Even after eating 3 plates worth of food, I'm still up for some smores. Henry was outside making the bonfire, while Caro was preparing the smores items. I was making some hot chocolate for us to drink as we sat outside.

I love making smores, it's one of my fav activities to do. Especially when there is a lot of people with us, but today it's just us three to enjoy these delicious sweets.

I carefully bring the three cups of hot cocoa outside to drink. We have these lawn chairs to use so I put the cups in the holders.

A little after, Caro comes out with the smores ingredients and we get ready to roast. Caro was sitting beside me while Henry sat to our right on the other side of the fire.

I put a stick in my marshmallow and I put it over the fire. I guess you could say I am really good at roasting marshmallows since I don't burn them. Mine turned out really good, the marshmallow was crunchy on the outside and soft and gooey on the inside.

I look at Caro's marshmallow and I start laughing. "Why is it burnt?"

She shrugs and laughs too. "That's shat I wanna know, it wasn't even on there for long."

Henry notices and laughs too. "Babe, you really had to burn it. Here take this one." He laughs as he gives Caro his perfectly browned mallow.

"Thanks, here you can have my dark choco marshmallow.

This makes me laugh and I almost fall out of my chair. It was a 100% dark chocolate marshmallow.

We spend an hour outside roasting marshmallows and sipping on our hot cocoa before we decided to start a movie marathon. It was 7 pm meaning we can watch at least 2 or 3 movies before it's 12.

We cleaned up outside and we also cleaned up the kitchen. It'll make it easier for us in the morning. "Caro, why don't you start making the popcorn?"

Caro walks into the kitchen with the popcorn maker and the kernels ready. "Way ahead of you bud." She comes in and she starts making the popcorn.

We like a variety of flavours so I start getting the seasonings ready. First, we have butter that's melted, some white cheddar cheese powder, some melted caramel in butter, and some normal cheddar cheese powder. I personally like the white cheddar but I also like the variety of flavours, which makes it less boring.

After the popcorn is finished, I mix in the flavourings and we bring them to the living room along with a bunch of other snacks.

As Caro and I were preparing the snacks, Henry managed to set up the living room. He brought our blankets and pillows down, he dimmed the lights, and he put Netflix on.

We get comfortable in the living room and we decided to watch "Home Alone 1" one of our fave movies to watch for Christmas marathons. We snack on our food and we watch the movie.

We managed to watch 2 and a half movies and it was now 11:40 pm. We stopped the movie and we found a countdown. I got our party poppers ready and my camera, I need to film this moment.

Our tradition is to celebrate when it turns 12 and then we open our presents and stockings. We have been doing this since we were little.

I'm standing beside Caro as we count down from 10. We are all yelling out the numbers. "10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Merry Christmas!" I pop my party popper and red streams and glitter fly around everywhere.

I hug Caro and Henry as we celebrate another Christmas together. "Merry Christmas Caro!"

"Merry Christmas Zoey!" I hug her really tight. "Now let's open presents!"

I watch as Caro runs to the tree and looks for the gifts with her name on them. The house is filled with laughter and joy, I just wish Vee was here with me. But this is still a Christmas to remember!

*****

"Wow! Zoey, you got me a lot of gifts! But I got you more hehe!" Caro looks at all the gits around her. Some are from Henry and his family, some from her friends, and some from me. She looks like a five-year-old on Christmas.

"Of course I got you a lot! You always get a lot of stuff for me so I might as well do the same."

"Awee, thank you! And here, I got these all for you!" She starts giving me gifts and putting them in front of me.

She's acting like she's drunk when she's not, we didn't even have one sip of alcohol tonight. Maybe it's just cuz she's sleepy, it is just a little after midnight after all.

"Ohh Henry, here are yours!" I pass Henry his gifts. I got a lot for him too but not as much as I got Caro.

"Thank you! Here's yours!" He passes me a lot of boxes and bags.

"Wow, we got a lot of gifts. Wait we're missing some!" I exclaim as I look around at our gifts.

"Wait, what do you mean we're missing some?!" Caro looks at me confused.

"Wait, let me get them!" I jump up and I run to the small storage cost near the front door, I almost forgot about them. "I got them!" I drag a giant black garbage bag with me to the living room.

"What's in there?" Caro asks getting curious.

"More gifts duh! These are from Vee's family!"

"Wow, that whole thing is full?!"

I nod my head excitedly. "But wait, there's more!" I squeal as I run back to the closet. I take out 3 other giant bags with me, all filled to the top. "There's a lot more!!" I put them in the living room.

I see Caro's eyes twinkle. "Who sent those?"

"My subscribers from my channel! They sent some to all 3 of us!"

Caro jumps up and squeals. "Wow, wow, wow!"

I start taking out the gifts and giving them to either Caro or Henry, and mine goes into my pile.

By the time I'm done passing out gifts, we are all surrounded by giant piles of boxes and bags. It was a mountain of gifts just for us. Of course, I'm SUPER thankful to everyone for giving these, I wasn't expecting these at all!

"Woah, okay I wasn't expecting this at all!" Caro says as she looks around at everything in from of her.

"I wasn't either. I wasn't expecting for anyone to even give us gifts!"

"Let's get opening!" Caro grabs my gifts first. "I'll open your first, I wonder what you got me?" She grins widely.

I got her a bunch of things, but the main item I got for her was an Ipad. Her other one was old and broken, the screen was cracked, there wasn't any storage, and it was really slow. And I figured that since she wants to start her business, an Ipad would make it easier for her.

She opens the other gifts I got for her first since I numbered her gifts. There were 10 gifts total, each numbered from 1-10 and they all range from different sizes. I got her some clothes, snacks, candles and perfumes, stationery, more.

But I also got her this necklace from Tiffany and co. She's been eyeing this necklace for years now. Whenever we'd pass by the branch at the mall, she would always stop by to look at it.

She was going to save up to get it, but even now that she has enough money she just didn't get it. She always says "If I don't need it to survive, then I won't get it. I'll buy it when I'm a millionaire." That's exactly what she'd say to me. So now that I have more than enough money, I got it for her. It's mostly just a thank you gift for everything she's done for me.

"Okay, it's the second to the last one! I wonder what it is? Wait- this better not be a prank gift again." She carefully takes off the packaging from the small box. She wants to keep all of the wrapping paper.

"Your gonna hate me." I give her a small guilty smile.

"Hate you? What do you mean!? This better not be some prank gift or something, I swear to God that if a spider comes out of this box I will murder you!" She glares at me.

*Flashback to Christmas 2 years ago*

Henry and I have decided to prank Caro and give her a "furry" gift. And "furry" I mean a tarantula.

Caro hates spiders, actually let me rephrase that, she despises spiders. Even if it's the smallest little thing, she will kill it with a slipper.

So I wanted to play a small prank on her just for shits and giggles. I went to the dollar store this morning and bought this giant fake tarantula. I'm shocked that they even had a fake Halloween spider still even if it's December.

I brought it home with me and I put it in a box. I don't want it to be suspicious so I wrapped it in some cute wrapping paper with a bow on top. Once I finish wrapping it, I place it under the tree and make it look like it was there the whole time.

We had fun playing games and eating food until it was finally midnight. This means we're opening gifts! I set up a camera earlier so that it wouldn't be suspicious if I suddenly vlogged it.

"Caro, this one is for you! It's a really special gift!" I hand her the box and make her open it.

"What's inside?" She shakes the box hoping to get some noise out of it.

I made a spring contraption so that when she opens it, it will pop out at her. "Just open it, you'll see."

She shrugs her shoulders and opens it. She carefully tears off the wrapping paper, and then she lifts open the lid. And the spider goes flying.

"Ahh! What the fuck is that?!" Caro jumps up and drops the box. The spider had flown up a bit, scaring her. "A spider?!" She jumps up onto the couch.

Henry and I laugh at her surprised expression. I grab my camera and vlog her face. "I'm s-sorry, it was h-his idea!" I say in between laughs, I also point to Henry who is laughing.

"Not it wasn't, it was yours!" She defends himself.

Caro just glares at the two of us. "I'm gonna kill you both!" She yells as she throws the spider at me.

I have to admit, it was a childish prank. But I have to say, it was funny.

*End of flashback*

Caro opens the box cautiously, she opens it into a jar and looks inside. Her eyes widen as she looks at it. She opens it wider and then gasps. "No. Freaking. Way!" She says as she looks at me. She looks like she's gonna cry.

"Yes way!" I smile brightly at her.

"Did you buy this with your own money?!" She carefully caresses the necklace.

"Yep, I saved up for it."

"No, you have to give it back. This thing is too expensive! You shouldn't be buying me this kind of stuff!" She shoves the box back to me.

"No! I'm not returning it, it's yours now and it's not going anywhere."

"But-"

"No buts, it's your and I'm not returning it."

She sighs as she looks at it. "You really didn't have to get me this. Even something from dollar tree would have been good, but this?!"

"No, you deserve this. You always do so much for me so I might as well give you something back."

She pouts a little bit, she scootches over to me and hugs me. "Thank you! Thank you so much!"

I hug her tight. "You're welcome!"

She pulls away from the hug and j helps her put it on. "See, look how pretty it is in you!"

"Ooo, I love it! I'm gonna take good care of it!"

"Good, now come one we have a lot more things to open." I get back into my place and open the rest of the gifts.

We spend an hour opening up the rest of the gifts, and another hour cleaning up everything. Then we all head to bed, I'm gonna sleep for a long time tonight.

*****

I wake up in the morning to the sun burning my eyes. I cover my face with a pillow and try to fall back asleep, but it's too bright in here.

I throw my pillow off my face and I sit up. My eyes take a while to adjust to the light but eventually, I'm fine. The sun is out and shining brightly and it's going through my window.

I'm not going to be able to fall back asleep so I get out of bed. It's Christmas morning and I have a lot to do today, and that includes today's Christmas party.

Walking to the bathroom, I tie my hair up so it's out of my face. I need to wash my face since it's all crusty musty. Since it's winter, my skin is dryer than the Sahara desert. I desperately need some moisturizer on my face.

I turn on the warm water and run my hands through it. Its warmth making my hands less cold. I carefully splash my face with water and use some face soap to clean it. Afterwards, I dry it then I finish off my skincare routine. Now my face is all shiny and clean.

Now it's time for breakfast, I don't think Caro will be awake since we all went to sleep after 3 am and I'm not too sure about Henry. I walk down the stairs and I'm hit with the strong smell of coffee, the forbidden drink I cannot have sadly.

I'm guessing Henry is awake since Caro wouldn't be up yet. I enter the kitchen, and low and behold the caveman. He has an apron on and his hair is a mess.

He hears me enter the kitchen and turns around to look at me. "G'mornin! Merry Christmas!" He smiles before looking back at whatever he's doing.

"Good morning, and Merry Christmas to you too!" I sit on a stool on the kitchen island.

"Your up early, what brings you here?" He says, not taking an eye off his task.

"Well, first of all, I own this place. And second, I can't go back to sleep since the sun decided to wake me up. And it's not early, it's like 9 am." I say as I look at the clock.

"True, true, and true. But I expected you to still be asleep."

"I got thing to do today, and I'm not wasting any time," I say as I get up and walk over to him. "What are you making?"

"I'm making some omorice, and some kimchi jjigae." He points to all of his ingredients.

"Ooo, sounds good! That's a perfect breakfast for Christmas morning!"

"Yeah, better than Caro's extra "chocolaty" pancakes." He chuckles and makes sure to emphasize the "chocolaty".

I snort. "True dat! Those things were burnt and gooey at the same time, like how did she manage to do that?"

"That's what I wanna know." He laughs, and I chuckle along with him.

I walk to the living room and start our fireplace. The house is really cold, and I'm not wasting electricity on our heater. I throw some wood in and I light it up like a birthday cake. The smell of the fire makes me feel happy for some reason. I sit by the fire and warm my hands.

"Zoey, do you want some hot cocoa?" Henry says as he looks through the pantry.

"Yes please! With extra marshmallows and cocoa powder!"

"Okay!" He yells back.

Hot cocoa, and a warm fire, but something is missing. I know! Some Christmas music! I run to my room and grab my phone, I turn on my speaker and I connect my phone to it.

I start playing "All I Want For Christmas" by Mariah Carey. I make it super loud so that Caro will hear it, I'm not sure if she will be angry or happy about it. We'll see.

I start singing and dancing along in the kitchen as I watch Henry cook. He's singing along as he cooks his kimchi fried rice, the only problem is he sounds like a dying horse. But I still love the enthusiasm.

"All I want for Christmas is you~
You baby~" I stand on the couch as I wave my hands in the air and sing.

I notice Caro running down the stairs with a huge smile on her face. She sees me dancing and joins me on the couch.

"Ohh~
All the lights are shining so brightly everywhere~
And the sound of children, laughter fills the air~
Now everyone is singing~
I hear the sleigh bells ringing~
Santa won't you bring me, the one I really need, won't you please bring my baby to me~” Caro sings with me as we dance on the couch.

Once the song ends we all burst out laughing and cheering. " merry Christmas!" Caro yells.

"Merry Christmas!" I hug her.

"Merry Christmas kiddo!" She hugs me back tightly. "What's for breakfast?" She holds my hand and drags me to the kitchen.

"My signature breakfast!" Henry holds up his pan of eggs.

"Yay! My favourite!" She says as she gives him a back hug.

How cute! Makes me feel even more single but still cute. This is a good start to the day.

*****

Caro and I are making our way to Ella's house for the Christmas party.

We decided to have a Christmas party will all ND members at her house. Her place was just a really good place to throw parties at. And no it's not going to be a college frat party, it's just a normal cute dinner get-together with everyone.

It's 4:40 pm and the meeting time is 5 pm, we should be on time today if traffic isn't that bad. It's snowing a little bit which makes it feel like we're in a movie. Driving in the snow with Christmas music playing in the background. Caro and I are singing along to the music as we drive.

We eventually make it to Ella's house without encountering any traffic. We enter the house and everyone is already there, I'm surprised that no one is late.

I greet everyone as I enter with my giant trash bag of gifts. "Hi guys! Omg, you guys look so cute!" I say to everyone, they all have on such cute Christmas outfits.

Caro and I have on the Christmas outfits inspired by "Mean Girls", we look amazing!

"No, you guys look better!" Ella gawks at our outfits.

"Psh, please, we all look stunning!"

"Your not wrong there, come on in. Let's all get our gifts set up around the tree!" She ushers us into the house.

We go into the living room and there are just huge piles of gifts everywhere. I'm assuming we have to arrange it around the tree nicely. And speaking of trees, Ella has a 15 ft tall tree. It's huge!

She has really high ceilings in the living room, so she decided to go all out. The tree is white, with dark blue ornaments and lights. She made it "Frozen" themed after the movie. The icicles on it look so real!

All Caro and I could say are, "Wow!" My mouth hangs open in shock.

"It's better than our tree!" Caro says as she looks it up and down.

I stay silent not even paying attention to what people are saying. I wanna steal this tree and shove it in a snow globe.

"Nice right?" Ella says, walking towards me.

"Nice?! It's amazing! Did you do it by yourself?"

"Yep! Took me a whole day but it was worth it!"

"Hell yeah it was!" Caro says. "I could never pull this off by myself!"

I take out my phone and start taking pictures of the tree. I also take pictures of Caro in front of it, and she does it for me too.

"Guys, come put your gifts here!" Ella shouts for everyone to hear.

Everyone comes to the living room and we all arrange our gifts around the tree. Once we finish, there are giant miles of gifts behind the tree, under the tree, and in front of the tree.

"Everyone come over here! Let's take group photos!" Caro shouts and everyone runs over.

I'm in the middle of everyone, squished between Caro and Ella. We end up taking a lot of pictures, more than anticipated.

"Okay, now let's got eat!" Ella shouts as she runs to the kitchen.

Caro and I follow closely behind. The table is set up buffet style, there's food everywhere and it smells amazing! I grab two plates and start filling them up with food.

Ella and Sarah decided to go for the traditional Canadian Christmas foods such as roast turkey, French Canadian Tourtière, Nanaimo Bars, Yule Log, mashed potatoes with gravy, wild salmon, and some other Christmas desserts. We also have some non-traditional foods too. And we also have some other foods from different cultures.

I have three plates of food and I'm seated at a table. I'm sitting beside Caro who is eating her heart out. Everyone is sitting around the table eating their food. We talk about random things as we eat, mostly about our past Christmas parties.

After eating we gather around the Christmas tree and we get ready to hand out gifts.

"I wanna go first!" Caro says as she jumps up from her seat.

"Okay, you go first," Ella says as she takes a seat beside me on the floor.

"Yay! Okay, so these ones are for Ella!" Caro says as she hands a few gifts to Ella.

I'm not getting one from Caro since I already got mine last night. The same goes for Caro from me.

We exchanged gifts then we hung out for a few more hours before Caro and I left to go back home.

I had a lot of fun with everyone and it made me feel happy. But it would have been better with my best friend with me. I wonder how happy she would be if she was here right now.

I'm sitting in the living room of my house as I watch Caro and Henry arguing because Henry wasn't doing things properly.

"Why are you putting that in like that? There isn't even a cover on it! Put it like this and at least put some plastic wrap on it!" Caro says as she lectures him by the fridge.

"Ohh for god's sake! It doesn't matter! As long as it fits then it's good!" Henry argues back.

"What are you talking about!? That's not how it works, use your brain or something!" Caro says back.

I roll my eyes and try to distract myself with my phone. But to no avail, I can still hear them arguing. It's starting to make my head hurt.

I get up and stomp to the kitchen. "Okay, you know what, stop! Just stop it! I'll freaking put the food away jeez!" I push them out of the kitchen and start cleaning stuff myself.

I don't get why they had to fight over putting stuff in the fridge. It's not that hard of a task, all they had to do was put the food in the fridge.

"Now look what you did!" I hear Caro say from the living room.

They continue to argue in the living room while I'm busy fixing up the kitchen. I really want to hit them in the face with a hit on right now, they're starting to get on my nerves.

Once I finish with the kitchen, I realize that the two are gone from the kitchen. Instead, I hear distant yelling coming from upstairs. Well, I'm not gonna be able to sleep tonight if they keep arguing like that.

I grab my phone and I head to the backyard. I'm wearing an oversized sweatshirt so I won't get cold.

I sit down on the chairs we have on the porch and I look at the night sky, it's beautiful! The stars are out and shining brightly, and small winds are blowing past me.

I just sit there and drown myself in my own thoughts. My mind is all over the place and it's really chaotic in there.

I sit there for who knows how long before I go to my room and sleep. It's been a long Christmas, not the best Christmas that's for sure. I don't think Christmas will ever be the same anymore sadly...

~~~~~

Author's Note:

Okay so that all for this 2 part chapter. How was it?

I won't be able to update often since I am starting classes on August 16th. So good luck to me!

Anyways, bye for now! Chanty out!