MSRA ⇢ Starting New

⇢ 9 ; holiday season

The next morning was the morning of Christmas Eve, where my family, as a tradition, spent the day cooking, and had family over that night. The next morning, my parents gave me and my sister gifts and we gave our parents their gifts.

"I may have left a little detail about Noah out," I said to my mom. Noah was still asleep, as it was only seven, but Mom and I were up making pancakes for everyone.

"Oh?" she said. "And what's that?"

"We're dating," I said, pausing to see her reaction. She continued stirring the batter.

"How long has it been going on?" she asked, and I checked the time on the stove.

"Um, just about eighteen hours," I laughed. "But we had talked about getting together before. I just wanted to wait until we actually knew each other a bit more."

"I raised you right," she said, stopping to give me a hug. "Well, as long as you're happy I can't really complain. Your dad and I kind of figured something was going on between you two anyways."

"What?" I asked. "How?"

"Just the way he looks at you," Mom smiled. "You could just tell."

Just as I sat down to think about what he said, Kelsey ran into the kitchen and started yelling about how she wanted chocolate chips in her pancakes.

"Kelsey, hush," I scolded. "You're going to wake Noah up."

"Am not!" she exclaimed, continuing to bounce around the kitchen.

"Kelsey, sweetie, why don't you go help your dad fix the fence your pony broke yesterday?" Mom asked. 

"But Mom..." she cried.

"Hey, I had to fix the fence every time Hope plowed through it," I told her. "Go help Dad."

"Fine," she groaned, stomping to the door to pull her boots on. She shuffled outside and to the barn.

"Anyways," Mom said with a laugh. "How's school going?"

"It's... Good," I said. "Different. And hard."

"Yeah, they have a good academic reputation," she said as she wiped up some batter off the counter.

"No, it's not even the academics," I said. "If anything, the classes are boring. The riding classes are so physically exhausting though."

"Aren't you glad I made you and Hope do those conditioning drills?" she laughed. 

"Oh, you don't even know!" I exclaimed. "I would have been so behind!"

"Hi, Noah," Mom said as he walked into the kitchen. We were all still in our pajamas, and he took a seat next to me. "We were just talking about school."

"Oh, yeah," he said. "I like it."

"What are you majoring in?" Mom asked, pouring some batter onto a pan.

"Show jumping," he said. "Me and my gelding Comet are competitive show jumpers."

"Really," Mom said. "I kinda figured you were a dressage kind of guy."

"That's what I said!" I laughed, handing a plate of pancakes over to Noah.

-

My whole family plus Noah spent the majority of the day baking cookies, making food, and listening to Christmas music that was too loud. By one, almost everything was done and we still had a few hours before company came over.

"Want to finish that geometry review packet?" Noah asked. After that, we spent two hours on the couch finishing up the rest of the week's homework. By three, we had to change for company. I put on black leggings, a white t-shirt,  a red, green and white flannel, and a pair of wool knitted socks. After lightly curling my hair, putting on a pearl necklace, and putting in pearl earrings. I put on a bit more makeup than usual  and check myself out in the mirror. I don't look too bad.