ITALIAN WINE

MARTHA'S POV

Lily and Marcus decided to participate in the usual hassle between my brothers and I, on who gets to the kitchen first. My dad had told us we had to be in the kitchen by 7:30 am because there were a lot of things to do. Once it was 7:29, Lily and I were at the door to my room and immediately it clicked 7:30, I opened the door to my room. Simulataneously, the doors of the boys opened as well and out came Seth, Michael and Marcus. It was going to be an unforgettable stair battle and I had no plan to lose to them despite the pain I still felt in my leg. Lily and I scoffed at the boys and they scoffed at us also. We were all in green and red pyjamas!

I nodded to Lily as our signal to begin and the race began. It was exhilarating and it was like our hearts were beating three times faster than usual as we started off the race and heard the steps of the boys behind us as they ran. Lily who is a natural runner, did not disappoint and soon we were at the base of the stairs.

I prepared to complete the final lap of the race with joy in my face when the knee where I was stabbed buckled beneath me and I fell. Lily noticed and turned around to face me. It was at this time that Michael surpassed us. "Go Lily!" I said as I tried to shoo her, so she could win.

"Not without you!" she said, meaning sleeping through every word that left her lips. She picked me and I rested on her and I used amone keg to hop - run as I saw Michael a foot to the door.

He had this broad smile on his face and was about to enter into the kitchen when my dad came out at that same moment, from the kitchen and he bumped into my dad.

He fell on his butt due to the impact and Lily and I saw it as our moment. We did the victory slide into the kitchen together and we hugged each other as so much joy flooded our hearts. Since my injury, the boys have been and out single win on Christmas morning seemed to cover it all. Seth and Marcus dragged for the last position and none could still surpass the other.

We helped my dad in dressing the turkey and preparing some fried rice. We even baked a strawberry cake and by the time we were done it was 12:30 pm.

At the table, my dad thanked the Lord for his provision, thanked him for enabling us to see another Christmas and prayed we would all still be together by the next Christmas

I said a bigger 'Amen' to the last prayer. We dug into the food immediately after! Scratch that, 'we' except Seth, dug into the meal after prayers because along the way, while our eyes were closed in reverence and thanks to GOD, Seth started eating. We danced to some Christmas music after and I danced some old school moves…I learnt it from some movies. We enjoyed each other's company as we told embarrassing stuff about ourselves that happened in an unforgettable Christmas of our lives.

We took pictures as a group, my family took separately, my brothers and I had one for ourselves, my dad and I had one also, Lily and Marcus also snapped a picture,much to Seth's turning into Hulk because he was green with jealousy. It was super fun! I uploaded some on my social media platform and the one I took with Marcus got more views because most of my contact list were acquaintances and colleagues from school and most girls just have a crush on Marcus Ranks.

In the night, we set up the living room to have this karaoke look and we sang our lungs out. Lily and I were the only ones still standing by 11 pm and we sang mostly Blackpink songs. We are heavy lovers of the Korean group 'Blackpink' and even though my brothers were complaining that it is so girlish, they were dancing out some parts with us. It was until my dad turned off the television before we decided to go up to sleep. Lily and I slept in each other's arms like drunk sisters and we felt so alive.

NATHAN'S POV

Christmas morning, I had a meeting with the underground staff I had recruited in Fijex. I told them of some things I wanted to do such as kepo the alert alarm system for hackers and throughout their celebration, they should always carry around a smaller machine that can signal them whenever we were having unwanted visitors in our cyber space. After wishing them a happy holiday ahead, I opened my door to go greet my dad and I saw a package before my door. It was a green and red pyjamas and it was from my dad, wishing me a happy Christmas. I thought I was going to be the first person to wish him this Christmas but he beat me to it …again! I think I needed to cover up Martha's picture in my room, it was distracting me and making me lose sense of time. My sense of discipline just seems to vanish with her. The house attendants and chefs ate with us at the dining table and I could feel the radiant beam of joy in their very souls reach to me as we ate. They entertained my dad and I and thanks to them we did not have a boring Christmas.

With a glass of wine in hand, later in the night, I decided to scroll through my social media handles lazily. I am the most passive user of social media to ever exist. Most girls were into the Christmas spirit but they took it too far because the green and red they had on could not be properly seen because their bodies were too exposed. I got tired and after wishing my dad a good night's rest, I went to my room to stalk a particular person's handle on social media.

I went on Instamessage since that was where she was very active and it showed that she had posted some things on her wall. She looked like a beautiful child in the jumpsuit pyjamas she had on. She posted pictures of her family and friends and gave little write ups of he she felt so blessed to have them in her life. She took a picture with each and everyone separately and she posted it along with some likes about the person. She obviously took with Marcus and she posted that "he is one of the sweetest things to ever happen to me!"

How educational! How fulfilling! Such gibberish! That boy is nothing more than a nincompoop like the Jordan brothers called Ferran. The night ended with me sitting on my balcony, the cold air blowing and tossing my hair, my Italian wine in hand and Martha on my mind.