The motion made him look slightly softer.
I wonder if that’s what he’s like post-sex.
Isn’t it great how Merrie totally has her priorities straight?
“They don’t even have name tags,” I said flatly. “How do you know who gets what?”
“Uhh…”
“That was what I thought. Terrible job.” I shook my head. “Do you have a list of who gets what present?”
“Just keep them sorted by type, and at the end, we will randomly assign each kid a present. I’ll get the list together,” he said, wiping his hands.
“Are all these presents for your family?” I asked as I began to measure out wrapping paper and cut it. I loved wrapping presents. Christmas music played softly from my phone. The fire crackled, and I fell into a rhythm of cutting, wrapping, taping, and ribbon tying.
“The Svensson brothers are friends of mine from college. I thought I had a big family, but theirs is out of control. Their dad just likes to have kids but doesn’t like to take care of them. My brothers and I always give the kids presents. Seems like Christmas is more fun where there’s a ton of excited kids tearing open wrapping paper.”
Matt frowned. “I sometimes wonder if that was why my parents had so many kids, just so they could have the Hallmark Christmas moments.”
“Did you have wonderful childhood Christmases?” I asked, grabbing another package to wrap it.
Matt’s mouth turned down. “I don’t know. I guess.”
“I’m sure they were better than my childhood Christmases,” I said, carefully measuring out a piece of tape and sticking it on the present.
“My parents divorced when I was five, and they had a custody arrangement where I had to split Christmas Eve and Day with both of them. Then they would want to also go see their family members, so Christmas was never the picture-perfect ‘get up and see what Santa brought.’ Instead, it was ‘get up, here’s your itinerary, yeah, I know you don’t like all these people, and your cousin is a bitch, but it’s Christmas.’” I measured wrapping paper for another present.
“Then when my father divorced his second wife, it was even worse. Now, the Christmas travelling stretches all of December since they all want to host holiday parties and other events.”
“I’m surprised you love the holiday so much after all of that,” Matt said, standing up to grab the stack of labels I had bought. He began to fill them out with the Svensson brothers’ names.
“I always dreamed of having the perfect Christmas where I didn’t have to travel and I hosted the party and had the perfect family and all the kids,” I admitted. “Even if it was never my reality, there’s some comfort in wrapping the dream of a perfect Christmas around you—the lights, the decoration, the music, the food.”
I unrolled a brown wrapping paper with a fun retro print. I was zipping along through the pile of wrapped presents. I only had a few more presents to wrap. Matt began tying the gift labels onto the presents’ ribbons.
I snapped pictures of Matt and the packages and added them to my Instagram Story.
We might convince him to become a Christmas fan yet!I typed.
“The thing I want most,” I said as I grabbed the last present to wrap, “is a Christmas wedding. Wouldn’t that be amazing? Not a tacky Christmas wedding but a Christmas wonderland wedding. I would wear a white dress with a fur cap, and all the decorations would be Christmas themed. I would take amazing photos in the snow.”
I sighed.
But Matt wasn’t politely interested like he had been earlier. Now his face was dark and cold.
Urg, right.
“Sorry,” I said hastily, tying the last ribbon on. “I forgot you just had a bad breakup.”
“We were supposed to have a Christmas wedding,” he practically spat.
“That’s definitely gotta ruin the holiday season,” I said awkwardly. “I’m here to talk if you want.”
“I don’t.”
He took the last present from me.
“It looks like you’re done, so you can go now. I’ll call you a car,” Matt said, picking up my wrapping supplies and tossing them into my bag.
