This was first posted on AO3 as part of 'Lucifer's Christmas Countdown Challenge' on December 9. Feel free to have a look at the whole project, if you like :) We're five authors trying to get into the proper, full-fledged Christmas mood :D
Challenge 9th December: Christmas tree-topper, Chloe&Trixie, Maze's and Chloe's; written by Wandererzaehler and challenged by coop500
A/N: Today focussing is hard, and mere Fluff even more so... Still hope this is to your liking :) My next one will be longer (I hope... ^^)
Also, I didn't even know 'baubles' was a word... then again, until last week I didn't know the translation for 'staubsaugen' either, so there you go.
Old, damaged and lopsided
Chloe and Trixie had spent the better part of an hour searching through still unpacked boxes that might just contain their Christmas decorations.
Maze had left the apartment after claiming that no, she did not have any Christmas decorations and wasn't interested in helping them putting decorations up, either, thank you very much.
But so far, all the boxes opened had contained useless stuff they hadn't yet missed until Trixie finally yelled in triumph: "I've found lots of baubles! Oh, but they're not the ones we usually use."
"I'll have a look in a second", Chloe said, smiling to herself while she finished going through the contents of the unmarked box set before her. It contained nothing they needed now, sadly, and she closed it again, carefully labelling it with "Easter decorations".
"That one's pretty", Trixie muttered, turning a Christmas bulb this way and that.
Chloe paused in surprise and stared at the bulb her daughter was holding up. It was small and shimmering golden, with a landscape made of white glitter painted on one side.
Trixie offered the ball to her mother. Chloe followed the outline of the village with her forefinger:
"Your Grandma presented this to me on the first Christmas evening we all celebrated together, shortly after you were born... I had no idea where it'd gone to. Good work, Trix – but we don't really need them until –"
"Oh!", Trixie exclaimed with her eyes wide, interrupting Chloe's train of thought, "Mommy, what happened to this one?"
She held up a red glass tree-topper in the form of a star with golden ornaments running over the surface in irregular patterns. The points appeared to be a bit lopsided since they had been broken once and carefully been glued onto the star's body again.
Chloe swallowed hard and asked in a hoarse voice: "Where'd that come from?"
Trixie, noticing her mother's sudden change of sentiment, looked up and said: "Same box as the other one."
Chloe took it with her fingers slightly trembling. She'd thought this one lost, together with all the others, but it must've been mixed up with decorations she didn't use any more and now that they'd moved, their Christmas stuff had been mixed up thoroughly, making certain things resurface.
"Mommy? What is it?", Trixie asked when she saw her mother's eyes full of tears.
"Nothing, Monkey. It's just..." She sighed, took a deep breath and then said: "We used this one when I was still a very small child. My Dad and I used to put this one up together on Christmas eve when all the other decorations where long since been put up. He lifted me up so I could reach the tree's crown. It was one of my favourite things of Christmas."
She stared down at the topper in her lap and continued: "And then one year Dad was staying at work late and I was fed up with waiting and tried to install the topper myself. It fell down and the points all came off. When my Dad came home later, I'd hid the tree-topper back in it's box and told him I didn't want it on the tree any more. I told him it was too old-fashioned for my taste."
Trixie stared at her interested: If something like this happened to her, she'd sure get into a lot of trouble.
"The next morning, Dad told me that he had decided we'd use the topper after all, like we did every year and that he wanted me to do it with him. He basically forced me to admit having broken the star since of course he knew something was wrong when I suddenly claimed my favourite Christmas thing was outdated", she smiled distantly, "and after I did, he only apologized for not having been home in time and gave me a hug."
"And he repaired it!"
"He did, but I only knew that after I'd opened up all my presents. The last one, hidden behind the tree and wrapped in the most hideous, left-over wrapping-paper, was the tree-topper, almost as good as new."
Grinning now, she looked back up at her daughter: "I can't remember any other presents I got that year, but I do remember how happy I felt when Dad and I fastened the star on the tree-top."
There were a few moments of silence while mother and daughter stared at the star between them, looking old, damaged and lopsided and both knew that despite this, it was one of the most beautiful, meaningful tree-toppers existing in the whole world.
"Mommy, can we use this one for our tree this year?"
"Of course we can, Trix", Chloe promised in a gentle voice, giving her daughter a hug, then sniffled a bit and said: "Let's have a look at what else is in this box, shall we?"