34. Christmas

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It was Christmas Eve night and I was tossing and turning in my bed. Even though I was sixteen I still got excited at Christmas. It was my favourite day of the year by far. I had been in bed for two hours now and still wasn't asleep. My bed seemed too hot and my duvet was scattered around on my bed. I had my leg stuck out but then I got too cold. I just couldn't wait until morning. I'd been messaging Dougie but then he'd stopped replying and I assumed that he'd already fallen asleep. I groaned in my bed and gave up tossing. The plan for tomorrow was to wake up, Dougie would come around to mine, I'd open my presents, I'd go round to the band house and watch them open presents and then we'd stay there (my parents don't mind, just as long as I opened my presents at home) and we'd have Christmas dinner together and I'd stay there until later. I was so excited, as you may be able to tell.
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Eventually I must have fallen asleep because I woke up earlier than usual. My groggy eyes opened a bit and I looked around my room. My eyes stopped on the curtains. I shot out of my bed and yanked them open. Snow was falling on the ground and I immediately remembered what day it was. I ran out of my room and into my brothers. I flung his door open and it banged against the wall.
"Wha-?"
"ITS CHRISTMAS!" I screamed at him and jumped on his bed.
"Get off me!" He tried to hit me away.
"Get up!"
"Whatever". He put his head down to go back to sleep but I grabbed the pillow that he had his head on and started beating him with it.
"Alright, alright! I'm up" he grumbled, sitting up. We walked to my mum and dad's room quietly and opened their door quietly. They were asleep.
Me and Tyler looked at each other and both nodded.
"AAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHH!" We shouted at them and pounced on their bed.
My dad groaned but moved to the side so his teenage kids could fit into the bed. I was still sixteen and Ty was eighteen. My mum sat up.
I snuggled into her and went "Muuuuuuummm????"
"Yessssssss????"
"Can we go downstairs now?"
She looked over at the clock beside her. It was eight in the morning.
"Fine".
Me and Tyler ran downstairs and saw a living room full of Christmas presents. The sofas were filled with them, they were all over the floor and under the Christmas tree, which was sparkling and there wasn't a bit of tree to be seen after I'd decorated it so well.
"AHMAHYGAWD" I screamed and my dad started laughing at me.
I dropped to the floor in front of the presents and so did Tyler.
"I thought that you were waiting for Dougie?" My mum asked me as she saw me grab the nearest present.
I looked up at her and to the door. My face dropped. I hadn't even said Merry Christmas to him yet! I hadn't even checked my phone! I ran upstairs to grab my phone and looked at it.
"Merry Christmas 😊🎅🎄 You can set off now xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" I messaged him.
"Ho ho ho. I'm coming now 💩🎅🎄xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" he messaged me back and I ran back downstairs. I posted on Twitter and my fans all tweeted me back heartfelt comments. I loved them. I always tried to message them back because I was like one of them once too. I know how it felt. It was so hard though sometimes to message them all back.
It seemed like forever until Dougie arrived. We put on some Christmas music as we all sat in our pajamas. Even Dougie. He didn't bother changing. He arrived in full pajama geer, a dressing gown and some trainers. I thought that he was crazy but cute. He swore that he'd had a wash though.
I began opening up my presents one by one. Considering how excited I was I took a long time opening the presents because I wanted to savour the moment. Besides, this day only comes once a year! But my parents had to speed me along because Ty had already opened all of his and I had quite a few to go. I'd finally opened them all and looked at Dougie.
"Where's my present?" I said to him sneakily. I wasn't sounding rude though. More suspicious.
"It's at my house. I couldn't keep it here" he laughed.
I stared at him. What was he talking about? What had he gotten me?
"Right I'm going to get ready now" I carried on looking at him suspiciously as I walked up the stairs. He didn't say anything to me, just laughed. I dressed in a jumper that had snowflakes on, my jeans, boots and my Christmas dangly earrings that had Santas on them. Whilst I was alone in my room I said "Happy Birthday Jesus". I mean our family didn't go to church much but I quite liked religion and considered myself to be a Christian. I didn't like how the whole Christianity of Christmas had turned into something just about presents. It was a time to celebrate.
I ran back downstairs to Dougie. I hugged my parents goodbye and waved to my brother. We got in Doug's car, taking a while to get there because of the ice on my driveway.
When we were in the car we kissed. "Merry Christmas" he smirked.
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When we'd arrived at the band house, from the outside I could already tell that it had been over-decorated. With Tom's festive mood I was assuming that the guys had let him take complete control of the house. On the walls there were tinsel and it circled the doorway. There was also a Santa on a ladder climbing through a window. On its butt it had a piece of paper which read 'Kiss my ass' I looked at Dougie. He'd obviously put that there. We opened the door and the house had tinsel and glitter everywhere. Mini Santas decorated the house. It was like Christmas exploded. I heard Christmas tunes blasting from a radio and we walked into the living room. There sat the boys, all in their pajamas like Dougie. Harry was sat on the couch with a pile of presents and Tom and Danny were sat on the floor. In the corner was an enormous Christmas tree, and by enormous I meant that it was the biggest Christmas tree I'd ever seen. The top was sloped because of the ceiling and a star sat on the top. I looked over at the boys. There were presents everywhere. Danny was sat on the ground like a little kid, with a smug smile on his face. Harry kept on tapping his presents, scared that they'd explode and Tom looked angry.
"You were gone ages! We're opening them now!" He groaned and me and Dougie sat down too. Tom wore a Santa hat. They all began opening up their presents.
Danny got a lot of Christmas jumpers and everytime he got another one, he put it on, making him look extremely fat.
Harry had already opened all of his presents and sat comfortably on the sofa with his them surrounding him. He moved into the kitchen to make some Christmas pancakes. I don't know how you can make pancakes Christmassy but I didn't want to ruin his happy mood.
Tom did what I did, taking in the moment with every present and loving each one dearly. His smile was the biggest and his cheeks were red. Nobody was more excited than Tom.
Dougie ripped his presents open in haste. I could tell that they all loved Christmas. I felt quite honoured to be spending it with them.
Dougie began opening the one from me. I didn't know whether he'd like it or not. He ripped away the wrapping paper and found a box. The present was quite expensive but he was so worth it. He opened up the box to find a chain. It was like a necklace chain made out of real silver.
He took it out of the box and put it on. It wasn't a thick chain, and it was just the right size. He began smiling.
"Thank you" he put an arm around me for a hug and I did too.
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Once everybody had opened up their presents and we had eaten 'Christmas' pancakes (which were just normal pancakes with strawberry sauce on them) we all stayed in the living room with their new gifts.
"Do you want yours now?" Dougie nudged me, smiling. All of the boys looked up. I gave him a wide smile, I was so excited. I nodded. The boys all looked at Dougie excitedly as he stood up. I'm guessing they knew what he had gotten me. I looked at Dougie curiously. He had a hand on the handle of the kitchen door. I was still sat cross legged on the floor, facing him. He opened up the door and something charged at me in such a quick blur that I couldn't see what it was. It began licking my face and I began laughing. Someone pulled it off of me and there was a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppy right in front of me. It was black with brown eyebrows and a brown mouth area. It's eyes were a chocolate brown.
"AWWW!" I squealed at it. It had a red ribbon around its neck. I always told Dougie I wanted a dog but we were never allowed one. The puppy was wagging its tail ferociously and it's tongue hung out of its mouth. Tears welled up in my eyes as he let the dog free again and it ran up to me and I began stroking it. It calmed down and lay down at my feet whilst I was sat down.
"Now I talked it through with your parents, well, I persuaded them, and they eventually said yes". He sat down next to me and I put my head on his shoulder.
"Thank you" I cried.
He stroked my hair as I played with the puppy.
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The boys had all gotten dressed and were wearing Christmas themed clothes.
"Does it have a name?" I asked Dougie after a while.
"Nope, you get to name her".
I awed again because I found out it was a girl. Poor thing. Stuck in the house with smelly boys.
"I don't know about you guys but I need some hot chocolate" Harry shivered.
"You can borrow one of Danny's jumpers if you're cold" Tom laughed. Danny must have been wearing at least seven jumpers.
"Hot cocoa!" Danny said in an Italian accent. My head shot up.
"AWWW! Can she be called Cocoa?" I pleaded with Dougie. He didn't need much persuading though. He nodded at me and a huge smile grew on my face. I couldn't believe that I had a puppy! I couldn't stop thanking him enough.
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We all spent the whole day playing with Cocoa, she loved it, lapping up the attention. I learned that she was an excitable puppy but she was soft and wouldn't hurt a fly.
Georgia, Izzy and Gi arrived in the middle of the day and joined us too. Harry had to cook our meals for the day. He made lunch and most of Christmas dinner with some of Tom's help. Danny offered to help but we wouldn't let him anywhere near the kitchen.
When the dinner was ready we sat at the dining table. The boys were very prepared, they'd bought dog food for Cocoa and I got to feed her. They'd laid out a big cloth over the table that was decorated with puddings and we began eating our turkey. We chattered about Christmas things, me mostly with the girls and Dougie mostly with the boys.
When we'd finished we all moved into the living room again. Cocoa looked much more tired after the food and so as we switched on the Christmas movie, Elf, me and Dougie snuggled up on one of the sofas and Cocoa's little body rested on mine. I stroked her as she fell asleep.
Danny, Georgia and Harry and Izzy had taken up the other sofas which meant that Tom and Gi had to sit on the floor, which they were perfectly happy about because it was Christmas and nothing could dampen their mood. They really were the perfect couple.
When the movie had ended I stood up with Cocoa and I said to the boys "I'd better get home". They all moaned but Dougie stood up so that he could drive me back. We opened up the door and snow greeted us by hitting us in the face. It was freezing. We looked outside and gawped. The snow was everywhere. We couldn't drive in that! It was like a blizzard! Great, I wouldn't be able to go home at Christmas.
"We're not driving in that" Dougie shook his head, confirming my thoughts and I sighed. My family had barely seen me today.
"You can stay here for the night" Dougie put his arm around me.
I took out my phone as we shut the door and I rang home.
"Hello?"
"Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"Okay," I began. "Have you seen outside?"
"No"
"Look".
There was a slight pause and I heard my dad mumble a few swear words.
"You can't come home in that"
"I know. Is it okay if I stay over here".
There was another pause as I heard shuffling and my mums voice came on the phone. "Yeah it's okay. No funny business though!" My mum warned and I laughed.
"Okay, see you tomorrow. Merry Christmas"
"Merry Christmas love". And with that the line went dead.
I felt Dougie wrap his arms around my waist and his head rested on my shoulder.
"We'll look after you" he laughed and smirked. He kissed my cheek and then grabbed my hand and pulled us back to the couch.
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After a whole other movie and some 12A stuff from me and Dougie, Harry finally spoke up.
"Guys, please go and get a room!"
Dougie looked at me and his eyes glinted. I'm guessing it was the whole Christmas mood. He smirked at me and I grabbed his hand.
"LOOK AFTER COCOA!" He shouted down the stairs as Cocoa was asleep and all I have to say was that it went from 12A to a definite 18.
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Okay I felt really embarrassed writing that last bit 😳. I needed to keep it civilised. It is Dougie after all though, what did you expect? Okay comment opinions please! I love it when you guys comment stuff! I'm completely in love with Cocoa and I made her up. She's the cutest!

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