I wake up from someone nuzzling up against my shoulder, hands tangled up in my hair.

“Hazzie?”, Jonah whispers, “Get up with me? It’s Christmas.”

I chuckle lowly and open my eyes, having a look at the clock. Luckily, it’s already eight am so he didn’t wake us up too early.

“Mhmh, give me a minute, yeah?”

He nods and climbs over me, knocking his knee into every part of my body so that it feels like I just got beaten up when he arrives on Louis’ side.

“Daddy”, he says, shaking Louis shoulder, “Wanna get the presents.”

Louis opens one eye slightly and smiles before closing it again. “In a minute.”

Jonah whines. “You adults are all the same. Always in a minute.”

I chuckle and pull him in for a hug. “Good morning my love, merry Christmas.”

“Morning.” He kisses my cheek. “Merry Christmas my Hazzie, get presents with me?”

I nod and sit up, patting Louis shoulder softly so he finally opens his eyes. “Go wake the others up”, I tell Jonah and he runs off to knock on the other two doors as well.

I lay down again, pulling Louis in for a hug. “Good morning, baby. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas”, he mumbles between kisses he presses all over my face, “I love you.”

“And I love you.”
He sits up now, trying to get used to the light that’s coming from the hallway. “If you got me a present, I’ll kill you.”

I don’t say anything. I didn’t get him anything expansive, just something that has a meaning to it and I really hope he’ll like it anyways.

We quickly head to the bathroom to at least brush our teeth before Jonah comes running back.

“The others are already downstairs, lets go!”

We follow him down the stairs, telling him to slow down because it looks like he’ll fall down any seconds but he makes it to the living room safely.

Louis insists he says Merry Christmas to everyone first and as he looks into his stocking, us others are hugging, celebrating the morning with a lot of ‘I love you’s and Merry Christmas’s.

Mum insisted us others hung up stockings as well so we all head to the fireplace to see what she filled them with. There are a lot of sweets in each of the adults’ ones and she even put in some money.

“Thank you, mum”, I whisper when Jonah isn’t listening and press a kiss to the top of her head.

“I got a T-rex”, Jonah shouts and waves the little figure through the air, “Santa’s the best.”

After emptying the stockings, Jonah sits down under the tree, searching for the presents wrapped in wrapping paper with cats on them because he’s sure those have to belong to him.

We all watch him happily and it’s adorable, the way he impatiently rips open every present and cheers over every new toy he receives.

“Best Christmas ever”, he says after having unwrapped all of his presents and looks at his toys fondly, “Hazzie, you gonna play with me later?”

I nod before kneeling down beside him. “There are still some presents left, want to figure out who they are for with me?”

He nods and pulls out the first package under the tree. “A”, he starts reading the little name tag, “N, N, E. Anne?”

“Very good, honey, go give it to her, will you?”

He nods and walks over to mum who’s sitting on the couch, watching us all fondly.

I take the moment to take in the atmosphere, Louis smiling at me in adoration, Tyler and Gemma cuddling on the couch, watching Mum unwrap the present we got her.

Robin is standing next to her, smiling proudly and ruffling Jonah’s hair once.

It’s cloudy and cold outside but the fireplace lets the whole living room warm up, candles are lit and there’s a mistletoe hung up above the door.

“Oh”, mum says, “Thank you! You really didn’t have to.”

She hugs every single one of us and I inspect the weird cooking device Gemma got mum, I don’t even know what we gifted her and what’s so special about it, but she seems to like it.

Me and Jonah sit down in front of the sofa again, the other five wait for us to find the next present to hand out.
“That letter I don’t know”, Jonah says and points to the ‘R’.

After having handed presents to Robin, Gemma and Tyler, there are two packages and envelopes left under the tree.
I know what two are filled with.

“Take those two first”, I say and hand Jonah the two envelopes.

“L”, he says, “Louis. Daddy, for you.”

Louis takes the envelope and reads the card before thanking mum and Robin for the card and money.

“You really didn’t have to”, he says.

“We’re sorry we couldn’t get you anything more personal”, mum says, “We didn’t really know what you needed.”

“I do indeed need money”, Louis says and we all chuckle before Jonah reads out the name of the last envelope, “Harry.”

I smile and take it even though I already know what it is going to be. They’ve gifted me a coupon for the same trip for years now and I love it.

The tradition started about four years ago and since then we went to the same hotel at the seaside every summer, Gemma got the same thing for her and Robin as well.

This time one thing is different though.

“Room for three”, is written at the bottom and I smile before handing the coupon to Louis so he can read it and hugging mum and Robin afterwards.

“I suppose the rest is for those two”, Mum says and waves her hand between Jonah and Louis, “I’ll leave you three alone then, need to prepare breakfast so we can all eat later.”

Robin nods and follows her while Gemma and Tyler stay on the couch, lost in their own world so it’s basically only us three left.

“I first”, Jonah says and runs over to the commode, opening one drawer and pulling out something, I can’t quite make out what it’s supposed to be.

“There”, he says when he sits down and puts down three bracelets in the middle of the little circle we formed.

“One for daddy, one for me, one for Hazzie. Anne helped me do them. We made daddy’s in blue like his eyes and Harry’s in green and mine in turquoise because it’s a mix.”

I usually don’t cry easily, but seeing his eyes shine when he tells us that, something about how much effort he put into this, makes a tear run down my cheek.

Jonah looks at me with big eyes, moving closer so he can wipe away the tear with his tiny fingers and I really need to concentrate on not crying even more.

“Hazzie, why are you sad?”

I chuckle and kiss his forehead. “I’m not sad, baby, I’m so happy. So happy to have you as my son.”

He smiles and kisses my cheek. “Okay. Am happy to have you as my second daddy too.”

Now Louis is the one wiping a tear from his cheek and we both laugh as we kiss softly for a few seconds. “We really are sissies, aren’t we?”

I smile as I pull away from him, and we all put on our bracelets, laying our hands down on the floor next to each other to look at them.

“So well done”, Louis says and kisses Jonah, “Thank you.”

I thank him as well before I hand him my package. “This is from me”, I say.

“Thank you, Hazzie.” He starts unwrapping it and there are three nail polishes laying on top.

“Hope you like the colours”, I say, “Daddy said those were your favourites.”

He nods and smiles broadly before removing the bottles. “The hoodie dress”, he exclaims and grins, “I love it.”

I grin and Louis rolls his eyes at me. “Spoiling him so much”, he mumbles but takes my hand.

“One last thing”, I say and put the hoodie he wore during baking the cookies down on the floor to reveal the stuffed animal on the bottom of the package.

“A cat”, Jonah shouts and grins, “Looks just like Stacey and Jeffrey only that it’s black!”

I grin. “Wanted it to be three, so they’ll be a real family.”

“Like us”, Jonah says and pulls the cat out of the box, patting the toy carefully.

“What is it gonna be called?”, I ask, “It has to rhyme with the others, doesn’t it?”

“No”, he says and shakes his head, “I’ll call it Haz.”

I smile and then he’s hugging me tightly, arms around my neck and kisses my cheek. “Thank you, I love you.”

Before I can say it back, he’s running to the kitchen, pulling my sweater over his pyjama while running.

~~~

four chapters left<3