Hawkins really was in a Christmassy spirit.
The pine tree smell was in the air as the students walked to school on a bitter 9th December. There were still a couple of weeks to go to Christmas but people were still hyped. The Thanksgiving feelings had been washed away and Christmas had truly set in. In the last week nothing particularly special had happened except maybe a bird pooing on Dustin's head the Thursday before on his way home. Steve explained to him what to do and he followed the instructions to the letter. He washed it multiple times and it was all sorted.
The kids willed the week to go quickly but it ended up going slower every time they looked at the clock. One day at break, Eleven and Mike started talking.
'Mike, did you enjoy it?' asked El.
'Enjoy what?' said Mike, knowing exactly what she was talking about.
'The sex' she whispered.
'Yeah, I guess so' he said nervously.
'Good, cos I wanna do it again' she said trying to hide her excitement but ultimately failing at this.
'What?' He was taken back by this response as he wasn't expecting it to escalate that quickly.
'I wanna do it again' she repeated with more confidence than excitement.
'Um, Ok' he said. 'When were you thinking of doing it again?'
'I don't know yet but some time when we are alone and have time' she replied enthusiastically.
'Ok, you know that we should only do it at home right', Mike checked with her.
'Yes, of course I do' she answered, giving Mike the answer he had hoped for.
The bell rang signifying the end of break and the start of another boring period that would go on way longer than it had to just because time 'slowed down' when it got to Christmas. The rest of the week went pretty quickly for the weeks before Christmas but Mike couldn't get that conversation out of his mind. 'She really enjoyed it the first time, it seemed' thought Mike as he left school on Friday 13th.
The sleepover wouldn't commence this weekend as they had agreed that in the period before/at/after Christmas there wouldn't be any. Mike had nothing to do but he was sure his friends would be available. Wrong. Most of his friends were out of town visiting relatives for Christmas. Only Lucas was available after school on Friday so they went Christmas shopping.
Mike was unsure what to get El for Christmas. He knew that she liked basketball but she already had pretty much everything associated with basketball so he looked for other things that would suit her and he came upon a nice pair of shoes that he thought she would like. He paid for them and went to the diner to have a milkshake. After this they set off to Lucas's house to wrap up all their presents. After they finished He said goodbye to Lucas and went home prepared to go and visit his great aunt Millie (reference included) in Cincinnati the next day.
He woke up bright and early ready for his great aunt's overly makeuped face and her old woman/cherry smelling house. The afternoon was boring for everyone. She always had so much to say and when anyone else tried to say anything she either butted in with a comment or fell asleep. This meant that the next 5 minutes were taken up with them trying to wake her up and then forgetting the point they were trying to make.
This allowed Mike to get away with taking naps as well while the conversation was going on but waking up when they were speaking loudly trying to get his great aunt to wake up. They left just after 9pm and all went straight to bed when they got home. Even with Mike's naps his aunt was so boring that he slept until the afternoon on that Sunday.
The rest of the week went pretty quickly and they broke up from school on that Friday 20th. They would return to school on the 6th January. They all had a very great first few days of Christmas. They had snow fights, DD battles, made snowmen and pranked each other. They watched the movie Back to the Future for the first time and they all loved it. Nobody mentioned Dustin's previous intoxication by the being.
All of them got great presents. Mostly cash, clothes and hygiene products but there were some other presents like a new DD set to replace the tattered old one that Dustin had, a pump for El's basketball and a basketball cap for her. Mike got a games console with a couple of games.
The biggest present of all, however, were Lucas's parents giving him an upgraded Wrist Rocket. It could now fire little explosive pellets as well and his dad had spent quite a few hours fashioning it in his shed so that it had the perfect grip, stretch and an all new aiming mechanism. It was going to come in handy, trust me!
New Year's came and all of them got together at Mike's house where they had a party in the basement/living room and had the TV on ready to watch the fireworks.
During this party Lucas, Dustin, Will, Mike, Max and El were in the basement drinking soda. At around 11pm El called Mike upstairs to his bedroom where she revealed herself to be standing half naked with the words 'Let's do it now' trickling out of her mouth.