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It's Christmas Eve, and Angela is drinking a glass of wine on the couch.
Tomorrow she's supposed to go to church and have dinner with her family, but tonight it's just her and Spork.
And as she waits for Christmas to arrive, she can't help but think of her past Christmas days.
A day that seemed to get worse and worse until last year, when it finally turned around.
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It's Christmas morning, and a young Angela is excited for presents!
She's practically vibrating in her bed, but she knows not to wake her parents so she's staying put, not wanting to get in trouble on Christmas.
Her door opens and her dad walks in, a soft smile on his face.
“Good morning Polpettina, Merry Christmas.” He says happily, sitting on the edge of her bed.
“Merry Christmas Papa!” She yells excitedly, sitting up in bed. “Presents now?”
Her dad chuckles, ruffling her already messy hair, before pulling a present from his pocket, and holding it out to her.
“This one's special,” he explains, “I found him and knew he had be yours.”
Angela holds the present gently in her hands and with a nod from her father, rips it open.
Inside is a stuffed dog. He's cream colored and has brown spots, including one over his eye.
She holds the dog to her chest tightly. “Thank you Papa.” She calls out excitedly, wrapping her arms around him.
He pulls her into his lap and hugs her, and kisses her forehead.
“I knew he was meant for you.” he whispers into her hair, and she grins up at him.
“What's his name?” She asks curiously, holding the dog out in front of her and chuckles.
“That's why we're opening him away from your mama, Polpettina. You can name him.” He explains, and she beams at him.
Angela looks carefully at her new friend, and after a minute of intense thought comes up with the perfect name.
“Cannoli” she tells him resolutely and he laughs.
“Cannoli it is then,” he says, standing up with her in his arms. “Let's go find your mother and your brother,”
The two go to the living room to join the other half of the family
And even though her parents pay way more attention to her brother, at least she has Cannoli, her new best friend, to show her new toys to.
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Angela wakes up and groans, she's had a killer headache for days, and as much as she wants it to go away, she knows it's better if it doesn't.
It's her first Christmas as an adult, and even though she's still in high school, her parents decided that 18 is old enough to not be invited on the family vacation.
For the sake of appearances, they decided to leave the night of the 25th, so she still has the morning with her family, but she can't decide if that's better or worse.
She knows she's gonna drop soon. She just has to hope that she can hold it back until everyone leaves for the airport.
And the family has a normal Christmas morning.
Angela gets very few gifts from her parents, but she gets a couple pieces of school supplies and other necessities, and considering she'd expected to get nothing, she was excited about it.
The family goes to church together, and by mid-day it was time for everyone else to go to the airport.
She waves to her parents, and with a hug from her brother, she was alone in the house.
It didn't take long until she couldn't hold it back anymore, and a little Angela was pushed into existence.
She sniffles sadly, tears streaming down her face, as she wraps herself in her blanket, grabs Cannoli, and heads to her closet.
It doesn't matter that she's home alone, the closet is her safe space and where she's spent almost all of her time the few times she's been forced to regress.
She opens the door and freezes.
Inside on the floor is a wrapped present. It's very poorly wrapped, and on top of it is a piece of printer paper with a note written on it.
She drops to the floor and carefully picks up the present, attempting to read the note.
All she can make out is ‘Angie’.
She stares at it in surprise. Someone got her a gift!
After carefully looking around and closing the door, Angela rips it open and finds a bag of clearance Halloween candy.
She stares at it for a moment, wiping tears from her eyes, before attempting to open the bag.
It takes her a few minutes, but she opens it and pulls out a Reese’s and pops it in her mouth.
She grins, and has a nice Christmas night eating candy while regressed in the closet.
It's not until the next morning when she wakes up in the closet with a stomach ache, surrounded by candy wrappers, that she's able to read the note.
“Angie,
I wanted to get you something, but I don't have a lot of money and don't want you to get in trouble.
I hope you like it.
Merry Christmas,
Bubba”
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As Angela lies curled up on the bottom bunk in her dorm, she decides that maybe that morning with her family last year wasn’t so bad.
It's her first year of college, and while everyone she knows has gone home for the holidays, she can't.
The second she was officially moved into her dorm, her mom had told her she's not allowed back in her family home, and she'd stuck to it.
Her phone dings and she picks it up.
It's almost midnight on Christmas day and she's just gotten her first text of the day.
Brother: mrry xmas
She attempts to smile, but can't bring herself to do it.
Her stomach growls, but she ignores it, sending a response to her brother.
Angela: marry crismas
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She'd thought this year would be nice.
Since her third year of college, her parents had invited her to dinner on Christmas, and it has been nice to not be away from her family on Christmas.
The plan was to spend the morning with her roommate before having dinner with her family.
Her roommate had said she'd make Angela dinner this next semester if she agreed to do her a favor, and she had naively agreed without learning what that favor was.
And as she sits with her back against her bedroom door as her roommate bangs on it to get in, she decides that maybe this year won't be so great after all.
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She really needed to stop jinxing it at this point.
It's Christmas day, and once again she isn't alone. As the years have gone by, she made friends and created her own traditions, and this year was special.
Despite an invitation from Chanse to come with him to Tennessee, Angela stayed in California.
Not to spend time with her family, but with her boyfriend.
They'd been together for a few months, and he suggested they spend Christmas together at his apartment, and she happily agreed.
Angela knows he isn't perfect, but she loves him and can see past his flaws.
She had dinner with her family the night before, leaving the entire day to be just the two of them.
Unfortunately she'd been having headaches the last couple weeks, and despite her best efforts, it all fell apart.
Her boyfriend, Jake, is a neutral, and he never asked her what she was, assuming incorrectly she also was neutral.
Angela had gone to take a nap in his room, exhausted from holding back her littlespace, and she woke up little.
Waking up little is always disorienting for her, and it takes a few minutes to realize what is happening.
She lets out a small sob, curling up into a ball, not knowing where to go.
Normally she'd hide in her bathtub with Spork, but this isn't her apartment, so she stays put, hoping she can hide in this bed until it stops.
Unfortunately, he hears her crying, and comes into the room.
“Are you ok, Ang?” He asks gently, sitting on the edge of the bed.
She lets out a small whine, face buried in his pillow.
He sighs, pulling her up from the bed so she'll look at him.
Angela looks up at him in terror, eyes wide and tears streaming down her face.
Jake makes a surprised sound and lets go of her, letting her fall back to the bed.
She scrambles backwards to the far edge of the bed, staring at him in fear and he scoffs.
“A little.” He says with clear distaste in his voice.
Angela whimpers, and he smirks, rearranging his face from annoyed to over-exaggerated joy.
“Let's have some fun.”
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It's her first Christmas since she started her agreement with Chanse, and all she wants is a peaceful year.
Last year had been fine, but she'd been plagued by memories of the last that she couldn't ignore.
This year, she'd decided it would be different.
After two years of declining his offer, she finally agreed to go to Tennessee with Chanse, mainly because she just couldn't say no to him when he was little.
She's sitting on the couch, watching a regressed Chanse rip through presents on Christmas morning as his neutral family smiles and watches.
He's wearing a reindeer onesie with a hood that keeps slipping over his eyes. He had argued half-heartedly with his mom, saying he was too old for it. But his huge grin when he came in wearing it, his curls poking out from under the hood, told a different story.
It's hard for her to imagine this being what her life could be like, so she pushes the thought to the side, smiling softly as Chanse rushes over to her.
“Angela! Look! My mom got me Optimus Prime!” He yells excitedly, holding a large red and blue robot figure out to her.
She smiles at him, “He looks so cool, bud!” She says excitedly, taking the toy from him.
He beams and runs away to open his next present. She rolls her eyes lovingly, placing it next to every other toy he's handed her.
Angela had gotten him two gifts.
They'd exchanged bottles of wine while they were still in LA, and she'd brought her gift for little Chanse with them to Tennessee. A toy sword that looked like some characters in the Avatar show he likes.
He gasps when he opens the sword, turning to Angela in shock.
“It's Sokka’s sword!” He shouts excitedly, swinging it around. He runs over to Angela and hugs her before hitting her with it and running away to open more presents.
After the whirlwind of little Chanse opens his gifts, the rest of the family opens theirs while he's happily distracted by playing with Angela and his new toys.
“Angie!” He yells suddenly, running to the tree and back with a handful of presents in his arms.
“These are for you.” He explains happily, dropping them in front of her.
Angela looks at the three presents with a small smile before reading the gift tags.
‘To Auntie from Chansey’
‘To Angie from Chansey’
‘To Angie from Chanse’
She looks at him in alarm. “Are these ok to open here?” She whispers and he nods.
“They don't care,” he reminds her and she takes a deep breath, before looking down at the gifts again.
Impatient, he hands her the one from big him to little her.
“This one.” He decides, and she nods, pulling the paper off to reveal a teether shaped like a microphone.
She blushes, immediately shoving it in her pocket.
“Are they all embarrassing?” She asks quietly and he laughs, shaking his head before handing her the present from little him to little her.
Inside is a stuffed turtle that looks similar to his.
“Cuz you like Leo, so now you have one.” He explains quietly and she smiles at him.
“That's very sweet bud, thank you Chanse.” she tells him, a light blush still on her cheeks.
Angela opens the final gift, and inside is a small canvas with a rainbow handprint on it that clearly belongs to him.
She reads the writing under it and laughs.
‘Chanse, age 9’
He beams at her as she pulls him into her arms.
“You're ridiculous.” She whispers lovingly and he laughs
“Love you!” He responds, resting his head on her shoulder, antlers in her face.
She laughs again, pushing his hood back and kissing the top of his head. “I love you too, sweetheart.”
The rest of the day continues on merrily, and Angela decides it's the best Christmas she's had in a long time
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Back to the present, Angela wakes up on Christmas morning and cuddles Spork for a while.
Chanse had invited her again, but she's decided she couldn't skip her family two years in a row.
She drags herself out of bed and makes herself a cup of coffee.
She has two presents that she’d promised to save for Christmas day.
One from little Chanse, and one from Amanda
She'd opened her other gifts from Chanse earlier in the week, a few toys and a mop, but the little boy had insisted his gift wait until Christmas.
The gift from Amanda was labeled as for Angie, her adult gift being tickets to see a show with her early next year.
Angela decides to start with Chanse's first.
She immediately notices that it's a very similar shape to her gift from last year that she now has hung in her living room.
Unwrapping the present she finds another small canvas, this time with a surprisingly good finger painting of who she assumes is Spork. She reads the label at the bottom and laughs.
‘Spork - Chanse, age 9’
She places it to the side and grabs Amanda's gift, she carefully unwraps it to reveal a stuffed cat with a small note.
‘Now we match’
Angela sighs, a small smile on her face
It's nice to feel loved on Christmas