Christmas Morning

He awoke slowly, his brain focusing on the warm cosy feeling that being wrapped in the duvet gave him.  In turning over his foot left the confines of the duvet and he could feel the cold in his bedroom. The snow that had started last night and he along with his brother had spent some time outside racing around enjoying the excitement that the snow had generated, his mother and father stood at the back door, arms around each other, watching their two children enjoying themselves with the rare abandon that they did not see too often.  It had taken a momumental effort to get the two boys inside and then into dry clothes, the excitement coursing through all of them.  Eventually the two boys had been tucked up in bed, although it had been some time later when he had finally fallen asleep.

He lay their luxuriating in the warmth, no need to worry about getting up for school, it was the holidays after all and he didn’t have to go back for another couple of weeks.  He was close to dozing off when his brain finally pieced things together and he lept out of bed.  “It’s Christmas Day” he said out loud.  Even with the excitement levels rising, he could not ignore the cold and pulled his dressing gown on and tucked his feet into his slippers, combined with his pyjamas it went some way to keeping him warm.  He pulled his bedroom door open and stepped out onto the landing, then taking the two steps across to his brothers bedroom, threw open the door.

He could see the still sleeping form of his brother in bed, he contemplated his options and decided that the simplest approach was the best, running across the room he lept onto his brothers bed, landing on his brothers legs.

“Wake up, Wake up.  It’s Christmas” he called.

“Wzzat” his brother voice came from under the duvet.

“Wake Up, WAKE UP” he shouted.

“Ok Ok OK” his brother’s voice rising in volume as he continued to bounce up and down.

“It’s Christmas” he said

“It better be” his brother growled ” anything less would not allow me to forgive you for bouncing on me.  Do you know what the time is?”

“Err No” he replied glancing round at the clock.  “6:42″

“Oh well at least it’s not as early as last year” his brother said.

Last year he had woken before 5am and waking his brother up they had decided to sneak downstairs and look at the presents.  However the two of them had become somewhat noisy and woken both of their parents up, words had been exchanged, well mainly from their parents to the boys  and they had all returned to their respective beds.   The bad feeling from the early hours had however soon melted away and everyone had enjoyed the rest of the day.

This year they both recognised that it was late enough to go downstairs and maybe even do something nice for their parents.  However all thoughts of making breakfast left the boys minds as they walked into the lounge, the christmas tree which had been put up last night had been fully decorated now and with streamers and tinsel criss crossing the ceiling, their was no mistaking the festivities being planned.  The two of them paused in the door way drinking in the splendour and it wasn’t until his brother spoke that he snapped out of his daze

“Presents!!”

That one word half whispered had the same effect as though someone had shouted “3…. 2…. 1…. Go” and fired  a starting pistol, the two boys glanced at each other, looked at the base of the tree, glanced and each other again and threw themselves down within reach of the pile of presents.  The two of them began sorting them with each of them now or then handing a present to the other with a simple “Yours”, they also created two additional piles, one for each of their parents, however these piles were significantly smaller than the mountain of presents that each of them had been given, Santa had been generous this year.

“Having Fun??” a voice said and both heads turned towards the door seeing their parents standing there, their father with his arm around their mothers waist.

“We weren’t up too early” his brother said as they both looked guilty.

“That’s ok” father said, “a much more reasonable hour than last year I seem to think”

“Let me put some coffee on” mother said “and then you can start opening your presents”

The two boys quickly finished their sorting out of the piles of presents and before long their mother returned with a mug of coffee for herself and their father.

“Ok boys” she said “Lets open some presents.”