It's Elsie's idea to celebrate Christmas, and it's Elsie who insists that Sarah bake festive biscuits for the shop and drags a small proud pine into their flat. She clucks at Sarah about decorations, and the younger woman shifts uneasily in her seat, muttering something about how it would be nice, this year, to just avoid the whole production. Sarah has always been too poor to afford the proper holiday enthusiasm, and can't see sense in throwing tinsel on everything now when they don't have to.
But then she sees how Elsie's smile fades in the face of her reluctance, and she can't ignore it when her shoulders bow forward slightly under the disappointment.
Sarah shuts up, and creates strings of popped corn to wind about the tree (their tree) to accompany the tinsel and spindly ornaments Elsie brings home. They find an angel, all uplifted eyes and flaxen curls, and they perch her on top, and Sarah resists the filthy comment that so desperately needs to be said.
The two of them spent more than ten Christmases at Downton, but never has Sarah seen Elsie beam as she does now, in their own sitting room before their own tree.
"My mother used to labor so over our tree when I was a girl," she murmurs, her eyes soft. "And she'd lift Minnie up to crown it when the time came, as she'd beg and beg so shamelessly."
And it sends tremors through Sarah's insides to hear her speak so freely of her long-ago girlhood. It's a rarity for Elsie to reveal anything of those days, preferring to let the details linger in shadow. What Sarah has been able to piece together through stray words and faded marks is something tarnished, too ugly to let out of the dark.
"It sounds lovely." She murmurs, and she comes up behind Elsie and holds her, anchors her here so she cannot slip away.
"Sometimes it was."
Elsie falls silent, leans back and trusts her weight to Sarah's body; the younger woman nuzzles at the older, a simple, animal way of saying I am here.
The Scot claps her hands, all business, and gently disengages from Sarah's arms, bustling off to get together all the presents they've hoarded for their nieces and nephews (Elise has but two nieces, and Sarah has near a dozen plus the two lads- the lines between have blurred, and they dote with impunity ). Sarah is left alone and gives the tree a long, pensive look.
She is exhausted from their preparations and the posturing required in public, and all her joy is taken secondhand from the shine of Elsie's eyes, the up-curving bow of her soft lips- but it is worth it, more than worth it.
This Christmas shall be Elsie's loveliest.
Characters belong to Fellowes, some of Elsie's backstory belongs to Vee/Tartan Robes.