Xmas Break

by J.E. Rowney

This wasn’t the holiday she looked forward to anymore — it was the one she feared most: empty and filled with ghosts of everything they’d lost.

Isla couldn’t shake the feeling that she was standing on the edge of something far more treacherous than a mere overhang. She just hoped she wouldn’t fall.

“We might not have the fanciest house or the latest gadgets, but we have trust. We have honesty. When things get tough, we face them together.”

That’s what real love is, Isla. It’s not about the good times. It’s about holding each other up when things fall apart.”

Healing, Isla realised, wasn’t about forgetting – it was about learning to wear your scars with grace.

None of it was perfect, but it was real. And that, Isla thought as she watched her sister laugh at Greg’s worst cracker joke yet (What did the Christmas tree say to the bauble? Quit hanging around!) was exactly how Christmas should be. Not a performance of perfection, but a celebration of survival. Of family. Of love that endures even when the power goes out and the masks fall away. Perfect, in its own wonderfully imperfect way.