Eli Borrelli

44: Christmas

Matteo POV.

On the twenty-third, we went to get a Christmas tree, which was impossible since Diego couldn't keep still. I know he loved Christmas a lot, and what kid wouldn't, but it was on a whole other level. Even the dogs couldn't keep up with him. However, it was cute to see Snuffles in the snow, since she was the same color. I think we actually lost her a couple of times, but luckily she always ran up from somewhere before we got too worried.

Ida immediately said that she would not be going with us, but instead, she stayed behind to make some more preparations. I asked her if she needed any help, but she told us to go rather aggressively even tho it was our house. At least she had Anna there to keep her company if she hadn't run off the second she heard Ida loudly singing Christmas carols while cooking.

Diego told us about Eli's history with Christmas, which once again reminded us of the shitty life they had. According to Diego, Eli didn't get presents and had to spend all major holidays with Bianca and Fran and their friends, so they never had real Christmas, where they weren't scared for their life.

I don't think any of us will ever get used to hearing about Eli's past. Every single thing we heard about it was sadder than the last, but we slowly learned to react to it differently. Lorenzo didn't cry as he had at first and Antonio didn't have a fit, where he threw things around or boxed until he hurt himself. 

After getting back home and putting the tree up we made Christmas cookies from Eli's recipe. They had learned a lot of cooking and baking recipes from Finland and were excited to share them with us. They told us about Finnish Christmas and the traditions, that people had there even tho Eli didn't celebrate there. They told us how it paid so much more to work on Christmas, that they couldn't pass on the opportunity. They did however prepare for Christmas and do all the traditional things.

"I mean, I didn't buy myself a present, since that would've just been sad, but basically I had a Christmas on my own," They explained as we baked. Well, we ended up eating most of the batter but I think it still counts.

We made gingerbread houses, that was supposed to be just one big one, but because of creative differences, we made two. One of them was with Antonio, Eli, Alessandro, and me. It was systematic and we made blueprints and cut the pieces first out of cardboard to figure out the perfect shape. We ended up with a replica of the house. The other team, Diego, Gabriele, Lorenzo, and Ida just cut the pieces freehand and stuck them together to make a house. They ended up covering the mistakes with a shit ton of frosting and candy.

We wanted to declare a winner, but finally, Alessandro was so annoyed he couldn't say anything, so Ida just said, that we all had fun, and so we were all winners. Eli said that was her admitting defeat, which is why we ended up calling Ethan and Dimitri to be our judges. At first, it was just Dimitri, but after he ruled in our favor, the other team complained about him being biased and called Ethan to balance things out. After all that, it was still a tie, which meant that everyone was shouting out who to call next, but always someone said that they would be biased and we never got anywhere.

After a long time of us, bickering Ida banged two pots together and declared, that it was time to have dinner and stop fighting. She had a glare, that made Alessandro turn down, so we all basically ran out of the kitchen leaving her chuckling on her own. 

Me and Eli went to help her with dinner after a while of the conversation in the living room going in circles.

Lorenzo POV.

On Christmas eve, we all slept in, except Eli, who still insisted on going on a morning run with Jasper and then taking a small walk with Snuffles.