Its Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas~

Sometimes life takes over, and despite best efforts, time seems to slip away and suddenly you find yourself months from where you entered the dazed routine. One such time had just happened to Verdy; it broke as she was marking off the calendar and realised that the image of glistening pines in the snow was not only picturesque, but symbolic. Christmas was almost upon her. She should have guessed by the thickening of Jack’s coat, the lack of leaves on the mansion’s trees and by her own layering of jumpers and stockings whenever she had to brave the air that glistened with her breath. Yet she had continued her routine, walking Jack, eating, sleeping, studying, in a daze that seemed to all blur together the more she thought about it.

The most practical solution was of course, not to think about it.

So, donning a long knitted hoodie sporting lines of reindeer (that she wasn’t entirely sure how she had become the owner of it) and thick woollen stockings she was sure had come from one of the shelters in her life (dear God, how they itched) she tucked her boots under her arm and headed off to the kitchen. Nothing like a thermos of hot cocoa and a walk to shake off the time-travel feeling.

As she walked she inspected, tinsel swung in strings from the ceiling, and at the occasional corner there was a small tree decorated with an assortment of glistening odds and ends, some such as the snowflakes obviously festive, others such as the bottle caps merely shiny.