deck the halls (luke)

[glorianna rose jacobs]

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deck the halls with boughs of holly
fa la la la la la la la fa la la la la la la la la

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Christmas time was pretty much Rory's favorite time of the year without a question of a doubt. She loved the feeling that came with the holiday. She loved the Christmas specials. She loved the food and the family and she loved being Santa Claus . . . well Mrs. Claus was probably a better way to put it. Luke could be Santa Claus. Either way, It was just her favorite time of the year. As soon as Thanksgiving was over and everyone was out of their Turkey coma, Rory would send Luke up into the attic to get Christmas decorations so that they could decorate the tree and the house. Christmas had been Rory's favorite time of the year when she was younger and she was going to make sure that it was Hayden's as well. So that meant a fully decorated house, a grand tree, and of course last but not least Christmas cookies, that even though she made them right in front of him, Luke would contend that they were store bought because she was a horrible cook. And Rory was a horrible cook, but that didn't mean that she was a horrible baker. In fact she was a damn good baker and she loved that she was able to show of some of her culinary ability during the season. Plus she loved watching Hayden decorate all the gingerbread cookies with smiles and candy buttons and more frosting then should be allowed, but it was Christmas so the last thing that Rory was thinking about was the fact that there was too much frosting on her child's cookies. She was sure that she would get a nice long speech from Luke that it was the reason Hayden was bouncing out of control at one point but for now, she was going to let her daughter be a little kid and divulge herself in the magic that was the Christmas Spirit.

Rory glanced over at her daughter from the kitchen. She was writing . . . drawing, a letter to Santa Clause on a piece of printer paper using crayons. Rory found it absolutely adorable that Hayden was trying to do it on her own and didn't want any help from either her or Luke. Rory had wondered how she was going to write the letter to him when neither Rory or Luke had had the time to teach her how to spell or write. It became clear to young mother though when she saw her drawing out the things she wanted on the piece of paper. Hayden was no child prodigy but Rory found it amazing all the same. She understood now why her mother had kept all the pictures that she had scrawled when she was in elementary school when her older sister and prettier drawings when her sister would bring home better ones because she was older and she knew how to draw things that weren't just scribbles and basic shapes and stick figures. It was the fact that Hayden had drawn it that made her want to keep it. She was a little sad that she wasn't going to be able to because she was goign to put in tin the mailbox that took all of the letters to the North Pole so that the children would think that they were actually writing to Santa Claus. She wanted to show off how smart her daughter was that she could figure out some other way to make a list to Santa that didn't include words because she couldn't quite write yet. "Mommy's just going to go check on daddy. Gotta make sure that he hasn't gotten lost in the attic." She pushed back her daughter's light brown hair and kissed the top of her head before going upstairs to get to the stairs to the attic.

There were tons of boxes in the hallway. Luke had to be almost done with getting them all. Speaking of the devil, he came down the steps with the last box. It was rather small and if she had to guess it was probably the stockings and the tree skirt. She stood in the middle of the hallway in his way of course wearing an 'innocent' smile. When he got to her, she took the light box from his hands and put it on the floor for a moment. "Happy Holidays," She said as she put her arms around his neck acting like all she wanted was a hug but instead she caught his lips as well and kissed him. It wasn't anything passionate just sort of like one of those "just because" kisses that came out of nowhere. Well not necessarily nowhere. She wanted to kiss him so she had taken Luke's mother not so subtle hint and put up the mistletoe that she had sent in mass quantities. She had stopped so that the two of them would be standing under it. She pulled away pointed up. "I love your mother. She has the right idea in mind when it comes to the holidays," She picked up the box she had taken from Luke and went down the stairs to drop it off with the rest of the boxes. "Ok Hayden, we have it all now. We can start decorating the tree." Rory watched as her daughter came bounding out of the dining room area and into the living room. "Can I put the angel on top?" she asked grabbing it out of the box. "After everything else. She goes on last," Rory said taking it out of her hands and putting it back in the box. "These ornaments are for you to put up," Rory said putting a box on the floor for Hayden. They were an assortment of plastic ornaments mainly of holiday characters like frosty and what not. They were things that she couldn't break and that was the important part. Rory looked in another box and found a Santa hat. She smiled and walked over to Luke. She put the hat on his head before asking, "Are you going to help us make Christmas cookies later?"

status finto
tagged luke
outfit here
notes feel free to control hayden
lyrics deck the halls
credit banners are mine as well as template

[lukas percival stone]

Lukas Stone both loved and hated the holiday of Christmas. He enjoyed the festiveness that Christmas and the surrounding days held, but what he was not a fan of was rummaging through the dusty attic in attempts to locate all the Christmas decorations. Seeing as it was Rory's favorite holiday, they always seemed to accumulate more and more decorations every year, which in turn made it all the more difficult to find everything. Even though it was a hassle to put everything up just to take it back down again, all the time was worth it, because not only did it make Rory happy, but it made Hayden happy as well. So, while Hayden was downstairs writing her letter to Santa Claus, Luke was roaming the attic, trying to organize what to bring down, although he didn't know why he bothered since it would all end up coming down anyway. Where they would fit it all was Rory's job, she was a much better decorator then he was. It was a good thing too, otherwise Hayden's Christmases wouldn't be nearly as magical. Instead of going through boxes any more, he began to pick up everything labeled 'Christmas' and brought them down the attic steps, setting them carefully in the hallway. As the contents in the attic began to thin out considerably, his arms were beginning to get tired from lifting and carrying down everything. At least it was almost done though, and the only other thing he had to dread around the holiday time was bringing it all back up at a later date.

Finally, he was carrying the last box down, thankfully it was the lightest one of the bunch and his arms could finally catch a break for a little bit until he had to lift up Hayden to help her decorate higher on the tree. Then of course, there was the matter of putting the angel on top, which he would gladly prop her up on his shoulders to do, it was her favorite part after all. Luke put his foot on the solid ground and walked toward Rory, who had shown up to apparently check on him or that's what he would guess. It had taken him a while, especially since he had attempted to organize before getting to work. Once the box was out of his hands and on the floor, he wrapped his arms around Rory in return, then kissed her back. Luke was about to ask what the kiss was for, when he looked at where Rory was pointing. Sure enough, there was mistletoe above them, courtesy of his mother. That woman was going to have them together officially if it was the last thing she did. A lot of what went on between him and Rory was unsaid. They had been best friends for quite some time, and when he went though difficult times, she was there for him, and that was completely a two-way street. The dark haired woman in front of him meant the absolute world to him, so did the little one downstairs. They were his life and he was happy with things the way they were, he couldn't understand why people, namely his mother, wanted to complicate them. Hayden had a stable environment to live in with her mother and a someone she considered to be her father, she was loved and cared for enormously, and he and Rory had a good relationship. Why mess with it? The last thing he wanted to do was rock the boat at all and mess things up, he didn't want to do that to Rory, and especially not to Hayden. It was all rather complicated, but Luke tried to keep things as simple as possible. Besides, hadn't his two favorite girls had enough complications in their lives as it was? "Happy holidays" he repeated in return, chuckling lightly. "Oh god, you're agreeing with my mother now? She'll be so pleased, forget the new sewing machine we got her, just tell her that and that will be better than any Christmas present she's gotten from us," Luke said, throwing his hands up in the air like the world was coming to an end. If Rory agreed with the woman he called mom, they would be married in the next month. Both women were strong willed and if he had both of them after him, it'd be all over. Of course, he was just overreacting in jest, he liked to keep things light and joking was certainly a good way to do that.

He followed Rory down the stairs. Seeing Hayden's face light up as she ran into the room once she found out all the boxes were down made all the hassle worth it, just like every other year. Luke laughed when she asked if she could put the angel on top, she could be so impatient sometimes but he couldn't blame her, it was an exciting time of year. "I don't know baby, I don't think you'll fit up there," Luke said to Hayden, teasing her as he often did, it was just apart of his nature. He watched as she happily began to decorate the tree with her ornaments, all the ones that they had deemed safe for her, even if she dropped them. In fact, she had her own little box, it was easiest that way to make sure everything she was putting on was safe without rechecking it every year. She could just start in with the fun and it made her happy. Luke opened up another one of the boxes, where some of the other ornaments were, that he and Rory could put on later. The Santa hat that was placed on his head made him festive, since he was dressed in normal clothing for the most part, aside from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle slippers adorning his feet. One perk of rummaging through the attic was finding things he still liked that had somehow found their way up there. "I'll watch, someone has to make sure you don't burn the place down," he grinned. He liked being out in the kitchen when they were making cookies because he liked to sneak some of the frosting when no one was paying attention...of course, he almost always got caught.

[glorianna rose jacobs]

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deck the halls with boughs of holly
fa la la la la la la la fa la la la la la la la la

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Rory always thought that Mama Stone was hiding some dislike for her. After all why shouldn't she? Rory had basically taken Luke's whole future for him. He was tied down at age eighteen with no ability to be a normal eighteen year old. He was helping raise a daughter that wasn't even his with a woman who wasn't even his girlfriend. Even though Rory had known Mrs. Stone for most of her life, she still wasn't sure how she felt about the whole situation. Even though she was always trying to push Rory and Luke together, it didn't mean that she could be hiding some sort of emotions even if they were old ones. Rory respected Mrs. Stone, and she was also afraid of her in the same way that she was afraid of her own mother. Rory laughed as Luke said that telling his mother that she was in agreement with her would be the best Christmas present she had ever gotten from them. Rory could think of one that would out do it though. "But if we tell her that this year then the only way we'll be able to avoid disappointing her next year would be to tell her that you've proposed." Rory was never exactly quite sure where she stood with Luke. All she knew was that every day she was beginning to think that she was getting closer and closer to spilling her guts to him about how she wanted to be with him and make the situation permanent even though this whole thing shouldn't have been permanent in the first place. It was just supposed to be until everyone forgot about it but Rory had become so comfortable living with Luke. Her dating took a back seat to school, work, and taking care of Hayden that there was no time to date or even to put things back to how they were with Luke before there was Hayden. The thing was though, things could probably never go back to how they were. "And you know what she'll do after that. There will be her tricking us to going to our own wedding and then she'll be asking for grandchildren."

Luke looked adorable in his little Santa hat, though she was pretty sure that if she said anything of the sort, that it would not get her a very pleasant response from her best friend. So Rory kept those little comments to herself. "Nice slippers. If you're looking for the matching shirt it somehow made it's way over to my dresser. Not sure how that happened. Must be laundry gremlins." Why was it that every time she was standing near Luke or she was just talking with him all she could think about was kissing him like there was no tomorrow. The urge came up at the worse of times as well like when they were in public or when she was in front of Hayden. It was like her body realized that she was going to be able to finally be with someone again and she wouldn't have to worry about them leaving and having them fit into her life because Luke was just part of her life already and it was just one more thing that was telling her that she needed to stop being stupid and just realize that she needed to bite the bullet and tell him. "Hey wait a second! I'm not the one who makes the smoke alarm go off making toast!" Rory said sticking her tongue out at him. She turned around and saw that Hayden had climbed on top of Rufus and was basically using him like her own pony to get at the higher branches. Rory just shook her head. "Only you could find a dog like that." Rory smiled and walked into the kitchen to get the rest of the cookie stuff ready so it would be easy for Hayden to make.

The first thing that Rory did was make the frosting. It involved the beater and she didn't trust Hayden quite yet to be able to use it. So Rory plugged in the beaters and made the frosting whipping it up fairly quick. Rory put plastic wrap over the bowl and put it in the fridge to chill. She looked up and saw more mistletoe and another grin formed on her face. She peaked over and saw that Hayden was doing just fine and would still have a few more ornaments to go before she would be done. "Hey Luke, can you come here?" She called standing under the decoration that was hidden from the view of the living room. She held the spatula covered in frosting in one hand as she waited for him to come in. "I've got something for you but you have to participate in Christmas tradition first," Rory said pointing up. She knew that Luke loved frosting and she didn't mind giving him the spatula to lick rather then Hayden who didn't need the sugar with her energy levels.

status finto
tagged luke
outfit here
notes feel free to control hayden
lyrics deck the halls
credit banners are mine as well as template