christmas lights

a. - twix bar

Eleanor had to spend Christmas Eve with the Greens.

There was a snow storm all over Colorado. Which had cancelled all Eleanor's family's plans for Christmas. Her parents didn't want to go to Portland and New York to visit relatives, thinking it'd be too dangerous. When Oliver's family heard this, they immediately decided to just spend Christmas together with Eleanor's family, and a few more families from the neighborhood.

Eleanor dreaded Christmas Eve then. She didn't want to spend Christmas Eve with strangers. She didn't mean that in the nastiest way. She just wanted to spend Christmas Eve with the ones she love, the ones she could comfortably act with.

With Oliver, she would turn stiff and act more serious than she wants to be. She felt suffocated, always pressured of always acting like a lady in front of him. And she didn't want to spend Christmas, all stiff-like and tense. Sure, they were good friends, but not the kind of friend you would have inside jokes with. Not the kind of friend you didn't have to think of bizarre coversation starters that surely won't end in awkward terms.

And besides, The Sound of Music was going to show on TV as a Christmas special. She couldn't miss that. She doubted Oliver would let her watch. Not that she would even bring it up. Oliver would probably tease her for still liking musicals.

Her parents, however, were very excited.

Her mother had even baked mini cupcakes. This extremely surprised Eleanor for two reasons.

One, her mother didn't bake.

Two, her mother would most definitely not bake one humdred and fifty mini cupcakes.

Her mother would usually just order from Aunt Ruby, a family friend who could whip up just about anything. Eleanor loved her Blueberry muffins.

And her dad had immediately went to the mall for an intense last-minute shopping. He was going to buy gifts for the other families the Greens had invited.

"Christmas is a holiday of giving, El," he reasoned out when he dragged her along to shop. "And giving doesn't end with people we know, it's unlimited. It's for everyone!"

Cue Eleanor and her brothers, Terrence and Jeremy rolling their eyes.

Her dad decided to buy them all "The Ultimate Christmas Package". Her dad had organized it all. They were going to buy large woven baskets, and inside them were cookies, books for parents, books for teens, and some children's books, and chocolate milk.

Eleanor had helped her dad set them up, and her and her brothers wrapped them all up.

It looked like the cliché Christmas family scene. Eleanor's mom and Terrence were in the kitchen, baking mini cupcakes. While Eleanor, and her dad wrapped the gifts. Jeremy was, of course, in charge of the music, because that was the easiest job and all he wanted to do was read his new Geronimo Stilton book.

Christmas Eve was a bustle of wrappings and flour. The whole Ryans family were too engrossed on preparing for the day after, that Eleanor almost forgot that she had to spend Christmas, with Oliver.

It's not that she hated Oliver. She hated what he did to her. And add the fact tht he doesn't exactly know he has a spell on her.

When she went to sleep that night, she  the Greens weren't fond of mistletoes.

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Christmas Eve morning for the Ryans was a blur of mini cupcakes and arms loaded with baskets full of cookies, books and other goodies.

By eleven, they had to go to the Greens. Eleanor silently thanked the heavens for letting the Greens be just right next door finally become a perk. (Besides, of course, to Eleanor, living just beside Oliver Green.)