

"Hey guys, so after we eat are we going to meet up with the others or are we going to see the lights?" Joe asks them curiously.

"We're meeting them to exchange presents, then we are going to see the lights afterwards." The blonde male speaks up.

"Sounds good to me." Joe replies.

Suddenly the curly haired man she knew as James whispers in a voice he thought she couldn't hear to Joe, "Is that girl completely alone on Christmas?"

That made the pit in her stomach grow as she stuffed her food in her mouth quicker, wanting to leave and get as far away as possible.

"I think so. She came in alone." Joe whispers back quietly.

Y/N sinks in her seat as she listens to the grown men whispering about her behind her back as she sat right there near them.

James then sighs audibly before whispering, "Would it be strange to invite her to join us? No one should be alone on Christmas."

At the sound of that Y/N feels her heart racing, were these men actually thinking of inviting her to join them to make her Christmas day better?

"Do it. Even if she says no at least we tried." The blonde whispers back.

James then stood from the booth and walks around to the table Y/N was at, sliding into the seat in front of her before clearing his throat, causing her to look up at him.

"Excuse me, but would you want to join me and my group of friends to spend Christmas with us? No one deserves to be alone on Christmas." James says earnestly as he looks into her E/C eyes.

"I... Uh, you would really be okay with a stranger joining you for Christmas?" Y/N says in shock as she looks into his brown eyes.

"Please join us! We don't bite!" Says the voice of Joe from the table behind her.

That caused her to laugh as she looked between James and the other men behind her, "Okay, sure, I'll join you guys. Thank you for inviting me to join, I would have just went back home alone after this so I really appreciate it."

"Come sit with us, my name is James. It's nice to meet you." He replies with a smile as he helps her move her food to their table.

"I'm Y/N, it's nice to meet all of you." She says with a smile as she sits next to Joe, in the seat across from James.

"I'm Aleks." Says the blonde man.

"And that is Trevor, Joe, and Asher over there." Aleks continues saying, pointing to each one as he says their name.

It's strange how a bunch of strangers could completely change your day with one kind action, these men made Y/N a little less of a Christmas Grinch this year.

"It's really nice to meet all of you." Y/N says honestly as she finishes what little she had left on her plate, sipping her drink afterwards.

"If everyone is done then we can head out and get to the house to exchange gifts and then we can go to look at the Christmas lights." Aleks says to the group.

Everyone nodded that they were done before everyone filed out of the booth, exiting the restaurant and walking into the snowy weather outside before Y/N follows them to their cars.

"You can ride with me if you'd like, I'm the only one who has space in my car." James tells her as he motions to his car.

"Alright, thank you James." Y/N says with a smile as she walks around to the passenger side where James waited.

James opens the passenger side door for her, waiting until she got in the car to shut the door behind her, a kind smile on his face as he walked around to his own door, getting in the car after.

Once they all start up their cars they drive to Anna's house which didn't take very long for them to get there from Denny's, pulling into the driveway before getting out of the cars.

Everyone then makes their way to the door before James knocks on it a few times, a smiling brown haired woman opening the door quickly after.

"Finally you're here!" The woman says as she looks at them all, motioning them to come in.

Once inside the door James says, "Yeah we picked up a new friend at Denny's, we didn't want to let her have Christmas alone. Her name is Y/N, Y/N this is Anna, and I'll introduce you to the rest of them when we get in there."

"It's nice to meet you Anna!" Y/N says with a smile as she takes off her coat.

"It's nice to meet you too!" Anna replies before they walk into the living room where everyone else was.

"So your costumes are right here, and we luckily have an extra elf costume that Y/N can wear!" Anna replies as she points to the table.

"A Christmas costume party? I'm in! This is gonna be fun." Y/N says with a smile as she takes one of the elf costumes.

Everyone who hasn't put their costume on tosses them over their clothes before Jakob asks, "So is anyone gonna introduce us?"

"Yeah yeah, hold on, I was getting my costume on. But guys this is Y/N, Y/N this is Lindsey, Jakob, and Brett." James replies as he points to each of the remaining three people in the room.

Trevor comes walking back into the room dressed up as Santa, "Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas! Come sit on ol' Santa's lap and come get your presents."

James shrugs his shoulders and laughs a bit, waiting until Trevor is seated before jumping into his lap, "What do you got for me Santa?"

Everyone else sits cross-legged around the chair near the Christmas tree as Lindsey brings glasses of hot chocolate to each of them, Y/N taking hers happily before sipping it.

"Here you go young boy, open it up." Trevor says as he hands a bag of things to James who was seated in his lap.

James tears the bag open before pulling out A Charlie Brown Christmas vinyl with a laugh, holding it up to show everyone what it was.

"We're gonna play some Christmas music in here." Trevor says as he points to the vinyl, "The old fashioned way."

James then pulls out a record player from the bag, "You shouldn't have."

"Nooo I should have." Trevor says with a laugh.

James then takes it out and plugs it in, Trevor places the vinyl on the record player before getting down on the floor and staring at it.

"I used to use this all the time, don't worry." Trevor says as he starts to play the music.

"You're playing it the wrong speed, Santa." Brett says with a chuckle.

Trevor fiddles around with the record player a little bit more before he finally gets it playing the proper way, looking at all his friends around him.

"Happy Christmas guys." Trevor says as he starts shaking everyone's hand that was sitting on the floor.

"Happy Christmas, Santa." They all reply with a laugh, shaking his hand.

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Awhile later that night after everyone had finished giving gifts to each other, still in their costumes, they piled into a few cars to go out and drive through a Christmas light show.

In Brett's car with him was Joe, Lindsey, and Anna, then trailing behind them in Aleks' car with him were Asher, Trevor, and Jakob, leaving Y/N and James to ride behind them in his car.

After each of them pulled up to the gate to pay they drove through an arch that said 'Fantasy of Lights' before going through another arch that was red and white, striped like a candy cane.

On their left is a group of penguins, and to their right are reindeer pulling a sleigh, excitedly Y/N taps James' shoulder, "Look at the penguins!"

With a chuckle James looks back over at the penguins again, smiling slightly as he says, "They look really cute with their little hats on."

As they continue driving through the lights Y/N is completely lost in them, loving looking at all the different little random lights they had in the light show.

James just watched her watching the lights quietly, smiling as he saw how beautiful and happy she looked in that moment, watching the way her eyes twinkled as the lights flashed colors.

Something about this girl had caught his eye the minute he walked into that restaurant, and he knew that he needed to have her in his life because he hasn't felt anything much like this for anyone in a long time.

Coming up to a tunnel of lights flashing all kinds of different colors Y/N slightly gasps a little as she looks at them, "Wow, they're so pretty!"

"You're so pretty." James thought, stopping himself before the words came out, his eyes still on her, "They really are."

Once they exit the tunnel of lights they loop back around until they're at the beginning again before all three cars follow the others to a parking lot to regroup.

Everyone climbs out of the cars and into the cold before giving each other hugs, including everyone hugging Y/N as well.

"Thank you guys so much for inviting me, I had an amazing time." Y/N says as she hugs them.

"It's no problem! You're a really cool gal, you're gonna have to start hanging around us bunch of crazies." Brett says with a chuckle as he hugs her.

"I'd like that a lot! You guys and girls are a lot of fun to be around." Y/N says with a smile.

"James is driving you home right? Cause if not I can drop you off so you don't have to walk in this weather." Aleks asks her curiously.

"Yeah I'm driving her home, it would be a bit of a dick move if I invited her to join us, brought her with us and then just made her walk home in the snow." James says with a laugh as he shakes his head.

They all part ways back to the car they were previously in before going in different directions to take everyone home for the night as Y/N gave James her address.

Her apartment isn't a very far drive from the light show, so it doesn't take them but twenty minutes until James is pulling into her driveway and parking the car, "This seems to be your stop."

"Thank you for everything James, I really had a fun time today." Y/N says as she smiles over at him in the driver seat.

"I had fun too, and you're welcome to join us and hang out with us anytime you want. I'll give you my number." James says before searching for a pen in his car.

Y/N grabs her phone out of her pocket and opens it up to contacts before handing it to James, "Just put it in there it'll be easier than searching for something to write with."

"Thank you Y/N." James says before putting his number in along with a contact name before sending a text to himself so he could also save her number.

James then hands her back her phone, "Oh and before you go, I have something for you."

"Really? What's that?" Y/N questions as she tilts her head a bit to the side.

With a sly smirk on his face, he grabs a wrapped rectangular box with a ribbon tied around it as he sits in in her lap, "It's a surprise, you have to open it."

Excitedly she tears the wrapping off of the gift before opening up the plain white box underneath the paper, once she opens the box she removes the tissue paper to reveal a red Christmas sweater with cows, butcher knifes, and Christmas trees on it.

"I know it's nothing special, but it's one of our Cow Chop Christmas sweaters. I wanted you to at least get something for Christmas since you didn't get anything when we did the gift exchange earlier." James says as he smiles at her.

"I love it James, thank you so much! You made my Christmas so much better." Y/N says happily as she reaches over to hug him.

"You're welcome Y/N, Merry Christmas." James says as he hugs her back, a bigger smile making it's way onto his cheeks.

"Merry Christmas James." Y/N says before she kisses his cheek as the hug ends.

James can feel his cheeks heat up in the dark car, his cheek tingling as he blinks a few times, "What was that for?"

"That was your Christmas gift from me, since I didn't get you anything and you gave me an amazing sweater." Y/N says with a smile, "I better get going in, it's getting late and I'm pretty tired."

"Have a nice night Y/N." James says as he watches her open the car door and step out of the car.

"You too, James." Y/N says with a wave before she hurries to her door and unlocks it before going inside.

James sits there staring at her front door for a few minutes as he touches his fingertips to his cheek that was still tingling from the feeling of her lips before he finally pulls out of the driveway and heads home himself.

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