Christmas as a single father was rough. Christmas as the child of a single father was rough. Not that you knew it yet, but Alec was working overtime, trying his best to scrape together the money to make the holiday nice for you. Back when he'd been with Tess, she'd been the one to organize all of the Christmas activities, the ornament crafts, sledding outings, gingerbread houses, all of that. Now he was on his own with all of that and with the gift shopping.

Meanwhile, you just didn't think it was fair. You'd gotten stuck at after-school care programs or with babysitters for hours upon hours while your dad worked overtime, even more than normal! And 'normal' already involved a lot of time with your sitters and time spent at your after-school program. You wanted the Christmas you'd always had, sledding with your mother and sister, decorating a big, live tree instead of the small fake one that sat pathetically in a corner of your house. You wanted the cookie-baking and caroling and everything else that went along with Christmas in your mind. Why was your father working so much when Christmas was meant to be about family? You knew he worked for money, so it stood to reason that he was working more to earn more money, but why would he need more money? Santa would bring all the gifts!

When the day of Christmas Eve (Christmas Eve-day?) arrived, your father finally took the day off of work. He took you to the local grocery store and bought a pair of gingerbread houses and a bag of assorted colorful fruity candy, some to eat and the rest to use as decorating fodder. When you got home, he allowed you to pick out a Christmas film and sit in the living room, decorating your houses together and basking in the holiday spirit. It wasn't his choice of relaxation, especially with the inevitable mess of dropped candies and stray frosting to follow, but, well... it made you happy. And that was all he wanted to do.

"Havin' fun, kiddo?" he asked, sticking a peppermint wheel up over the door of his little house.