Hey peeps, thanks again for all the wonderful comments on the last chapter. I really love hearing what you all love about my story, it makes my day. Well here is another chapter for all of you, I hope you like. Thanks, JenCullen28.

Chapter 73: Christmas Day

Edward's P.O.V.

Today is Christmas Day and I can't wait till our babies wake up and see what Santa Clause brought them. We just had a few gifts under the tree and now the tree is full of gifts for the kids and the family and our friends. We have Emmett's and Rose's gifts behind the tree for when they get back. I so wish we could go get them now and bring them home but Bella and Alice are right, we need to be here for the kids first and then plan on what we are going to do after Christmas to get them back from the scummy hands of the Volturi. If I could I would rip the head of Aro off and set it on fire and laugh as it burns for even thinking he could touch my brother and sister. Me, Alice and Bella are having to act as if everything is okay and we know it's not with Rose and Em with those things in Italy.

As you can tell I am not mad at Em anymore I just want them back home with us safe and sound. I so wished that we did not get so mad at him for the prank he pulled but he almost killed our daughter and it pissed me off. I know how he must feel and I want to pull him into me and hug him and never let go. I miss them so much, and even tho my family seem happy I can read their minds and all their thoughts are about Em and Rose and how much they miss them. When I am in the room everyone tries not to think about them but they do slip up.

Anyways, like I said today is Christmas and it's really early in the morning. The kids are still asleep and so are the humans. It's just five in the morning and mom, Alice, Bella, Kate, and Carmen are in the kitchen cooking for the humans. We are going to have a Christmas party but it's not till way later today. We are going to have a family Christmas with just us, and the Denali clan then at three this afternoon everyone else will join us. Us guys are planning a really huge snowball fight and even been outside trying to see where to put up walls and stuff. Two days ago when we had the snowball fight it was fun but we are going to have many more people and I so can't wait. We have wrote down some rules that everyone must obey; I will tell you them later.

Right now as the women are in the kitchen us guys are back outside building walls of freshly fallen snow. It's still snowing and so far we have 4 feet of snow and it's the good wet packing snow great for snowball fights. So far we have four walls built and according to Alice she sees five of them built. These wall are all over the front yard and back yard. When we get done with the walls our next jobs are to make a lot of snowballs for all teams. We just got done with all five walls that is spreed out it is time to make a bunch of snowballs. We decided to go to the clearing in the woods with four wheel barrels so we don't mess up the battle set. I run into the house and see that it is going on six AM and went to find Bella. I found her and the others still in the kitchen so I walk up to her and kiss her on the neck and she smiles.

"Bella, call me right before the babies wake up. Me and the guys are going to go make snowballs for the big snowball fight later today and we are heading out to the clearing in the woods to make them so not to mess up the battle set. I love you and we will be back," I told her.

She smiled at me and told me okay and that she loves me to. I tell the ladies bye and run out the back and almost hit on of the snow walls forgetting that it was that close to the house. The guys saw it and started to laugh so I grabbed up some snow and threw it at all of them. Then we took off to the clearing to make snowballs. Dad is also helping the girls because he does not want to be in the fight. We make it to the clearing and start rolling snow into balls at vampire speed. I guess we were out there an hour and had all four wheel barrels full of snowballs. We counted and so far we have 200 snowballs and we still need more. So we take the wheel barrels back to the house and start to unload the snowballs evenly. We gave each wall 40 snowballs each. When we got done we started to go get more till mom stepped out and stopped us.

"Edward, Alice told me to tell you that Nessie and Draven will be waking in 10 minutes and for all of you to come in and get warmed up to your normal temp. Then when they come down we will start our Chris..tmas," Esme told us and broke up a little at the word Christmas.

She is hurting really bad because of Rose and Em not being here. So us guys left the stuff alone and walked in and I saw Bella and Alice walk upstairs to get the babies because they were awake. Us guys went by the fireplace and tired to warm our hands up as best as we could to normal temp. As we were warming up a few moments later Alice and Bella brought down two sleepy looking Nessie and Draven. I smiled when I saw them in their Christmas outfits, they were so beautiful. When the kids saw the tree and saw that there were more gifts under the tree they smiled really big and then they both looked around and then they started to cry some; both of them. I knew what was wrong and so I looked at the family.

"They are crying because aunt Rose and uncle Em are not here," I told everyone.

"Mommy, Daddy, do we have to start Christmas without th-em?" Nessie asked us.

If I could cry I would be doing that right now.

"Nessie and Draven, we don't have to do anything that you two don't want to do. But aunt Rose and uncle Em are gone and wont be here for Christmas. Do you think you could wait a long time to open these gifts?" I asked them with a smile.

They both shook their heads no and then Alice and Bella put them down so they could start to open the gifts up. As the kids were opening the gifts Alice got up and walked out of the room and told Jasper to stay. I could tell she was going into a vision and did not want no one to know other than me. I sat there watching Nessie and Draven open gifts up and was also watching Alice vision.

ALICE VISION:

"Alice, I know you can hear me. Tell the family we are okay and to start Christmas without us. I know you know where we are at and we are okay for now. We love you all and hope to see you all soon," love Rose and Em.

END OF VISION

That right there made me brake down and I had to leave the living room. I heard Bella that we will be back in a minute and came after me. I found Alice on the ground in the kitchen just dry sobbing and we ran up to her. Me and Alice could not talk just yet but I could hear Bella dry sobbing with us. We heard the kitchen doors open and Jasper walked through looking like he was ready to break down and we knew why because he could feel all the sadness coming from us all. He started to send calming waves to us and we calmed down some.

"Guys, what the hell is going on?" he asked us worried.

"We will tell you all when we walk back out there," Alice told him through cries.

We all three got up and walked out into the living room where everyone was looking at us. Me and Bella sat in the floor with our kids and we all looked at Alice. She then told everyone the vision she just had leaving some things out. Everyone then broke down even the babies. This is the saddest Christmas ever, I thought to myself. Jasper sent out a lot of calming waves to us and then he stood up.

"Guys, they would not want us to be crying over them. So lets enjoy Christmas as best as we can because soon we will have people over and we don't want to be all sad and gloomy around everyone. So please calm down and if I have to I will send calming wave every once in awhile to make sure all of your emotions are in check," Jasper told us.

He was right tho and so we went back to opening gifts and feeling better. I mean Rose and Em are not far from our minds but we don't have to suffer all day. An hour later all the main parts of the gifts were unwrapped and the kids were very happy with all the new toys and stuff they got. Me and Bella got them each a charm bracelet just like I did when Bella joined our family many years ago. I remember Bella at this age and her first Christmas and here we are now married and have two beautiful kids that we did not know we could have and it's their first Christmas. We cleaned up all the wrapping paper that was all over the place while the kids played with their new toys. Alice took all the clothes that her and Jasper got them and put them in their rooms. We helped put some of the toys up also because they had a lot of them and did not need all of them in the living room. I thought then and smiled because they are going to get a lot more when everyone else is coming later.

After we got done cleaning up it was time for the kids to eat breakfast. So mom went into the kitchen to fix them something to eat. Jasper flipped the TV on and we sat down to watch the Macy's Christmas Parade. We told everyone that we will be outside finishing everything up for the big snowball fight later. We still had to make up 50 more snowballs so that every team will have 100 snowballs and when they run out they will have a big mound of snow behind them to make more. The girls told us okay and us guys went back to the yard to finish up. When we walked out it was now daylight and the snow was still falling. Then something hit me. The snowballs are going to be covered up in new snow so we had to find away to cover them up without making them melt.

"Guys, the snow is going to cover the snowballs up. We need something to cover them up that will not make them melt but keep the protected till time to throw them," I told them.

So Jasper took off to the garage and came out with five tarps and we put them over the snowballs after we made the rest of them. We looked around and smiled because everything was ready. We left it alone and walked back into the house to sit and talk with everyone.

The women went back into the kitchen so us guys had to watch the babies while they cooked. I saw that it was going on noon and everyone will be here around three.

"Nessie and Draven, what toys do you want to keep down here? Because soon there will be a lot of people here and we don't need a lot of toys here in the living room," I told them.

So they went through their toys and picked out three each and me and Jasper took the others to their rooms. We came back downstairs and saw the ladies sitting and watching TV. I walked over to Bella and picked her up and sat her in my lap.

"You all done cooking for now?" I asked her.

"Yeah, for now anyways. Everything is cooking and we just came in here to wait till we are needed back in the kitchen," she told me.

She got up then and smiled at me.

"Lets go outside and play with the babies in the snow again. And we wont mess with the battle field," she told me.

I got up and we ran the kids upstairs to their rooms to get them ready to go outside. We got them dressed and ran back downstairs and the others were in jackets except mom and dad. They are staying in to watch the food while the rest of us play in the snow. We got outside and we put Nessie and Draven down and they started to try to run in the snow and it was funny watching them. Alice had a video camera taping them playing so when Rose and Em gets back they will be able to see.

We stayed out there for a long time and then a car pulled up and out came Jade, Jake, her parents and the babies. Ana and Damion were dressed to stay outside and so we all played with them also even tho they don't walk yet. Jake had Damion by the hands and letting him walk or lets say trying to walk because he would get his feet stuck in the snow and then start to fuss. Alice taped the whole thing and I was happy. We played a little longer and I looked at the time because other cars started to pull up and they got out and it was the rest of the wolf pack and some of their families with them. It was going on three now and so we all went in to get warm up and to start opening some more gifts and stuff.

I grabbed Nessie and put her on my shoulder and she screamed and laughed. When we walked in the house smelled bad to us vampires but the others were saying how good it smelled and stuff like that. Mom had put everything on warm so we all could open gifts to each other. We opened gifts for about an hour and sure enough Nessie and Draven got a lot more toys and stuff. We were having fun and all. When the gift exchange was over we put on some Christmas music and just talked while the girls got the food ready. We were then all called into the dinning room to eat and I said oh joy under my breath. Nessie and Draven walked into the kitchen and was ready to eat. So me and Bella put them in their highchairs and served them some food. We had food in front of us to that we had to at least eat some of and I so did not want to.

We all sat around ate, talked and just had a good time. Everyone got done eating around five PM and it was time for the big snowball fight. We all walked into the living room and everyone sat down so Jasper could talk. He got up and smiled at everyone.

"First, I need a head count of who is all going to be in the snowball fight," he told all of us.

All the ones going to be in it raised their hands and Jasper counted. He smiled then. I noticed that none of the humans raised their hands except Jennifer, Ange, and Emily.

"Okay, we have 21 people that wants to play. We need at least one of you to be a look out and to count for us," Jasper told us.

Emily stood up and smiled.

"I will be the lookout, I don't like snowball fights really," she told us.

"Okay Emily, are you afraid of heights?" Jasper asked her.

She shook her head no and he smiled at her.

"Good, your lookout spot is on the roof. There is a place for you to stand and sit if you want and you will be safe up there because you will have a harness around you. Now that is taken care of we have some rules of play and also the teams are already made up. We have five teams of four people. Rule one: If you are hit three times with snowballs you are out of the game. Rule two: No climbing trees or anywhere where no one can reach you. Rule three: lets keep is fun and NO fighting. That is why we have a lookout to keep us all in order. Now to teams. Team one: Edward, Jennifer, Seth and Alice. Team two: Bella, Sam, Laurent, and Angie. Team three: Myself, Leah, Eleazar, and Collin. Team four: Kate, Brady, Jade and Quil. Team five: Jake, Paul, Carmen and Jared. So are we all happy with the teams?" Jasper asked us.

Everyone looked around and then back at Jasper and smiled. We all nodded our heads and then we all walked outside. When we got outside I helped Emily upon the roof and made sure she was safe before I left her up there. I came back down and we all stood with our groups.

"Okay, every team has 100 snowballs and if you run out there is a big pile of snow behind you to make more. You can run out from behind your walls but remember if you get hit three times your out of the game. The team who wins will win the money that is just a little over 5,000 dollars that you will have to split. So everyone to your walls. Dad please say go for us," Jasper told dad.

Dad stood on the porch and smiled.

"On your mark, get set, FIGHT!" Dad yelled.

Then the snowballs started to fly big time. We all knew we could not use our special powers so we had to act human. I ducked down behind the wall to talk to my team.

"Okay, if you want we can run around trying to hit someone but please remember if you get hit three times your out," I told them.

They all three nodded to me and then we started to throw snowballs. I saw Jake trying to sneak up on us and well he got hit big time with our snowballs and he was out. Emily yelled out to Jake to leave the battle field and he was not happy but he knew the rules. He went and took a seat on the porch. Mom was recording all the mayhem going on for memories and also to show Rose and Em for when they get back. I saw Paul, Jennifer, and Carmen all leave the field. So I lost one of my team mates already. I saw Seth going after Bella but he got ambushed by the others on her team and he was out. I lost two team mates and so that leaves me and Alice.

The snowball fight went on for a long time and we all noticed that each team only had one maybe two players left. Me and Alice were left along with Jasper and Leah. The others were alone. So we all started to hide and hope to ambush someone. I yelled for Alice to duck but it was to late, she got hit two times and was out. She got hit earlier but just by one snowball. So it was me alone. I sneaked up behind Leah and took her out with three snowballs at once. She smiled and walked off the battle field. So that left Me, Jasper, Sam, Jade and Paul on the battle field. I had a feeling this was going to last awhile. I ran behind my wall and gathered up a lot more snowballs and dashed away when no one was looking. I hid behind a big tree and waited. I heard foot steps coming up behind me and I smiled and started to throw snowballs and I saw I hit Jade three times but she got me once. She walked off the field.

After an hour and no one else has been hit the game was called. So me, Jasper, Sam and Paul had to split the money. We all then walked in and just started to talk about how the game went and that we will have to do it again. It was so much fun but it would have been even more fun with Rose and Em here. We all gathered in the living room and started to talk until dad stood up and told us to quiet down some.

"I would love to thank you all for coming and spending Christmas with our family. We are still sad that Rose and Em are not here with us but we do know that they are safe and just need some time away. It is going on 8pm and well it is time for the reading of Charles Dickens, The Christmas Carol. It is a tradition that we do every year and we have some new people here to hear me read it. So if you have to use the bathroom or get something to drink and snack on then do so now," dad told all of us.

Some people got up and did what dad said and then we all found our places we wanted to sit while dad read the book to all of us. Mom put on some light classical Christmas music to set the mood and the lights dimmed just enough so dad could still see but it made it look really beautiful in here. I was holding Nessie and Bella was holding Draven and we were on the floor next to each other waiting for the story to start. Dad sat in his chair with mom right behind him on the arm of the chair and he smiled at us and started to read the Christmas Carol.

Well peeps, I am going to leave it there for now. SO what do you all think of that snowball fight? I loved writing this chapter a lot, it was fun and sad at the same time. Thanks for reading. Love to all, JenCullen28.