December 17

As exciting as our journey was, it feels so good to be back home. When we got home yesterday, everything was just as we'd left it, although a little dusty from not being used in three weeks. We did some cleaning yesterday and Inuyasha brought in some more firewood. We spent the night cuddling and fell asleep in each other's arms.

This morning I worked on some laundry which I had intended to do the day I collapsed. I did the washing and Inuyasha hung everything up to dry. Once we were done we sat in the house with lunch.

"I think it's a good time to go visit Miroku and Sango," Inuyasha said as we finished up.

"You're right, they must be terribly worried about us."

"They probably think we died or something," Inuyasha said with a chuckle.

"Well, we're always disappearing for days at a time. At this point, they've probably come to expect it."

So we made our way over to Miroku and Sango's house. Sango opened the door and when she saw us she threw her arms around us.

"Thank goodness you're back!" she exclaimed.

"Hey, you two," Miroku said from where he was sitting on the couch with the children. "Long time no see."

The girls got off his lap and ran over to us to give us hugs.

"Auntie Kagome, Doggie Uncle, we missed you," Midori said.

"We missed you too, little ones," I said as we gave them hugs.

"So tell us what happened," Sango said as we all gathered to sit together. "You were gone for days and Kaede told me you had fainted, Kagome. She said your condition was really bad and Inuyasha was taking you to get help. You were gone for so long we didn't know what could have happened."

"I tried to tell Sango you were fine," Miroku said. "She thought you had been sucked into another miedo or something."

Sango elbowed him playfully. "My best friends were in danger, I didn't know what to think. Even Miroku started to not be so confident about it after the first week."

"It's really sweet that you guys worried about us so much," I said. Shinichi, who was starting to crawl, made his way over to me and I took him into my arms.

"We've waited this long so you have to tell us everything now," Miroku said.

"It's a really long story," Inuyasha said.

It was definitely a long story but we told them everything that had happened. Miroku and Sango were amazed by it all.

"That sounds so exciting," Sango said once we were done.

"It was, but I'm glad to be home now," I said. "That was certainly enough excitement for a while."

At home that evening, as I sat by the fire doing some sewing, I thought about how in my era everyone is preparing for Christmas. With us being away all month I didn't have much time to think about it. Now that everything has settled down, I can picture it all so vividly: everything covered in lights, Christmas music playing everywhere I go, decorating a tree with my family, making Christmas cookies, buying gifts for everyone, Christmas movies.

The more I think about it, the more I miss all of that so much. The Christmas season was my favorite time of the year. I know I willingly gave it up when I came here, but it still makes me kind of sad to think about it.

Inuyasha came over to sit next to me. "Why do you look sad? I thought you were happy to be home."

A small smile touched my face. Leave it to Inuyasha to immediately notice I was upset. "I am. It's not that."

He studied me for a moment as if trying to read my mind. "Well, it has to be something. What's on your mind?"

"It's Christmas back in my era. I was just thinking about how much I miss it."

"I see. What's Christmas?"

"They call it the most wonderful time of the year."

So I told him all about it: everything from chopping down and decorating the tree, getting gifts, movies like Charlie Brown and The Nightmare Before Christmas, the beautiful lights and songs, etc. Inuyasha seemed very interested in it all and asked a lot of questions.

"So as you can see, it's a lot of fun stuff and this goes on for almost the whole month of December." I sighed. "I mean, it's not like I'd choose to go back if I couldn't be with you but it was a very special time of year."

Inuyasha looked deep in thought for a moment. "Well how about we have our own little Christmas celebration?"

"What?"

"We'll do it here and make it our own, Kagome. We can go find a fir tree and cut it down ourselves and decorate it. Sure we don't have any lights or music and stuff, but we can still get each other gifts." He seemed to be getting more excited the more he talked about it. "What do you think?"

I was nearly bursting with happiness at this point. I was so incredibly touched that Inuyasha wanted to do this for me. I threw my arms around him and hugged him tightly. "Thank you, Inuyasha!"