❀❀❀ HOLLY ❀❀❀

Set in 2030

For a lot of people, Christmas was one of the most exciting times of the year. It's a time where families come together to celebrate as a whole and really enjoy each other's company. Sure it can be hectic, and almost always stressful, but it's also a time for festivity. There's music and snowball fights, visits to Santa's grottos, carolers, and movie nights. As well as sledding, lots and lots of presents, tree decorating, gingerbread houses, light displays, and ugly winter sweaters. It's everything Alex had grown to love since his first holiday season with Jo, building new tradition after new tradition as each year went on.

It hadn't always been that way though, there was a time when Alex hadn't shared people's love of the holidays. Growing up, his dad had used Christmas as an excuse to drink even more than he usually did, meaning December just brought Alex more hardship than any other month of the year. More hours of abuse, more time spent coming up with excuses to his teachers at school, and more days where Alex would have to turn the music up loud in his room to distract his little sister Amber from whatever was going on in the lounge. His years in foster care had brought slightly better memories of Christmas better but there's still not much magic to it all when you're stuck in a state home shared with twenty other 'troubled' boys and your only gift is a twelve pack of socks and a new toothbrush.

However, that all changed when he met Jo, especially when they welcomed little Maddy over ten years ago. She made Alex realise just how special Christmas truly was. She wasn't his eldest child, that title belonged to Charlie, but Maddy was his first and she was what made him fall in love with all the things that people loved about the holidays. From the very first time he'd sat her on Santa's lap, the small baby staring up in awe mesmerised by the long white beard, he'd decided that christmas would forever revolve around his children. Alex vowed that his kids would never feel the same loneliness that he'd felt during December.

It was this thinking that had contributed to the crazy array of twinkle lights currently wrapped around his house and draped along the gutters on the roof. Alex had had a rather long and emotionally draining day at the hospital – working pediatrics at Christmas time was tough – so walking along the cobblestone path toward his front door, he couldn't wait to get inside of his home where he could hear music blasting. His daughter's giggles could be heard from where he stood on the front porch, followed by his wifes equally as contagious laughter. Peeking through the window to the right, he could see Jo cradling their newborn daughter tight to her chest as she twirled four year old Elsie in ballerina spins. Their eldest two daughters, Charlie and Maddy, were stacking boxes of ornaments beside the undecorated tree in preparation for when Alex got home to help.

Having caught her dad's eyes in the thinly snowed covered window, Maddy excitedly sprung up from her position on the floor and ran towards him at the door. "Dad, you're home! We've been waiting for you to decorate the christmas tree," she wasted no time pulling Alex into her embrace. Within a few of seconds, both Charlie and Elsie had squeezed their way into the hug as well, forming a huddle of sorts.

"Make room for baby sissy and mommy," Jo grinned, joining in as well.

"We really need to come up with a name for her, she can't exactly be 'baby sissy' her whole life," Alex chuckled, pulling out of the hug to put his belongings away in the coat cupboard.

"I like it, dad. It's short, to the point and fairly easy to spell," Charlie joked, plonking down into her usual spot on the couch.

"I still want to name her Madison," Maddy sat beside Charlie, "then you'll have a Madeleine and a Madison...what's not to love?"

"Um, everything about that…" Charlie scoffed.

"Princess!" Elsie suggested, excited just to get a chance to speak within the chaos of her older sister's constant squabbles.

"That's the best idea I've heard yet," Alex scooped the four year old off the ground, walking over to the couch to join the older two kids. "What do you think, Jo? We can have a Charlotte, Madeleine, Elsie and Princess."

"Hmmm, maybe we should think about it a little more," Jo smiled, following behind with the baby still hugged against her.

"So what's this I hear about decorating the tree?" Alex pointed towards the stack of ornaments.

"As soon as dinner's done, and then we're all going to decorate it together. The timer on the oven says about ten minutes so it shouldn't be long now," Jo walked towards their kitchen to the side of the living room.

Alex sent a panicked look both Charlie and Maddy's way, "oh no, mom's cooked?"

"Hey!" Jo pretended to sound offended, "I'm not that bad…"

"Sure babe, you're so good. So, so, so good that you almost set the house on fire last year cooking thanksgiving dinner," Alex teased.

"You are never going to let me live that down, are you?" Jo groaned. "Here," she handed the baby over to Alex, "make yourself useful and hold her for me. I think she might need changing."

"Ew, that's gross…" Elsie, who had followed her parents into the next room with them, piped up from the corner.

"Look mom!" Maddy held up an ornament for Jo to see. "This says 'baby's first Christmas' on it. Is this mine?"

"It sure is," Jo smiled back, "and the pink one in the box is Elsie's one from when she was a baby and the purple one is the one Charlie picked out from the shop the year we adopted her."

"Let me see!" both Charlie and Elsie said in unison, making a beeline to the ornaments.

"Why does mine have to be purple?" Charlie whined, inspecting the bauble closer.

"Because that's the one you liked at the time," Jo shook her head playfully. "Believe it or not, you hadn't sworn off all colours of the rainbow at that point."

"And no, you can't paint it black," Alex chimed in, earning himself a frustrated growl from his daughter.

"Whatever," Charlie muttered under her breath.

"I like the colour of my one!" Maddy beamed.

"Suck up," Charlie poked her tongue out in response, unimpressed by her sister's sing song attitude.

"I can't reach to put my one on the tree, daddy!" Elsie stood on her tiptoes, struggling to hand her pink bauble on the branches.

"Let us help you, Elsie," Maddy waved Charlie over to help lift up their younger sister. "Put your foot in our hands and push up with our shoulders," she instructed.

It was moments like this that Alex realised just how lucky he was for the family he'd been given. Untangling tinsel in the corner, he watched on as his ten and eleven year old daughters work together to hold their younger sister up high enough to hang up her oruanment on the tree. Beside them, sitting in a pile of cushions and blankets, Jo was sitting nursing the youngest little Karev, watching on at the three other children, equally as touched by the way they were interacting as Alex was.

"It's time for the tinsel now, dad!" Charlie broke Alex out of his trance.

"There's exactly five pieces, so why don't we all grab a piece of tinsel each and wrap it around the tree?" Alex started handing out gold glitter tinsel to each one of his children, minus the baby who had just been placed in her bassinet, passing the final one to Jo.

"That sounds wonderful," Jo placed her lips to Alex's, "good thinking. Why don't we go in height order so we can all reach properly?"

"That's my cue to go then," Alex spun the gold around the top of their messily decorated tree. Both him and Jo had given the kids free range with the ornaments, and well, you could definitely tell. "Momma's turn now!"

Jo carried on from where Alex's piece of tinsel finished, wrapping her further down the tree. "All done, you're up Charlie!"

"I might need some help here…" Charlie waved Alex over for assistance. "Can you please hold the end of the tinsel when I throw it around from the back?"

"Sure thing, darling. Go on!" Alex encouraged her. "Ah almost," he said when she missed, "I need you to throw it a little harder, ah yep there we go."

"Do you need any help too, Maddy?" Jo offered.

"Maybe a little, but only because I have such little dinosaur arms," Maddy flailed her arms all about in example. "Now grab it now!" she said, throwing it around the tree, allowing Jo to catch from the other side.

"Okay, Worm...It's your turn now," Alex picked up the tinsel from the on the floor, Elsie having already gotten distracted and dropped it, and placed it back in her hands.

"I don't need help because I'm a big girl," Elsie said matter of factly, however was quickly proved wrong when the tinsel fell to the ground after all three of her attempts to hang it on the tree.

"Are you sure you don't want any help, Elsie?" Jo tried to speed the process along.

"Maybe, just a little…" she replied sheepishly, in which she received help from both her siblings and her parents.

"All we need to do now is plug the lights into the wall," Alex grinned, excited for the last and final step – the best part of tree decorating.

"Can I do it, dad?" Charlie asked, rushing over to the outlet the second she received the approving nod, shoving the plug into the wall. "Wow," she beamed at the flashing lights in the living room.

"Wow, indeed," Alex almost got emotional standing there, in awe of the Christmas tree his family had just decorated all together.

He'd woken up the next morning to all four of his children cuddled up in bed with himself and Jo. Charlie was holding her newborn baby sister, whom she was completely and utterly in love with, and Maddy and Elsie hugged close to Jo under the duvet. He doesn't remember at what point in the early morning they'd all crawled in but he didn't mind, not at all. He will never ever get sick of waking up beside his family, not when they're as amazing as they are.

"So what's her name, guys?" Alex croaked out, still suffering from morning breath. "Baby sissy needs a name before Christmas so we can get her her own bauble for the tree."

"Christmas!" Elsie excitedly suggested, once again not quite hitting the mark.

"Not quite, honey." Alex ruffled her messy bed head.

"Wait, maybe Christmas isn't such a bad idea?" Jo looked at Alex.

"Are you insane, Jo? Are you telling me that you actually want to have a Charlie, a Maddy, an Elsie and last but not least, Christmas..."

"No, not Christmas. But something like Christmas. Like Noelle, Carol, Natalie, or Belle.

"What about...Holly?" Charlie added to the list of suggestions, surprising both Alex and Jo as they immediately fell in love.

"I love that, I really really do. What do you think Alex?" Jo leaned over to where Charlie was sitting, stroking the baby's reddish cheeks.

"Holly is perfect. Holly Karev."

And so that was it, Holly Karev – soon to be Holly Matilda Karev – was the name of the fourth Karev child. Named after the time of year which Alex and Jo had once hated, but had now grown to love through the memories they were now building together as a new family, Holly will forever be their Christmas baby.

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mdevonsunflower

AUTHORS NOTE: I updated this on tumblr and AO3 a few days back but completely forgot to post the new chapter here, so here yah go! Hope you enjoyed it x