Christmas morning arrives, the windows frosted white while fresh snow blankets the fields beyond the house. Inside the kitchen, for once, the smell is not cabbage, but instead, the rich scent of frying salt pork and eggs fills the entire house before sunrise. It is enough to drag half the family from bed almost immediately.
John doesn’t even bother to pull on his boots before wandering toward the kitchen, while Lucy and Laura arrive still wrapped in their nightclothes and shawls, hair unbrushed in their eagerness to reach the table before breakfast is served.
“The smell woke me,” Laura admits shamelessly.
“It woke everybody,” Lucy agrees, mouth watering. At the stove, Jennifer looks deeply satisfied by the reaction. After weeks of soups, preserves, and endless garden vegetables, the holiday breakfast feels almost luxurious. Even little Louise appears at last clutching her doll beneath one arm and demanding extra salt pork before she has even sat down. The meal is loud, warm, and cheerful in a way only crowded family breakfasts can be.
At one point, while the girls argue over who deserves to dip the last of the toast in the grease, and John has finally put on his clothes, he catches Jennifer beside the stove and gently slips an arm around her waist.
“You spoil us,” he murmurs.
“One decent breakfast and suddenly I’m a queen.”
“You said it, not me.”
After breakfast, the girls hurry eagerly toward the stockings hung near the fireplace.
Lucy and Laura each discover a handful of chestnuts tucked carefully into theirs along with bits of dried fruit and sweets. The treats are simple, but treasured like gold.
Louise, however, gasps dramatically upon discovering a small cloth pouch tied with string, inside of which sits a modest number of coins; a traditional gift the Burb’s granted each of the girls upon their first Christmas as a child. Her eyes go enormous.
“I’m rich.” She clutches the pouch proudly against her chest as though someone may attempt to rob her at any moment.
Later, after the excitement settles, John presents Jennifer with his own decidedly practical Christmas gift. A brand new broom, sturdy and neatly bound, with smooth polished wood and fresh straw much finer than the worn one leaning near the back door. Jennifer stares at it for what feels to John like hours, and he shifts slightly.
“Well,” he says cautiously, “you mentioned the old one was nearly worn through...”
“Oh, John.”
To his great relief, she does genuinely seem pleased.










