Page 69 of Love Letters to Christmas

With nothing but a loosethis’ll be fun for everyone involved, probablyto guide me.

Setting her letter down, I pluck the envelope off my desk and look at the seal. So pretty. So bubbly. SoAmelia.

Heaven knows I don’t have a clue where she got her rose-colored glasses.

But, boy, do they make her eyes look pretty.

Chapter Twenty-five

Am…Idessert?

Amelia

Brian owns the most Christmas decorations I haveeverseen, and that is saying something considering my mother is very proud of her last name and persists in making sure our house is the most decorated for Christmas in the entire neighborhood every single year.

While “A Holly Jolly Christmas” plays and the scent of eggnog cookies—made with fresh eggnog since it’s not in stores at this time of year—pours through the house, Brian puts up a string of garland all around his living room. In the open dining area beside the living room, I take my time decorating the third tree of the night, each covered in tiny decorative letters with little green-and-red Christmas-themed wax seals.

I have never been this happy.

Decorating with my mother was always a chore. I’d be braced constantly, waiting for her to tell me I’d done something wrong. Her arguing with my father over how he’d hung the lights outside would drown out any music, assuming music hadn’t already been outlawed as a distraction, because, many times—after I’d made too many mistakes—it was.

And I’d blame myself for having the audacity to sing along instead of staying focused.

Decorating beneath the scrutiny of a dictator in silence made it hard to still appreciate how beautiful everything was in the end…

Decorating with Brian brings the beauty forward, and you know something?

I’m not even scared to be singing along.

Hopping down off his ladder, Brian beams at me. “You’re doing amazing, A-mail-ia.” He then marches himself right on over to a box filled with fake snow, buries himself inside, and carries a pile to the last tree I decorated.

White fluff scatters behind him as he unceremoniously drops his load in a way that would make my motherlivid.

With her, everything had to beperfect. We’d be up all night trying to obtain this mysterious level of perfection, all for her to cross her arms and pinch her lips and mutter that the Winter Wonderland we’d all spent hours putting together wouldhave to do.

At least until one of our neighbors put up one more inflatable Santa than we had.

Then we needed not just all of the main reindeer, but also a collection of others, and elves, and snowmen, and the entire North Pole.

Breaking into a box filled with mismatched stuffed snowmen, Brian sets up a lovely little family in his chaotic fake snow mound, planting a crooked North Pole among them.

There’s something about the chaos. About the miniature village on the entertainment center, comprised solely of different types of post offices. About the warmth amid the AC being turned down to forty. About being here in a world of kind words, joy, and peace.

I love it.

“Mistletoe!” Brian declares, and my heart thuds.

Whywould he have mistletoe decorations in his private collection? I turn from my duty of placing little letters all over this tree to find Brian approaching, swiftly, a green sprig with white plastic berries in his hand.

My heart trips into overdrive.

He can’t.

He isn’t.

Hewouldn’t.

Grinning, he lifts the mistletoe above our heads, takes my hand, and—presses the letter I’m holding to my mouth. Breath held, I stand motionless as he leans in, settles his lips against the envelope, and kisses me through it.

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