His Wolf Pup - a Jasper Hale Story

105- A Christmas With Everyone

Christmas morning in The Cullen household started the way it always should, with someone jumping on my bed to wake me up.

"Get up, get up, get up!"

I opened my eyes to see a surprising sight. Charlotte and Seth were both jumping on top of me, which I suspected, but the other two shocked me. Jasper and Emmet were helping the younger two wake me up, and they looked ridiculous.

"I'm up! I'm up!" I said, sitting up as Charlotte and Seth grabbed my arms to get me out of bed.

I let the two drag me through the house with a laughing Emmet and Jasper following behind. We made our way to the living room, where the rest of the family was waiting, surrounded by a pile of wrapped presents. It looked like more presents than the first year I had been a part of the family, and I was happy to see we all agreed on spoiling Seth, Charlotte, and Bree since the three of them were new to the family.

I sat down on the floor as Jasper joined me while Seth and Charlotte got ready to open their presents. Esme had started to pass gifts to them because we could all tell that they could not wait. We spent hours opening presents once again. Most of us opened a few, while Seth and Charlotte opened the most. They both had an ever-growing pile of new things.

Even though she was secretly ecstatic, Bree kept getting upset every time she got another present.

"Oh, look," Edward said, handing another present to his girlfriend. "It's for Bree."

"How many presents did you guys get me?" she asked, pouting slightly.

"A lot, Bree, so just relax," Edward told her, sitting down and pulling her close.

Edward wrapped his arms around her as she opened her present. It was a new dress Esme had bought her, and Bree held it up with shining eyes. "It's beautiful," she said excitedly. "Thank you, Esme!"

"Of course," Esme replied, smiling at the younger girl.

We continued opening presents, one at a time, for an eternity. By the time we were done, Seth, Charlotte, and Bree had completely new wardrobes. Seth and Charlotte also had more toys than anyone could ever want. Our favorite presents opened were the ones we had all worked on to give Esme. We had given her newer photos in frames to put around the house, and I could tell it was everything she could have ever asked for.

As we got ready to wrap up our present time, Seth suddenly said, "Wait, there should be a few more in the back." He got up and looked around the tree. He grabbed a few that had fallen behind the chair sitting next to the tree and handed them out to everyone.

"Seth, what are these?" I asked him as he handed everyone a similar-shaped present.

"Why would I tell you?" he asked me. "That ruins the surprise."

"They're from me too," Charlotte told us.

Jasper and I opened our gift to see my new favorite present. It was a sketch of Jasper, Charlotte, Seth, and I in our house hanging out. It was way more detailed than any sketch I had seen, and I didn't understand who drew it. I looked around to see that everyone had a very detailed sketch of different things as well.

I turned to look at Charlotte and Seth as Jasper asked them, "Who drew these?"

"I did," Charlotte said happily.

"I gave her some colored pencils one day," Seth said, explaining what we were all thinking. "And she started drawing like that. It turns out she's super gifted at drawing."

"Do you like them?" Charlotte asked, looking up at us.

"Of course we do, Pumpkin," Jasper said, quickly making his way next to her and hugging her.

I did the same, joining the two saying, "They're perfect."

We cleaned up and moved some of the presents out of the room to make space for some of the pack and Denalis coming over. The Denalis showed up first. Charlie, Tanya, Eleazar, Carmen, Kate, and Garret picked their places around the room. Charlotte and Seth talked to Charlie and Tanya while Garret and Kate sat down in the corner of the room. Garret was now the newest vegetarian, but he had lived with Charlie since they came to Forks, so I knew he would be okay.

Most of the pack showed up next, and a few weren't coming. Sam, Emily, Paul, Rachel, Leah, Nathan, Jacob, and Bella came together from the Rez. Embry, Kim, Quill, and Claire weren't coming and were spending the holiday elsewhere. Everyone brought even more presents, mainly for Charlotte and Seth, and settled in the living room. Many of us were sitting on the floor, but no one complained.

We all opened even more presents. Charlotte and Seth were completely spoiled by everyone once again. They also surprised everyone else by giving them drawings from Charlotte as well. The most shocking piece of news came from Bella and Jacob.

"We have something we want to announce," Jacob said, getting everyone's attention. His arms were wrapped protectively around Bella as if we were going to attack them at any moment.

Bella was completely relaxed in his arms, trusting everyone in the house. She had spent a lot of time with our family and knew that no one would hurt someone else without reason. "We're going to get married," Bella said, shocking everyone.

Thankfully, no one freaked out negatively. Rachel got up and congratulated her brother while the rest of us made positive comments saying how happy we were for them. The truth was, no matter how obnoxious the two had been in the past, it was clear they cared for each other in some way, and maybe marriage would make the two happy. Even if they weren't imprinted, it didn't mean they couldn't be happy.

I could also feel the happiness radiating off of Edward that she had finally, and entirely, moved on from their relationship. Deep down, I knew he still wanted her to be happy and felt terrible for dragging her into our lives. If she found happiness out of the craziness that was going on, good for her.

From there, we went on to have a normal night in our household. Everyone was staying the night in preparation for The Volturi coming, and it made the house feel full. As night started to fall, I ate dinner with the pack before leaving with the vampires to hunt. I trusted the pack to watch Charlotte and Seth overnight in the house while we got ready for whatever happened in two days.

We were all also hopeful that space from the wolves would give Alice room to get a clear vision, but when was the last time we got what we wanted?