"I don't know what to do." Emma told her parents. "I want Henry to celebrate Christmas day with us but if he does, then Regina will be alone."
"Well, there's always a solution," Mary Margaret said, avoiding eye contact with everyone.
"We're not inviting her over," David and Emma said at unison.
Mary Margaret hated the fact that David and Emma resented Regina. Sure, she had done great deal of harm back at the Enchanted Forest, but that had been a long time ago. And recently it really seemed like Regina was trying to do her best, which was more than she could say for her husband.
"It was just an idea!" the teacher raised her hands placatingly. "Besides, I don't see why you two are so against it."
"Let me think," David stroked an imaginary beard. "Because she cursed us, made our girl grow up alone, made us forget our love - should I continue?"
"And at the end, everything turned out to be just how it is supposed to be." Mary Margaret replied.
It was true, even after the curse she had been re-united with her husband, they had found their daughter, they were living together and they had a grandson who they loved dearly. It was a happy ending - maybe it took them more years than they had originally expected, but it was a happy ending nevertheless.
"Oh, yeah," David said sarcastically, bringing her back to reality. "We just missed Emma's first words, first steps, first Christmas, first day of school, first boyfriend, giving birth to - " he would had continue with the endless list if Mary Margaret hadn't interrupted him at that point.
"Look, Christmas is a time to see the world through the eyes of love," she looked sternly at her husband and then at Emma "It's a time to remember that the world is made up of people like us and to see them for who they really are, not by the poor choices they have made,"
David and Emma looked at each other. They knew she was right, "Ok, Mother," Emma said with a sigh. "I'll invite Regina to come over for Christmas."
"Good." Mary Margaret pursed her lips into a smile. She secretly loved when David and Emma didn't have any other choice than to do as she had said because it was the fair thing to do. "Now pass me the flour, we are baking Christmas cookies today!"
Emma raised an eyebrow at her father, surprised how her mother could change topics so easily, as if they were just discussing which colors the napkins would be. But she kept quiet and passed the flour to Mary Margaret.
"Back at the castle," Mary Margaret said as she prepared the things. "I'd always sneak into the kitchen and bake cookies with Louis. It was magical."
"Everything is magical for you, Mary Margaret," Emma pointed out.
"Emma, magic is not only Regina snapping her fingers and making something appear, or Mr Gold making a potion," her father explained. "Magic is found everywhere, in the sunrise and sunset, in the raindrops, in falling stars. Everything around us is magic."
Mary Margaret gave David a knowing smile. "Even in the most ordinary days, you can find traces of it."
Emma looked at them, not really knowing what they meant but pretending she did. She smiled at them and her parents smiled back. Then they all returned to their attention to the cookies being made. They talked while they performed the chores that Mary Margaret had assigned to them, and every now and again her parents would interject with a tale about their winter holidays back at the enchanted forrest, before returning to humming a seasonal song. It really made her heart fill with the greatest pleasure.
While growing up, she had never understood the meaning behind Christmas, the words that everybody said: Christmas is a joyful time, it's a time to be with your family. She always thought it was something that only happened on Hallmark Movies. But now that she had a family that cared for her and wouldn't leave her, she finally understood why people loved Christmas so much.