On Christmas eve Jo and her parents stayed the night at the Niche’s house. For the first time ever Jo and Susan had been allowed to share a bed, under the strict provisor that there be no nookie happening. Elle had even insisted that the door be left open and had threatened that Santa wouldn’t come if they were bad!

Christmas eve had been special, the two families had sung christmas carols, Jo playing along on the guitar, and they had played silly party games, charades and pictionary. There had been mulled wine and christmas cake and an assortment of things they only got to eat at christmas. It had absolutely felt like the best Christmas ever and it wasn't even Christmas day.

And now Jo was playing big spoon in her girlfriend's bed. She was in heaven, if heaven was a place you loved to be but absolutely couldn't sleep.

She was warm and comfortable, enjoying listening to the soft breathing of her girlfriend in her arms and the smell of her shampoo. She was feeling content and mellow. She just had no idea why sleep just wouldn't come. She had tried counting Susan's breaths, of thinking of a candle flame and feeding each errant thought into the flame, she had even tried consciously relaxing each muscle of her body from the toes up. Nothing had worked. That said, perhaps it was just because she was enjoying the moment so much she subconsciously wanted to make it last.

She smiled when she heard Mrs Niche being santa claus, she had slipped in through the open door and gently set two pillowcases at the foot of the bed, obviously not realising Jo was awake as she stood at the door and smiled at them cuddling in the bed.

Shortly after that she must have finally fallen asleep as the next thing she knew Susan was stroking her thigh to wake her up gently. "Hey gorgeous. It's breakfast time."

Jo blinked her eyes open groggily. "Mmm, kiss?" She asked, seeing Susan inches away. She drew her in for a long steamy kiss.

"Merry Christmas." She said with a smile.

There was a cough from the door. "You two getting up? Perhaps you should!" Jo's mum said, leaning heavily on her walking sticks. "Before you get carried away." There was humour in her voice.

The girls laughed and sat up in bed. "Merry Christmas mum." Jo said.

"Merry Christmas, now, how about you help your old mum down the stairs?" Jo climbed out of bed and gave her mum a hug before lifting her bodily and walking carefully down the stairs, her mum laughing all the way.

As they got to the kitchen Susan's mum asked cheekily, "So, did Santa leave you anything last night or were you two bad girls?"

"Presents!" Jo exclaimed, having completely forgotten. She ran back up the stairs and hugged Susan again! "Presents!" She said, squeezing her tight.

"Argh! Too… tight!" Susan squealed. Jo released her and pecked her on the lips. "Love you. Want to take these presents downstairs and see what 'santa' got us?"

They dragged the sacks downstairs with them, still in their pajamas, to sit on the floor in the living room in front of the tree.

Their parents sat on the couches with coffees and bucks fizz, happily watching them tear into their presents.

They had loads of tiny wrapped gifts, chocolates and sweets which they opened and shared around, small games and socks, each gift opened and cooed over every one appreciated. Jo paused watching Susan open her gifts whilst she ate and entire individually wrapped satsuma.

"Ooh! A book, on dead tree! 'A time travelling tank?' I've never heard of that one." Susan said, pausing to read the first few pages.

"It might be a bit young for you but someone at the gym wrote it." Susans mum said, worriedly breaking the 'santa' charade.

"Cool, got to support the indie writers!" Susan said, putting the book aside for later.

"Awesome, a new compass!" Jo said, testing magnetic north.

"I saw your one had all the directions worn off." Her mum admitted.

Their haul of little gifts grew and the pile of wrapping paper grew faster. When they had finished they both hugged all the adults, thanking them for the presents.

"My turn for gifts?" Jo asked, not waiting for an answer. She pulled out a stack of identical looking presents and carefully handed them to the correct people. They tore into them to reveal identical CDs.

"Now, I have to admit, the covers are all the same because I didn't want Abby to do too much work on my gifts." The cover was a sketch of Jo, done in broad dark strokes in ink, she was holding a guitar, the minimal strokes giving it a ghostlike impression.

"It's beautiful, she's very talented." Jo's dad complimented.

"The track list is different on each of them, a few songs are repeated because a lot of you like the same music and it saved me a lot of time." They each turned the case over and were surprised at her knowledge of their music taste.

"That's very thoughtful of you Jo, here let's put mine on." Rick said, putting the CD in the machine. He was surprised to hear Jo's voice, accompanied only by guitar, playing his favourite Joe Cocker song.

"Oh wow, I was just expecting a mix tape. This is amazing, you recorded all these songs? When?" He asked.

"It was my music project this term, I recorded a few songs each class. You've likely heard them all since I practiced them all here."

Rick gave her a big hug. "This is such an amazing gift. We will be listening to nothing but Jo all day today, I want to hear all these albums!" He declared. The rest of the adults all hugged and thanked her for the amazing gifts before Susan got out a box filled with her gifts for people.

"Okay, these are nothing compared to Jo's presents but I had a lot of pocket money saved up." She handed the first one to Jo's mum.

She unwrapped it and found a kindle. "Now, it's second hand but it's pristine. I've loaded it with crime mystery novels for you too."

"Oh darling, it's perfect! Come give me a hug." She said, her eyes glistening. "You girls are so wonderful."

"Okay this one is heavy, again it isn't brand new but Jo assures me it's good." She hefted a weighty box and handed it to Jo's dad. "We may have… borrowed your one to check the holes were right." He pulled out a bowling ball from the box. "They filled and redrilled the thumb hole."

He stood up and hefted the ball for weight, putting his fingers in the holes and swinging the ball back one forth. "It's great, and my old one is awful. I feel bad you spending all your money on me though."

"Hey, since meeting your daughter I've spent almost none of my pocket money. It was burning a hole in my pocket. Anyway, everything I bought was second hand and at a good price." She assured him.

Next she handed her mom a gift, the wrapping was off almost before Susan had let go. It was a delia smith cookbook. "Oh wow, this is your grans cookbook, the one I love."

"No, it's a copy. I didn't just go steal grans cookbook! Oh shit, we haven't told gran." Susan realised. "She's going to call tonight. So you think she's going to be okay when I introduce Jo?"

"She'll be fine. I may have… primed her a little already." The look of relief on Susan's face was priceless.

Her dad was given a boring old computer game, wings 64 for his retro games console. Susan had no doubt they would be playing the blocky old thing before lunch.

"And Jo." She said, handing her a small box.

Jo unwrapped it carefully. "What is it?" She asked looking at the clear case in puzzelment.

"Oh, woops, that was meant to be the second one." Susan apologized, handing Jo an identical looking parcel.

This time she recognised the contents, "A GoPro? Wow, these are cool."

"The other bit is a waterproof case with a thing to attach it to your bag. I thought it would be cool if you could record some of your runs and bike rides." Susan explained, nervous that her girlfriend didnt like it.

"It's wonderful." Jo said, hugging her tightly. "This is the best Christmas ever."

"But wait, there's more! As the advert says." Rick said, reaching down to get a little box from beside the sofa. "Now, this is a very big present from all of us to both of you. Before I give you this I have to say, it is a very big investment and we are putting a lot of trust in you giving you this."

He handed the box to Jo.

The girls looked at them in confusion, then looked at the plain cardboard box, frowning. "What is it?" Susan asked.

"Well, open it and find out." Elle said, excitedly.

Jo tore the tape off the top and reached in, she pulled out a brightly coloured ring of keys for baby's teething and looked at Susan confused.

"Oh no, you're having another baby?" Susan asked wide eyed.

"No! Look further!" Her dad said.

Jo fished about in the box and pulled out a photograph. It was a picture of a high rise building with permanent marker highlighting a single flat.

"You can't see inside yet, and you can't get the real keys because someone is already renting it but we've bought you a flat to use during university. The plastic keys were your dad's idea." Elle explained.

The girls' screams were ear piercing, they hugged each other and jumped up and down.

"Susans mum and dad put in most of the money, we just chipped in for the down payment." Jo's dad said, wanting to make that clear.

Jo pulled her mum to her feet and hugged her, pulling her dad up too for a group hug, before long everyone was included.