Notes: Okay, it's very nearly December now so I'm starting on the Christmassy fics. This one is inspired by a conversation I had with a four-year-old last Christmas.
All I Want For Christmas Is…
"Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way…"
Ianto fought the urge to bang his head against the nearest wall as little Anwen burst into her fiftieth rendition of the afternoon. She twirled and danced around his front room, clumsily demonstrating her pre-school play's energetic choreography and very nearly kicking his coffee table on multiple occasions. His frequent winces and utterings of "careful!" were doing very little to deter her from her performance.
His phone pinged in his pocket and Ianto immediately retrieved it, grateful for any momentary distraction from the repetitive show he had a never-ending front-row seat to.
The ping was notifying him of a text message, one from Gwen: Stuck under a mountain of paperwork. Might be a bit late picking Anwen up. Hope you don't mind.
He was formulating a response when another notification came through, this time from Jack: IPad secured for Steven. One Lego set for each kid plus the extra bits. On my way up.
"Dashing through the-"
Anwen cut herself off mid-lyric.
"Uncle Ianto, you're not watching!" Anwen complained.
Clearly, she didn't miss a thing. Ianto hastily moved his eyes away from his glaring phone screen and returned them to Anwen who had halted mid-performance and was staring straight at him. If looks could kill, he would have been in serious trouble.
"I am watching," Ianto innocently insisted. "You're doing amazing dancing and twirling."
And constantly threatening to break my coffee table.
Anwen didn't look convinced by his words. Her shoulders had dropped, all her enthusiasm had evaporated, and a wave of guilt crashed over Ianto as he realised she looked to be on the verge of tears.
"Dylan said, he said that, that I'm doing it all silly and he hit me and he said to Miss Evans that I hit him first but I was dancing and he said sorry but he said I dance silly," Anwen recounted.
Ianto decided to back himself and opted to believe he had just about managed to keep up with her story. After all, if the number of close calls with his coffee table was anything to go by, he was pretty sure that Anwen had unintentionally gone into the back of this boy whilst dancing. From his own imagining of the event, the boy had mistaken her clumsiness for hitting and hit back in retaliation. Four-year-olds were brutal.
"Well, Dylan is the silly one because you are a great dancer," Ianto told her. "In fact, I bet you are going to be the best little angel on that stage."
"I'm not an angel," Anwen huffed as she jumped onto the sofa, sitting down beside him. "I'm a door."
Ianto stared at her, questioning whether he had heard her right.
A donkey, a camel, a sheep, he would understand. But a door?
Surely not.
"A door?" Ianto gaped.
"Yes. I'm a door," Anwen repeated, shaking her head at him, like he was the crazy one.
His door – as in the inanimate object which acted as an entryway in and out of the flat – opened as Jack returned from his outing, three bags in hand. Ianto, never more grateful for an escape from a conversation in his life, leapt up from the sofa immediately.
"Anwen, you can have a Christmas cookie for being the best dancing door in your entire school play," Ianto allowed her.
She didn't need telling twice. The second the words had escaped his mouth, Anwen dived for the pile of cookies in the centre of the coffee table. The cookie would hopefully keep her busy for the next few minutes, providing Ianto with an opportunity to catch up with Jack before Anwen would inevitably want to dive into her entire routine for the fifty-first time.
As Ianto took one of the bags from Jack, he was met by the sight of a puzzled expression on the other man's face.
"Did you just say door?" Jack checked, looking, and sounding, just as sceptical of his own hearing as Ianto had been just moments before.
"Yeah, she's a door," Ianto confirmed.
"How does that work?" Jack questioned.
"Your guess is as good as mine," Ianto shrugged as he walked through to the kitchen. "We'll just have to live in suspense until Tuesday."
"Tuesday?" Jack repeated as the bags were all placed on the counter. "What's happening on Tuesday?"
"I knew you'd forget!" Ianto grinned.
He directed Jack's attention to the calendar on the wall and the big red letters under Tuesday 16 which read Anwen play – 2pm.
"Remember, we're taking the Tuesday matinee performance; Gwen and Rhys are going to the evening one; Mary, Brenda and Barry are taking the Wednesday matinee; and Owen and Tosh have the Wednesday evening covered," Ianto recounted the plans then sarcastically remarked, "because the world would end if she had to go one performance without having anyone in the audience."
"I thought we were doing Wednesday evening?" Jack sounded utterly lost.
"No, Wednesday is David's school football game," Ianto reminded him, pointing to the very next square on the calendar, complete with red lettering; David football game – 5pm.
"This thing is full," Jack remarked as he took in the sight of the calendar, each box crammed with red letters.
"That's December for you," Ianto responded. "It's the most hectic time of the year."
Leaving Jack to take in the information of their crammed schedule for the coming weeks, Ianto turned his attention to the contents of the bags Jack had returned with. He shifted through an iPad, Lego sets of varying difficulties, a number of selection boxes, and a few colouring books.
Something, very notable, was missing.
"Err, Jack," Ianto spoke up to get his attention.
"Yeah?" Jack prompted, turning away from the calendar.
"Where's the…" he trailed off so not to get overheard by little ears, opting instead to nod through to the front room where Anwen remained sat on the sofa, happily munching away on her cookie.
Jack did not follow his hint.
"The what?" Jack asked.
After checking that Anwen continued to have her back to them, Ianto whispered, "The Frozen dolls."
"Oh, I spoke to Gwen, Owen has already got those for her," Jack informed him. He delved into one of the bags, retrieving two Frozen colouring books. "I got these instead."
"What? We can't just get her…" Ianto exclaimed, trailing off and controlling himself before whispering, "colouring books!"
"What's the problem? She likes colouring and Frozen," Jack pointed out.
"But she hasn't been going on about Frozen colouring books for the last two months! Do you know what she has been going on about relentlessly for the last two months? Frozen dolls!" Ianto whispered in return. "Are we really going to let Owen – the very same Owen who bought her socks last year – out-present us?"
"Ianto, I get what you're saying and if you've got any better suggestion, go ahead and put them forward, but these are the best I could come up with," Jack told him, shrugging as he held up the colouring books.
Ianto stared at them for a few seconds, really thinking hard on a solution, before conceding, "Yeah, I've got nothing."
Jack's brow furrowed as he seemed to stumble upon an idea, "Well… we could always just ask her."
Bags of presents tucked safely away in one of the kitchen cupboards, Ianto returned to the front room with Jack in tow. Christmas cookie demolished and crumbs everywhere, Anwen leapt up from the sofa, her eyes twinkling in delight when she spotted Jack.
"Uncle Jack! Uncle Jack! Watch me!" she called excitedly and, for the fifty-first time that day burst out into, "Jingle bells, jingle bells-"
"Anwen, wait!" Ianto abruptly cut her off then hastily suggested, "Why don't you keep it as a surprise?"
"Yes, I'm coming to watch you at school on Tuesday," Jack backed him up, "but, right now, we have a really important question for you."
Anwen's initial disappointment at being interrupted was quickly dispelled by Jack's proposition and she cocked her head to the side. "Really?"
"Really," Jack confirmed.
Ianto returned to his earlier position on the sofa. Jack joined him, sitting right next to him, but not before grabbing two Christmas cookies from the coffee table. He held one out for Anwen who bounded over immediately, politely taking it from him and settling back down onto the sofa.
"She's just had one," Ianto exasperatedly reminded Jack.
"Two won't do any harm," Jack returned dismissively.
"I'll remind you of that when she's bouncing off the walls," Ianto muttered.
"Right, Anwen, big important question," Jack, in between taking bites of his own cookie, got them back on track, "What do you want for Christmas?"
A huge grin crossed Anwen's face at the reminder of the fast-approaching holiday. She answered instantly, with confidence and excitement, "Presents!"
"Right…" Ianto agreed; that much, they already knew, "but what presents do you want?"
"Blue and yellow ones!" Anwen exclaimed, bouncing up and down in her seat.
"Okay…" Jack trailed off, mild irritation evident in his voice, and Ianto was glad he wasn't the only one getting frustrated with the extremely unhelpful answers, "but what do you want inside the blue and yellow presents?"
"Boxes!" Anwen grinned wildly.
Little did she know, for the second time that evening, Ianto was very much fighting the urge to bang his head against a wall. Beside him, Jack was struggling to hold back laughter at the way the conversation had panned out.
"Okay, Anwen," Jack spoke up when he was finally able to form some words, trying again, "but we are talking about what you want inside the boxes inside the blue and yellow presents. Like toys. Most children ask for balls or books or hula hoops or cars or trains. What do you want?"
"I want…" Anwen started, trailing off.
Her eyes narrowed as she considered her options. Jack and Ianto waited on bated breath.
Anwen's eyes widened as a thought popped into her head. She opened her arms wide and exclaimed, "Everything!"
She jumped up from the sofa and excitedly skipped around the room as she burst into another rendition of her favourite song.
"Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way! Oh, what fun…"
Jack, looking just as exasperated and bewildered as Ianto felt, turned to him, "Colouring books?"
"Colouring books," Ianto conceded with a sigh.
"Better than socks," Jack contemplated.
"True," Ianto admitted.
"Do you reckon we could find some blue and yellow wrapping paper?" Jack suggested.
Ianto stared at him before the sarcasm erupted from him, "Yes, those extremely Christmassy colours."
"Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way! Oh, what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh. Hey!"