A Christmas Morning of Sausages, Bacon, and Love

Angelika woke with a smile to the smell of sausages and bacon cooking. It was hardly the most traditional Christmas breakfast but had always been a much-loved aspect of a Higley family Christmas. "Nothing better than starting the festivities off with a nice hearty breakfast, darling," her father said every year. Although she was now, at 15, a little old to be getting up before dawn to shake and rattle presents under the tree, she still loved this day and time of the year. "Angel, breakfast's up!" called her mother, breaking the silence, she was enjoying.

The silence of contentment and just being. Safe, warm and loved. Stretching, she rolled out of the bed and into her nightgown and slippers and headed downstairs, laughing at the sound of her parents and older sibling butchering "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl. While not in the least bit tuneful, the sound that made her eye-roll momentarily also made her well up inside. She never wanted to forget these little details that made life so special. That made her mother and father special to her. They were far from perfect, but they meant the world to her.

As she ran her hands along the tinsel-lined walls, a memory drifted in like a cold gust through a forgotten crack: another December, not so long ago, when the cold was her only companion. When she had run away from home. Really, she ran away from life-threatening and innocence-robbing cruelty handed out to her by the bastard that she once knew as her father. If it weren't for her gloves and socks, the dark and cold despair she felt in her heart would have spread to her extremities. Everything had been relentlessly hard for Angelika to that point in her life. Though she was fortunate—her time on the streets, away from anything resembling love, was brief. She knew how rare her fortune was—she’d read the stories, heard the headlines, of lives that didn’t turn out like hers.

Social services really worked hard on her behalf, and she found a good children's home and then a great family. There are so many that do not land on their feet, not quite like Angelika.

She was forever grateful for that first time she walked through the doors of what would be her forever home. It was December, and it was cold outside, but the warmth that emanated from their humble abode, already started, very gradually, to soften and warm her hardened insides. It wasn't just the heat that hit her face when she walked through the door, accompanied by her social worker, Jenny, but the very slight and endearing smile on Marcia's face and the way that Bill tried to break the ice with a silly dad joke. He was every inch a completely different man to her biological father, that brute of a bastard. Bill’s strength was steady, but his gentle handshake and warm smile were nothing like the brute she’d known as father.

Bill and Marcia, her adoptive parents, worked hard to gain her trust and to show her love. Never overstepping the mark, they also weren't shy about showing she was valued. There were times when she put them through hell, she knows and has since tried to show her sorrow at reacting that way. Marcia and Bill never once overreacted to her tantrums and her attempts to push them away. They met her detached distrust with steady love, affection, and understanding.

Before sitting at the table for her Christmas breakfast, her mother and father both embraced her and held her for a little too long. Angelika didn't mind though, because it was in their loving embrace that she felt safe. The scent of her mother's perfume and the feel of her father's obnoxiously loud reindeer sweater, all settled any nerves she had. For a moment, she remembered the last thing her father had said to her "you'll never escape me, you little bitch!" She shook the memory away as quickly as it came. Now, in the arms of her parents, she felt that awful voice silenced by the warmth of love.

For many, Christmas traditions might feel routine, even mundane. But for Angelika, they were sacred—a reminder of love, safety, and just how far she’d come. This Christmas was the fifth Christmas she had spent as a member of the Higley family. Five years without her mother’s drunken rage, and five years free of the terror she’d once felt every time her father approached her bedroom door. Five years of sausage and bacon sandwiches in the morning before presents, a delicious Christmas dinner, games, cheesy movies, laughter and love.

As they finally sat down at the breakfast table, Angelika glanced at her older sibling, Jemma, who was teasing their dad mercilessly about his sweater choice. He wore it every year, and every year she had something to say about it. Marcia caught Angelika's eye and tilted her head as if to say, "What are they like?" winked and smiled full of warmth. Angelika couldn't hold back a smile in return, as her heart was bursting with gratitude.

Angelika had grown to love Christmas—not just for the warmth and joy it brought, but also for the way it allowed her to create new memories alongside Marcia and Jemma—decorating the tinsel-lined walls, baking cookies, and wrapping presents together.

These weren’t just any old traditions—they were her traditions. And she knew she would never, ever take them for granted.

*

Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: I don't do Christmas and have rather unpopular, to some, opinions of this time of the year. However. I wanted to try and do something for this challenge that wasn't depressing and angsty and complainy.

Okay, so I did it. An unapologetically positive and uplifting piece for this challenge. I want to say that I do know that not all stories of people who run away or who end up in care have such a positive ending, but there are stories just like Angelika's that do.

This is for the Tales of Hearth Challenge -

Here are some other things: