A/N: Well, first of all, Happy Holidays everyone! This is the first Hunger Games story I've written. What inspired this one-shot was the fact that I love Peeta and I've always sort of wondered what his Christmases would be like. Obviously they wouldn't be too happy but this story isn't either. It's sort of bittersweet. Hope you enjoy! Please R and R!

I never really had any happy childhood Christmas memories or anything like that. There were some good ones and some bad. There's one Christmas in particular that I've never really been able to make up my mind about. This Christmas took place when I was six and it all started with a cake.

A week before Christmas the mayor came down to my family's bakery and placed a big expensive order for a two layer Chocolate mint cake with Christmas decorations. I remember my mom and dad worked really hard on it and my two older brothers even helped. I kept trying to help but my mom would always push me away and tell me I would just mess something up. Anyway, the whole rest of my family worked the entire day before Christmas Eve and it actually turned out really nice. My mom was really stressed while working on the cake and was really happy when it was done. I was young at the time and I was convinced that I was going to have the best Christmas ever. I actually kept believing that up until Christmas Eve, an hour before the cake was going to be picked up.

My dad had set the cake in the back room in a big box so it would be safe. To this day I still don't know what happened to that cake. My mom just went to check on it and it was smashed all over the floor. When my mom saw the mangled remains of the cake she was pretty pissed. She started yelling at everyone and all I can remember was being honestly terrified. After a half an hour of my mom freaking out my oldest brother said I had done it and my other brother agreed. I promised over and over again that I didn't do it but my mom didn't believe me. She just hit me really hard across the face. I stood there for a few seconds with tears welling in my eyes. After the initial shock wore off I grabbed my coat and ran into the backyard.

I just sat out in the wet snow for at least an hour. I just didn't understand why my brothers said I ruined the cake. Maybe they panicked or maybe they just didn't like me. I still don't know. Anyway, I sat outside in the snow until my dad came out side and asked me to come back inside. When he asked me I started sobbing and asked if mom was going to hit me again. He swore she wouldn't then he took my hand and led me back inside. We went upstairs to our house above the bakery. My dad had set up the table into a nice Christmas dinner for two. It was really delicious and I was happy to spend time with my dad. Then, for dessert, he brought out a cake and we frosted together. I didn't eat much because I wasn't very hungry but it was still fun. Once everything was done my dad checked on my face then put me to bed.

The next morning I found out my parents had talked to the mayor and sold him one of the prepare cakes we had in the store. He even still paid full price for it. This helped soften the tension in my family and we all just pretended that nothing had gone wrong. No apologies, no confessions, nothing.

I guess that was just the way my family worked.