'Twas the night before Christmas…
And everyone in the house, except baby Neal, was excited.
The sheer number of gifts that could be seen under the tree was pulling everyone in. Each person in the family had snuck their gifts out to the tree earlier in the day, and it was just now that everyone was seeing how overboard each of them had gone.
Sitting down to dinner, Henry started begging to be allowed to open one early, but Emma was not going to let it happen. She felt it was a parental duty to make her son wait until Christmas day.
Mary Margaret and David would have caved instantly. She did let Henry snoop through the piles under the tree, watching as he shook various packages and tried to guess what was inside. "You're just going to have to wait, kid. And no waking us up at an ungodly early hour. And you need to make sure we've all had coffee before you can start opening anything."
Emma was trying not to let on how excited she was too. The family settled in to watch Elf. Killian almost couldn't take the silliness of the movie, but loved watching how much Henry was enjoying it.
When they all went to bed, Killian staying at the loft as he had not gone back to Granny's to sleep since the night of the bachelorette/bachelor parties, Emma started begging Killian to let her open a present.
"Please, Killian. Just one?"
Killian laughed, "but Emma, what were you just telling Henry about needing to wait until tomorrow?"
Emma started to play dirty. "But Killian, this is the first year anyone has ever bought me anything for Christmas. Please. I've never gotten to open a Christmas present early. I promise I won't ask next year," she said, completely lying.
Killian could not deny Emma anything, no matter how much he wanted to try and give her the same treatment he just saw her give Henry.
He went out and dug under the tree, finding a little gift to bring in for her.
She opened the box and saw the necklace with the charms on it. Of course she immediately knew there was one for her, Henry, and Killian. She loved it and put it on and went to look at herself in the dressing table mirror.
From behind her she heard Killian say, "That was the first present I bought for you this year. I was going insane trying to find something perfect."
"You did find something perfect. You and Henry will always be with me this way." She walked back to the bed and climbed under the covers. "Thank you. It really is perfect."
"Well hopefully you think the other 30 presents I bought you are just as perfect."
"THIRTY PRESENTS?! Killian, that's too much. No wonder not all the gifts can fit under the tree. What were you even thinking buying me that many presents?"
"Well, Swan, I wanted you to have one present for every year you had a bad Christmas. Henry and your parents helped me pick a lot of them out. Tomorrow I want you to know that just because you've have bad Christmases before, you're never going to again. Not if your family and I have anything to do with it."
"Our family," Emma said quietly.
"What?"
"They're our family now, Killian. Not just my family." Emma had silent tears falling down her cheeks, thinking about the effort everyone had put into ensuring she had a good Christmas. She promised herself that tomorrow morning she'd make sure every member of her family knew how much she loved and appreciated them.