Warmth
Christmas
The world outside is a white static; it is a heavy, frozen silence pressing against the glass where the frost has bloomed into ferns of ice. Inside, the air is not air at all but a thick, velvet soup of cedar and orange zest; the scent of the Frasier fir is a green needle-prick in the back of the throat. Firelight is a living thing, an orange pulse that beats against the hearth, casting shadows that stretch and shrink like ghosts dancing on the hardwood.
There is Barnaby; he is a puddle of marmalade fur stretching, his claws hooks of ivory catching the rug, while Pepper is a black smudge in the corner, a void with a twitching tail. Mochi is a flicker of calico light in the branches; her whiskers are silver wires vibrating against the glass ornaments that hold the whole room in their curved, reflection-warped faces.
Footsteps are soft thuds on the ceiling, the house is groaning awake, and now the stairs are creaking under the weight of Sophie and Leo. They are small, flannel-clad silhouettes, their eyes are dark pools reflecting the emerald glow of the tree; they move like sleepwalkers through a forest of tinsel. There is the coffee, a dark, bitter steam rising from ceramic mugs, a contrast to the cloying sweetness of the air; the mother’s shawl is a grey wool cloud around her shoulders, her hand is a warm weight on the father’s arm.
The stockings are no longer fabric; they are heavy, misshapen fruits hanging from the mantle, swollen with the secrets of chocolate coins and citrus. The tearing of paper is a crisp, rhythmic percussion; it is the sound of winter breaking apart to reveal the summer of the heart. Kraft paper crinkles, gold ribbon curls like a snake under Pepper’s paw, and the room is a kaleidoscope of discarded colors.
Sophie’s sketchbook smells of new paper and possibilities; Leo’s train is a red streak of lacquer, a glossy toy that feels cold and solid in his small, warm hands. The dialogue is a distant hum, hushed syllables of gratitude that float like dust motes in the firelight; words are too clumsy for this, too sharp for a room filled with the softest things.
The heat from the fire is a physical blanket, a heavy hand pressing everyone down into the rug; the house is an island, a fortress of amber light in a sea of blue snow. Everything is merging; the cat’s purr is the same frequency as the fire’s crackle, the children’s breathing is a synchronized tide.
They move inward, drawn by an invisible gravity to the center of the rug; there is a shifting of limbs, a tangling of dinosaur socks and wool blankets. The father’s arm is a sturdy branch, the mother’s lap is a soft valley, and the children are the anchors holding them all to this specific, golden second. The cats weave into the gaps, warm pulses of fur and vibration, filling the spaces between human bodies. They pull together, a singular, massive, multi-layered hug; it is a knot of love that the cold cannot untie. The morning is a finished painting; the hug is the final stroke of the brush, and the world is finally, perfectly, still.