Stockings
"Hey kid make sure you grab the box in the back of the closet too!" Emma called to Henry as they busied themselves with decorating their new apartment for the holidays. They already had the tree set up in the corner of their living room waiting for ornaments and lights and a banner with "Happy Holidays" set up above the mantle.
"Okay mom!" Henry said from down the hall, straining slightly carrying 2 boxes full of Christmas decorations. Emma hadn't had time to buy a lot of decorations for her new place but David had secretly given her 2 boxes packed to the bursting point of Snow's Christmas decorations that she (hopefully) wouldn't miss considering she had about 4 more equally stuffed boxes back at the loft. Henry dropped both boxes onto the kitchen countertop and they went to work emptying them and sorting out what they had to work with.
"Why don't you ask Killian to come over?" Henry asked her as he tried to untangle some lights.
"Are you sure kid? You're okay with that?" she put her hand on his shoulder.
"Of course, with him around maybe we can untangle all these lights quicker," he grinned at her and Emma laughed and texted Killian to come over.
A knock on their front door 20 minutes later alerted them to his presence and Emma went to answer the door.
"Evening love" he said as he stepped into the apartment and gave her a quick kiss as he shrugged of his leather jacket and hung it on the hook by the door.
"Hey Killian," Henry said from his spot in the living room still trying to untangle the lights from some tinsel.
"Hi Henry, you need some help with that?" Killian gestured to the mess of lights and tinsel in front of Henry.
"Yeah, I'm really getting towards the end of my rope with this," Henry said as Emma snorted.
"Nice pun, lad" Killian chuckled as he lowered himself to the floor next to Henry and tried to disentangle the lights from the tinsel. Emma took in the picture of her two favorite boys on the living room floor decorating for Christmas, she definitely never imagined she would see Captain Hook cursing to himself while trying to untie a particularly tough knot.
"I'm going to make some hot chocolate, you guys want some?"
"Yes please!" they both called slightly preoccupied, Emma strolled into her kitchen to make the hot chocolate slightly startled when she heard the cheers of excitement that meant Killian and Henry had successfully detangled everything and they could start decorating the tree and rest of the apartment. 2 hours, a Christmas music playlist, and 2 mugs of hot cocoa each later they were almost finished, the only thing left was to decorate the stockings and put them on the mantle.
"Stockings?" Killian asked with a very confused expression on his face.
"Yeah we put them on the mantle and you put little gifts in them," Henry explained grabbing a stocking and some paint that Emma had set out.
"Curious tradition," Killian remarked still looking confused.
"You don't question the tree that we have set up in the living room covered in ornaments and lights, but you draw the line at stockings?" Emma said as she started painting her name across the white top of her own stocking.
"Well you must admit this realm has some very strange traditions, you hang large socks in front of the fireplace and fill them with gifts when you already put large gifts under the tree that you brought inside your home.," he explained. Emma and Henry looked at each other, he kind of had a point traditions are weird.
"Just wait until you see Easter," Henry sniggered adding some embellishments to his stocking.
"Just accept the weird traditions Killian, nobody's really sure how and why they started, and paint your stocking you dork," said Emma pushing a stocking towards him. Killian smiled as grabbed a paintbrush and started going to town on his own stocking. They set their stockings out on the kitchen table to dry and they all settled onto the couch to watch a movie while they waited for them to be ready to hang on the mantle. Emma looked from her son to her no longer sort-of boyfriend and smiled at the thought of sharing more traditions with them.