"Santa came, Santa came!" Little Sara squealed, jumping up and down on the couch, eyes sparking at the full stockings and the small piles of gifts.
"Sara, honey, calm down, your brother is waking up, we wouldn't want to startle him." Martin said, walking in the room, cradling his infant son, who was blinking himself in and out of consciousness. The poor little guy was trying, but it was a little early for him.
"But it's Christmas!"
"Sara."
"Fine." Sara pouted, getting off the couch.
"Don't be all pouty, Sara, you can go ahead and empty your stocking while we give Milo his morning bottle." Brigette smiled, walking in right behind her husband with the aforementioned bottle, a burping cloth slung over her shoulder.
"Okay, but don't take too long, I want to get started on presents soon." Sara said, running over to her stocking. The Murphy parents took their seat on the couch, and now Milo was starting to become more awake, the excitable energy of Christmas morning seeming to get to him and starting to wake him up.
"Don't worry, we won't be long, you know Milo is a good little eater." Martin said, taking the bottle over from Brigette.
"He looks really cute when he eats." Sara said, starting to rifle through her stocking. Brigette and Martin smiled, glad that Sara was seeming to like her brother. Or at least, she hasn't asked them to take him back or tried to bury him in toys, so they're taking that as a win.
"Okay, pal, eat up." Martin smiled, popping the bottle into Milo's mouth, and Milo started eating eagerly.
Looking at Milo, Martin couldn't help but smile. He was dressed in a bright red onesie with a print of Santa plastered on the front, snowflakes littering the whole thing. He had the chubbiest cheeks of any baby Martin had ever seen, and the sweetest eyes, eyes that were currently starting to sparkle with energy as the little one seemed to start catching the spirit now that he was a little more awake. Milo started sucking on the bottle a little faster, clearing getting excited, even if he had no idea what he was excited about.
"Slow down, we don't you making yourself sick." Martin started to try to pull the bottle away to slow him down, prompting Milo to start to whine, as if to say 'hey, I was eating that! I'm hungry!' "Okay, okay, calm down." He glanced up at Sara now, watching as she torn open a package of candy canes that was in her stocking and started to eat it.
"Are you sure your family is okay with us canceling the family Christmas this year?" Bridgette asked, stroking the thin, baby soft hair of Milo's cowlick in some sort of attempt to calm him down a little.
"Yeah, they understand, Milo is only three months old, a Murphy's Christmas is a little too dangerous for him. We actually talked about canceling the family Christmas all together soon, with Nate and Milo added in things might be a bit much." He shrugged. "But we still want to try next year."
"Good." She then took notice of Sara, who digging out another candy cane, having lost her patience and chewed up her first one. "No more, honey, you'll ruin your appetite for breakfast."
"Awh."
Soon enough Milo had finished his bottle, after him getting distracted three times, twice by Sara digging through her stuff and once by that rabid badger that had torn through the living room. The Murphy parent crawled their way down to the floor with Milo to sit down with Sara. Martin got to emptying his stocking, as Milo was starting to resist having to be burped by his mommy, now very antsy to do whatever his sister was doing.
"Come on, Milo, be still, we have to do this or you're going to be a grump butt all day." Brigette coaxed holding the squirmy child over her shoulder.
"Why do you guys talk to him all the time, he can't answer you." Sara asked, fiddling with the flavored chap sticks from her stocking.
"Yeah, but he can hear us, and they say that talking to babies helps their language skills. You should talk to him to, so that he can learn faster." Martin said, pulling out some Resse's cups. Score.
"Oh… did you talk me a bunch?"
"Yeah, sweetheart, we talked to you all the time." He ruffled her hair, causing her to squeal and fix her hair.
"There we go!" Brigette said, after Milo finally burped (and spit up a little). She sat him on him on the floor between her legs, letting him lean back on her so that he didn't fall over. "There we are go, now we can get started." Milo grinned a big, toothless smile, making a few babbling baby noises and flailing his arms around. "Oh, you're really excited, yeah you are. Look at you." She cooed, reaching down and squeezing one of his little feet.
"Here's your stockings." Martin chuckled sliding Brigette and Milo's stockings over to them.
Things were pretty standard after that, everybody cleared out their stockings, Milo started to have a fun time with a lightweight rattle that he had gotten in his. But of course, the real fun came when it was time to open the presents. Now, since Milo was the youngest, he got to first, but being a mere infant, he could not open them himself, so Sara had volunteered to open them for him like a good big sister (or someone who just wanted to open more presents). Now, Milo's reactions to presents themselves wasn't all that spectacular, his reaction to the wrapping paper, however, was hysterically adorable. He's grab as much his tiny hands could and hard as he could, wave them around, cover his face with it, lick it, and eventually try to eat it, which always got it taken away. That bummed him out.
All said and done, Sara got a bunch of toys, including a freaky animatronic doll that Sara would surely cut all the hair off of later, as she did with all dolls that entered her possession. Milo got a bunch of baby stuff, including one of those things that you putting over the little one while their laying on their back so that they could bat their hands at stuff hanging from it. They were sure that thing was going to be destroyed within a week.
"That was a nice little Christmas." Brigette said as she and Martin picked themselves up off the floor, Milo snuggled into his dad's chest now.
"So far, yeah, I mean nothing has even gone horribly wrong, maybe Murphy's Law is going easy on us because it's Milo's first Christmas." And because Murphy's Law is a fan of irony, that was the precise moment that something went wrong. Just a small event, all the lights on the Christmas tree spontaneously exploding bulb by bulb at lightning fast speed, but it was enough to send Sara running to hug onto her mother's legs for protection and startle Milo into crying fit.
"Shhhh… shhhh, it's okay, pal." He cooed, rubbing the small one's back. "It's over now, you're okay. Shhhh."
It wasn't over. The Christmas tree fell over. The Murphys, minus Milo who was still weeping, stared at it for a second… only for the tree to catch fire. There it was. Sara ran from the room fast as she could, while Brigette pulled out the emergency fire extinguisher out from behind couch while Martin backed away, trying to calm Milo, who was screaming at the top of his lungs, red in the face and taking a white knuckle hold on his shirt. The fire was quickly put out, but Milo was much harder to calm down. After a good thirty second of unsuccessful soothing, Martin handed him over so that he could be soothed by his wife, though he continued to rub the tiny guy's back as she cooed at him and rocked him back and forth. After a few minutes, Milo's hysterical wild banshee screeching was reduced to whimpering and sad little hiccups, his precious little face gone from beet red to a rosy pink color.
"There we go…" Martin murmured to the boy, finally leaning back from him before looking up at his wife. "I'll always be jealous of how good you are at this."
"Oh, don't be like that, your plenty good at soothing, Milo just need some Mommy time." Brigette said, holding Milo closer and giving him a peck on the forehead.
"I can't really blame him." He smiled, leaning over and giving her a peck on the lips.
"Ewwww! Don't do that in front of the baby!" Sara cried out from the doorway, attracting their attention. "Milo, protect your eyes!" Milo only babbled a little, followed up with a hiccup.
"Glad to see you joining us again."
"I was waiting for him to stop crying." Sara said, walking back over to her pile of thankfully unscathed toys. "Is Milo old enough to play with me yet?"
"'Fraid not, but I'm sure he would love to watch you during his tummy time." Brigette said, before looking down at Milo. "Would you like that? You wanna watch your sister during your Christmas tummy time?" She then switch to a high pitched voice and start to shift Milo around. "Sure, Mom, I'd love that!" She switched back to her normal voice. "There, it's a deal. Martin, can you drag the remains of tree into the yard while I set up Milo's stuff?"
"Can do."
And so Sara started to play with some of her new things, with Milo just a few feet away, and true to his mother's word, he propped himself, lifted his head up and trained his eyes on Sara with a big ol' smile on his face. Martin dragged the tree out into the yard, disturbing a group of weasels that were sleeping there that then tried to eat his face. So, all and all, a pretty standard Christmas.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Holy shmo, this turned out absolutely dreadful, but it took a bit to write and I wanted to a holiday thing because December. I apologize that you just read all that XD I don't except an reviews for the this awful display.