Emilie P.o.V.
24th of December 2016

Today is Christmas Eve and Taylor is going crazy. I've met Austin two days ago and ever since then I've been sleeping in my loft bed, which I absolutely love.

According to the clock in the kitchen it was only around 8am, but Taylor had already decorated the house and made breakfast, which we were eating.

"My parents and Austin are coming over this afternoon. So we've got a lot to do today. We need to bake Christmas cookies, decorate the Christmas tree and start preparing the dinner, eventhough my mom will help finishing it." I nodded and took another bite from my toast with scrambled eggs.

"I need to make presents. I already finished yours and Uncle Austins but I don't have anything for your parents."
Taylor nodded giving me a smile.
"Alright. Let's do the baking first and then I'll prepare the food while you make the presents."

"Yeah. Sounds good." I continued to eat.
After I finished my food I helped Taylor clean up.

"We'll make cutout cookies and gingerbread men cookies." Taylor said and pulled out the first recipe.
Before pulling a stool close so I could climb up on top of it.

Taylor put out the ingredients for the first cookies and together we made the first dough.

"It needs to be in the fridge for at least half an hour before we can cut out the cookies so let's do the other dough. I mean we already prepared the dough yesterday so we can cut out the gingerbread mens."

I nodded excitedly and Taylor handed me the cookie cutters. In total we had three different sizes.

Together we worked on cutting out all of the men's and put them on the tray.
After we had finished with this dough Taylor put it in the oven.

"The other dough should be ready now." "Sure. By the way Taylor?"
"Yeah?" "Can we decor them with sprinkles, icing and chocolate?" Taylor gave me a smile and pulled out a box from being her.

"Look what we got here." Inside the box were lots of different sprinkles and colors to color the icing. I squealed and started to unpack the box.

"We still need to cut out the cookies though." I heard Taylor laugh and looked up at the older blonde. She handed me another box with tons of different cookie cutters.

There were Christmas trees, snow flakes, snowman, hearts, moons, cats and so many more.

"You can do which one you want." I heard Taylor say and nodded. Together we cut out all of the cookies, Taylor had to get the gingerbread men out at one point though, and put them in the oven to bake for twenty minutes.

"We need to let all of the cookies cool. How about you make your presents and I start with the dinner preparations and when both of us are finished we decorate the cookies?"

"Yeah." I said jumped down from the stool and ran to my room, where I sat down at my table. For Taylor I had drawn a picture of her, Meredith, Olivia and I.

Taylor had shown me a picture of Austin and her as kids, that apparently he really liked, so I had painted a frame for it and put a lot of gem stones on it. Taylor helped me with it.

But I really didn't know what to give to her parents as I hadn't met them. Taylor had said to give them one of the photos of us we had made the last couple of weeks and paint the frame like I did for Austins.

So I went through all of the pictures and found the picture of Taylor and me with color in our hair after we had our paint war a few days ago.

I decided to us this and got the frame. I started to paint it in white and after it dried I put gemstones on it so it sparkled really pretty.

With both picture and frame in the hand I walked back to the kitchen and asked Taylor to help me put it in which she did.

"I'm sure they'll love your present. It's beautiful. I need twenty more minutes then we can start with the cookies." She said and I nodded.

The clock showed 12am meaning we'd been up for four whole hours now.
Back in my room I put the two presents for Taylors family on my desk so I'd remember to ask Taylor to help me wrap them and I'd ask Austin to help me with Taylors present.

I went back to Taylor who was putting something in the fridge."Almost finished Em. I just need to cut the last vegetables." She said, while I climbed on one of the chairs and waited.

"Alright. We can finish the cookies now." Taylor said after a little while and I went to her, climbing onto the stool.
"I'll prepare the icing and then you can color it and put it on, does this sound alright?" I nodded eagerly and watched as Taylor made the icing.

"There you go. I'll melt some chocolate and put them on some of the sugar cookies." I nodded and started to decor the gingerbread men.

I colored some icing in red and some in green and some in white. I tried using snow flake sprinkles and round golden and silver ones as buttons to make it look like they were wearing clothes.
"Your doing a good job." Taylor said as she looked over to me.

"I'm almost done to." She added and I looked over at the cookies she decorated. I gasped.

"They look amazing." Taylor started to laugh and handed me one of the already dried cookies. "Try one."
"Really?" I took it from her and looked at her, she nodded, so I took a bite.
"They are so good." I said and Taylor who had taken a bite out of one as well nodded.

"We did a good job sweet girl." She said and gave me a high five. Together we finished the remaining and cleaned up the kitchen.

"Let's eat a little snack and then decorate the tree." Taylor said as she lifted me down from the stool and set me on the kitchen floor.

"Can I have a banana?" I asked pointing at the fruit and she nodded.
She handed me the fruit and took an apple for herself.

"Let's go sit down." She said and we sat down at the table."Taylor. Can you help to wrap the presents for your family?" I asked and Taylor nodded.

"Sure. Do you want to do this first?"
"Yes please." So as soon as I finished I ran to my room and got the presents. When I came back Taylor had already got the wrapping paper and tape.
"Those are beautiful." She said while looking at the pictures.

She started to wrap them while I watched her curiously."All right now let's decorate the Christmas tree. We have around two more hours before our family comes."

I smiled at her words. Our family. I've never been part of a family. Taylor showed me how to put on the Christmas balls, all in red, White and green, some were golden or silver.

While I put the Christmas tree balls on the lower part of the tree, Taylor put them on the upper part.

"Do you want to do the ribbons together?" Taylor asked and after I nodded she picked me up and handed me some ribbons.

After we finished with the ribbons Taylor set me down and I helped her put everything away. Except for the star.

"It's tradition that we put it up all together." Taylor explained after I looked at her."Kay."

"We're done for now and we still have some time left." Taylor said and plopped down on the couch. I followed her example and sat down next to her.
I put my head on her shoulder and cuddled closer to her.

"This was fun." I told her and felt her put an arm around me."Yeah. Christmas is always fun." We stayed like this till an alarm in Taylors handy went off.

"This means that they'll be here in around half an hour so we need to get ready." She let go off me and I went to my room where my outfit was already prepared.

A checked dress in red, dark green and some white and black shoes.
Taylor and I had picked it out yesterday.

After I finished getting dressed Taylor came in my room. "You look beautiful." She said."You're gorgeous." I said and she started to laugh.

"How does such a little girl know such big words? But thank you." She asked while picking me up and twirling me around.

Then the bell rang. Now it was time.
They were here. Taylor was still carrying me as she walked towards the door.

"Hey Mom. Hey Dad." Taylor said and hugged two persons. A woman with beautiful blonde hair and blue eyes, just like Taylor, and a man with slightly grey hair and glasses.

"Hey honey." The woman said as she hugged her back."Hey." The man said as he hugged Taylor back. My arms were still around Taylors neck while I looked at them.

Behind them stood Austin I gave him a little wave before wrapping my arms around Taylors neck again.

"Hello there you must be Emilie. My names Andrea. I'm Taylors mom." The woman said and smiled at me. I smiled back and waved at her.

"I'm Scott. It's nice to meet you." The man said and I gave him a wave too.
Taylor carried me to the living room and the others followed she sat down on the couch and me next to her.
But nope not gonna happen. I'm not sitting on my own when there are two people I don't know and one I only know a bit. So I climbed on her lap and clung to her.

"You're shy today?" I heard Taylor ask and nodded a bit. The other three grown ups were sitting as well now.

"Do you know what would make you more comfortable? Getting to know them." Taylor said and I looked up at her.

"Why don't you introduce yourself properly?" She asked me and I nodded a little bit, still clinging to Taylor.
I heard the other woman in the room laugh a little.

"My names Emilie Marjorie Swift and I'm four years old." I said after I finally managed to look at Taylors Parents.
"Marjorie?" The woman asked, she was tearing up.

"Tay. Honey did you choose this name?" She asked and Taylor gave her a short smile. "I suggested it, but it was Emilies decision."

"It's a beautiful name. Thank you for caring it on." She said, now with tears streaming down her face."I didn't mean to upset her." I mumbled into Taylor.

"You didn't upset her. You made her very happy. Marjorie was her moms name and right now she's very happy, that someone is caring on that name." Taylor explained to me.

"Kay." I still mumbled into Taylor.
"Emilie honey. Can I give you a hug please?" Andrea asked. I looked at Taylor who was just looking at me. Of course she was, she wouldn't make me do anything I'd feel uncomfortable with. I nodded and got out of Taylors arms just to be scoped up in Andreas arms.

She held me for awhile and just like Taylor her presence was calming.
"We should probably start cooking now." Taylor sudden said and Andrea let go of me.

"Your right. Scott you'll help." Her husband just nodded while I looked at Austin.

"Uncle Austin?" "Yeah princess?" I went closer to him so I could whisper into his ear."Can you help me wrap Taylors present please?" He nodded and picked me up.

"We're going to her room." And with that he carried me to my room and helped me to pack the present for Taylor.

Back in the kitchen Taylor and her parents were making food. Well were almost finished in making it, as Taylor had prepared quite a lot before they came.

"Austin, Emilie. Can you help us set the table?" Taylor asked. I took the forks and knives she had layed out and put them on the table next to the plate Austin had layed out.

After we finished we sat down and waited. Andrea put a bowl with carrots and another one with broccoli on the table, Taylor followed her and put a small bowl with cranberry sauce next to it.

Andrea sat down, while Taylor got a large bowl of sweet potatoes  and sat down.

Scott walked in. He carried a big plate with roast ham and set it down in the middle of the plate.

"Dad will you cut the ham?" Taylor asked and Scott nodded with a smile.
He started to cut the ham while the other adults started to take from the vegetables.

"Emilie do you want sweet potatoes?"
"Yes please." Taylor put some on my plate till I told that it was enough.
"Brokkoli and carrots?" She asked me after taking some for herself.

"Carrots please." She gave me a bowl and I got myself some of the carrots.
"Thank you." I said again.

"Emilie. Do you want some ham?" Scott asked and I nodded. "Yes." He took my playe and put a piece of ham on my plate. "Thank you." I said after he set my plate down for me again.

"You're very welcome." After everyone had gotten themselves food we started to eat.

During dinner they tried to get to know me better. Asking me about things I liked and disliked, telling me stories about themselves. I had to admit that they were really nice.

"It's  starting to get late." Taylor said after we already ate the dessert. She was right, it was already really dark outside and I could  feel myself getting tired.

"Are you getting sleepy?" She asked me and I nodded.She picked me up and I waved at the others good night.

The others wished me a good night and Taylor carried me to my room where she handed me a Christmas Pyjama.
I changed in the bathroom and back in my room Taylor tucked me in.

"I hope you sleep well, sweet girl." She said while kissing me on my forehead.
"You too."I mumbled sleepily before curling myself into the blanket with Lulu in my arms.

I woke up to Taylor shaking me lightly.
"Merry Christmas baby." "Merry Christmas Taylor." I mumbled sitting up and rubbing my eyes.

She picked me up and carried me to the living room."Good morning." Andrea said. On the table was already food. Pancakes, Scrambled eggs, toast and fruit.

Over the fireplace five Christmas socks were filled. All of them different pictures on them, yesterday evening we had all choosen one.

Taylor had one other a guitar playing icebear, Austin had a snowman, Andrea one with a sleigh and a Christmas tree. Scott's was the one with Santa Claus on it and mine was the one with a mama elephant and baby elephant around them were toys.

I couldn't help but smile excitedly seeing that were presents inside my sock. I never had gotten presents for Christmas before.

"There are presents." I squealed excitedly and tried to get out of Taylors grasp to get to the sock. "I think that means presents first." Austin said.

"As if you'd be sad about that." Taylor said rolling her eyes at him. "Can we open them please?" I asked looking at her. She sighed and nodded.

Andrea and Scott sat down on the couch both had a mug coffee in their hands. Taylor handed them their stockings and Austin his, before taking hers and mine down.

"There you go." Taylor said. I took the stocking but didn't start to unpack it.
Austin on the other hand was already unpacking them. I watched as he pulled sweets and a small package out of the stocking. In his package he found a Keychain with a pendant to put in a picture. He laughed about it before putting it aside.

Taylors parents had sweets as well and after I saw them opening their small packages I saw that her dad had a picture frame in it and her mom a mug. The mug was Christmas themed, the frame as well.

Taylor was looking at me. "Why aren't you looking inside baby?" I looked at her and smiled. "Was looking what the others got." I explained before reaching inside my stocking.

Just like in the other ones there were a lot of sweets and a small package.
I pulled it out and carefully opened it. Inside were two coloring books. One animal themed and the other fairy themed.

I carefully set them down next to me and smiled at Taylor who smiled back. She had opened her present now as well and held a framed picture of the two of us in her hand.

I moved closer to her and put my head on her chest,just like when we were reading.

"I understand why you like Christmas. It's beautiful."I whispered. "I'm glad you enjoy it." Taylor had put the picture down and both her arms around me to pull me closer.

"Maybe we should eat now before the pancakes get too cold." Andrea said and the other grown ups agreed I followed. I mean what else was there to do. We had opened presents so eating breakfast was the only thing left to do.

Luckily the pancakes where still warm so I ate one with chocolate and some fruit. While the others were still eating I was smiling to myself.

This was the best Christmas ever. I actually had gotten presents, which means that I wasn't as bad as all the years before.

Maybe I would be getting a present next year as well. I looked at the two coloring books and smiled already planning to go drawing as soon as the breakfast ended.

The others were finally finished and I was already on the way to my room when Austin picked me up and carried me back to the couch. We sat down again.

"We still have to open presents." Austin said with a smile after he let go of me, making me crawl to Taylor and cling to her, cause as much as I liked Austin, that he picked me up without asking before kinda scared me.

He went to the Christmas tree and only now I saw the dozens of presents under the tree. The others followed him while he handed everyone some presents with their names on them. After he sorted through most presents there were still about ten presents left.

He looked at me. I was still curled up next to Taylor, who had about six presents in front of her.

Than I realized, that I still had presents for them, so I jumped from the couch and ran to my room.

I heard someone following me and when I turned around with the presents in my arm I saw Scott standing in the door.

"I forgot your presents." I explained while following him back to the living room, where I handed everyone their presents, before sitting down again.
Austin started unpacking his presents at first. He had gotten some gift cards, t shirts and pullovers and now was opening my present.

I was scared to see his reaction but he smiled at me. "That's very beautiful thank you very much." He said showing the picture frame of to his parents and Taylor. My smile grew when I saw that Scott and Andrea opened their present I gave them now as well.

"Thats a beautiful frame did you decorate it?" Andrea asked and I nodded while Scott laughed at the picture. "I like that picture." He said while showing it to Austin and Taylor, eventhough they both knew it already.
"It shows exactly why you shouldn't let Taylor paint your rooms." Austin added making everyone, except Taylor laugh.

"I like my walls and I think the paint war was fun." I mumbled into her as I saw her cheeks blush in embarrassment. "Thank you sweet girl." She said.

"Emilie why don't you go open some presents?" Austin asked and pointed at the pile of presents underneath the tree.

"I already had one." I answered.
"But those are for you. They have your name on them." "Must be a mistake. They aren't really for me. I've never got a present, cause I'm always on Santa's bad list. So why should I now get more than one." I explained to the adults. Sometimes I really wonder why adults are so slow. They never get the simple things. I mean it's clear why Santa wouldn't get me presents, as im a bad person.

I heard someone choke up and someone else sigh, which I immediately knew was Taylor. She picked me up so I could look at her.

"But those presents are for you."
I shook my head. "I'm a bad person. Everyone says that." "I don't say it." Austin said, making me smile a little.
"Well thanks for the help Austin." Taylor said rolling her eyes before focusing back on me.

"You know I talked to Santa and asked him why you didn't get any presents before.""You did?" My eyes widend. How does she know Santa. He's like every kids hero and Taylor knows him personally. "Yeah." I could see the smile on her lips. "Do you want to know what he said?" I nodded.

"He told me that you were supposed to be on the good list and that he made a mistake, because someone gave him the wrong information. So he decided to make this year extra much presents for you."

"Really?" I asked her, cause I couldn't really believe this. Everyone said I was bad and that I didn't deserve nice things.

"Yeah. So why don't you go have a look at what he got you." She said and I nodded but stopped in the movement.
"Can you look at your present first?" I asked and she gave me a smile unpacking the frame I made for her.

Her blue eyes were tearing up when she looked at the picture.The picture showed Taylor, Mere, Olivia and me and had the caption 'family'.
"I love it. Thank you so much sweet girl." She said embracing me and giving me another kiss on the forehead.

"Now go look at your presents." She said and I went to sit under the Christmas tree. I heard Taylor talk to her mom and dad, as she showed them the picture I drew.

I hestitated before I took the first present. It was a really small one and Austin was right. My name was on the name tag.

Carefully I unpacked it and inside was a
book with something called 'magic water colour-in cards.' They were fairy and unicorn themed making me giggle.
Taylor had gotten up and moved to sit on the floor close to me.

"What's that?" She asked me and I handed it to her. "Don't really know, but it looks fun." I said and she laughed at this. Handing it to Austin who put it to the two coloring books.

I only then realized that everyone except me had unpacked all of their presents.So I decided to speed this a little up. I grabbed the next present, which was a lot bigger then the first one and opened it.

It was a big box. On the outside it showed a globe and a toy pen. "Whats that?" I asked looking at Taylor. "Its a globe and when you press on a country or a city with the pen it tells you about that country, city  or animal."

"Thats so cool." I said already excited to try this out. Taylor handed to Austin while I got the next present. It was a smaller one but I was so happy when I saw what was in it.

It was a unicorn themed baking set. With muffin forms, cookie cutters, an unicorn spatula and an apron.
"Look." I showed it to Taylor, who was grinning.

"Seems like we have to bake soon again." I nodded eagerly."Maybe we can bake unicorn muffins and I can sell them in my Cafe." I said to her making everyone laugh.

"Well we can think about it." Taylor said wiping a tear from laughing away.
The next package I took was a lot smaller and thinner than the ones I had till now. There was another one of its size, that I put next to me to open next.
Inside was a DVD.

'Lea to the rescue- An American Girl'. It showed pictures of the jungle and lots of animals."What do you have there?" Andrea asked, as I was still reading the description. "A movie about a girl that has to go to the jungle in to to find her brother. It sounds like a good movie." I said handing it to Taylor, who nodded in agreement.

The other small package was a movie as well, but this one was more interesting for me. It was about a girl that liked baking and goes to Paris.

It was called 'Grace stirs up success.'
"Look this one is about baking." I said showing it to Taylor again who smiled at me and then at her parents.

The next present I took  was bigger once again. Inside was a package of something called kinetic sand. That I had never heard of and neither had Taylor.

"We'll find out what it is." She said with a small shrug and I nodded already taking the next present.

It was a bigger one as well. I opened it and inside was a Lego Friends Set called friends house. I knew Lego. We had that in the common room in the orphanage. I never was allowed to play with it but it always looked fun when the other girls played with it.
Taylor moved closer so she could look at it with me.

"I've never played with Lego." I told her while getting up to put the present to the other presents I had gotten.
"I played with it and so did Austin." She said while picking out the next present for me to open.

"That's right. I loved building space ships and dinosaurs that would destroy the nice malls and cafes Teffy had build for her dolls." Austin said looking proud.

"Why?" I asked looking up from the present I had started to open.
"Cause it was fun." He answered.
"But didn't it make Taylor sad?"
"Uhm maybe?" He looked kinda guilty now. "Than you shouldn't have done it or thought it was fun. Cause when what you do hurts someone else it is a bad thing." I told him before I looked down and continued to unpack the present.
Andrea and Scott were laughing, while Austin looked guilty and had a red head.

"It's another Lego set." I said as I pulled out a second Lego set, this one was a cafe. "You won't destroy my Cafe." I said looking at Austin before putting the package away.

"No I won't." He answered.
"You still have to packages. Big or little one first?" Taylor asked pointing at the last two presents.

"Big one." I unpacked a cartoon and with Taylors help unpacked it as well. Inside was a beautiful doll.

She had hair to her shoulders and was blonde, beautiful blue eyes and was wearing a blue dress with red patterns.
"Shes beautiful." I said as I carefully took her out of the package.
Inside the package was a book and some more information about the doll.

"Her name's Kit. The book here is about her life in 1934." Taylor said as she showed me the book. I nodded but still held the beautiful doll close to my chest.
I don't know how long I was sitting there just admiring the beautiful toy, but at some point Taylor asked me to open my last present which I did.

Inside were three more american girl books. The second part of Kits story. The first part of Julie's and Melody's.
All of them sounded great and interesting but as soon as I layed them down I pulled the doll back into my arms.

The few times I had been allowed to play with a doll it had always been taking away after a few minutes so there was no way I would give her up again.

As all the presents were unpacked the adults cleaned up a bit before sitting down with Hot cocoa, Taylor had one for me, and the cookies we made.
I was still sitting on the floor with Kit.
"I promise you that you'll stay with me and that nobody will take you away from me." I whispered into the dolls ear as I got up to curl up into Taylors arms, Kit still in my arms.
----------------
4871 words.