When Jess rolled over the next morning his hand his a cold empty side of the bed. Jess half awake climbed out of bed.
"Rory?" He questioned rubbing his eyes.
"Hey Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas." Jess replied.
Rory was sat on the couch dress in her pyjamas attempting to tie her sneakers.
"You're up early." Jess remarked.
"I have a good alarm clock." Rory rubbed her stomach. "Can you give me a hand doing these up?"
"Sure." Jess crouched down to help her. "Why are you putting your sneakers on?"
"We're going to Mom's."
"You don't want to get dressed first?"
"We always open our Christmas gifts in our pyjamas and Mom said to wear what I feel comfortable in. I'll take some clothes and change before lunch."
"Okay. I'm going to take a shower." Jess told her and gave her a quick good morning kiss. "I'll be right back."
"I'm not going anywhere fast."
"I'll hold you to that."
GG
"Luke, Luke wake up." Lorelai poked him.
"Go back to sleep Lorelai."
"I think there is someone in the house."
"What?" Luke questioned. "Lorelai, I don't think Santa breaks into houses."
"Luke go and check it out." Lorelai pleaded.
"Smells like eggs." Luke remarked.
"What?"
"Smells like eggs."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"You invited Rory and Jess over for Christmas. She has a key and she's probably hungry and Jess is making breakfast." Luke pointed out.
"Go check." Lorelai requested. "Ppllllease."
"Fine."
Luke put on some sweat pants over his boxer shorts and headed downstairs. Rory was sat at the table in her pyjamas, while Jess was scrambling some eggs.
"Hey Luke Merry Christmas." Rory smiled.
"Merry Christmas."
"Do you and Lorelai want some eggs?" Jess inquired.
"Sure." Luke agreed. "I'll just go and tell her we're not being robbed."
"Merry Christmas." Lorelai said when she came down dressed in her pyjamas.
"Eggs and coffee." Jess handed her a plate and cup.
"You can come for Christmas again." Lorelai told him.
"Thanks." Jess replied.
"Luke getting dressed?" Rory inquired.
"He thinks you need to be dressed to open Christmas presents."
"What does he know?" Rory smiled.
"Exactly. We can just keep to our traditions."
"What traditions are they?" Jess asked.
"Coffee and food, presents and then…"
"And then?" Jess prompted.
"Back to bed." Rory replied.
"You go back to bed?" Jess questioned.
"Wait until you have a three year old jumping on you wanting to know if Santa came yet at five am." Lorelai informed him. "Then you'll realise that after a couple of hours the novelty wears off and you can all go back to bed for a few hours."
"This is when I learnt that if Mom had gone back to sleep I could play with my toys without being interrupted."
"She used to fall asleep in the wrapping paper. I have pictures somewhere."
"I thought we were past showing people my pictures." Rory remarked.
"It's not like I'm showing him the picture of you in the bath."
"That's because I burnt them." Rory reminded her.
"But Mommy kept the negatives." Lorelai smiled.
TBC