He heard a car coming and then saw it as it pulled into the small dirt driveway. A tiny smile surfaced on his aged face before he turned his attention back to the stars and moonlight that played and danced across the sky that cold, winter night in Alberta.

"Dad? Is that you? What are you doing out here? It's freezing!"

"Nice to see you, son. How are you?"

"I'm good, but what are you doing out here when it's below twenty-five degrees?"

"Thinking," The old man tells his kin. "How are you, Justin and my Aemali?"

"We're all well, dad. How about we go inside now, eh?" His son says for his two teenage children standing behind him with presents and bags in their tingling hands.

"No, thanks, son. I think I'm going to sit out here and think some more. There's some hot chocolate inside if you want to make it for the kids. I'll be in a little later." He tells his son, dismissively.

"Dad, it's cold and you're cold. It's not good for you to be out in this weather at your age." His son persists.

"Let's just go inside, dad. I'm cold." The young male suggests.

"Fine. We'll see you in the house soon."

"All right." He says cheerfully.

The family of three moves past him and goes inside of his home. In the kitchen, as she makes the hot chocolate her grandfather had mentioned, Aemali turns away from the cocoa container and toward her father, "Why do you think grandpa's out there, dad?"

He sighs, "I don't know, Aemali. I never knew he went out there until tonight. He's a confusing man."

Aemali frowns. She doesn't find her father's answer to be satisfying so after she finishes making the steamy drink she brings hers outside, where her elder is still stationed, and sits down beside him on an wooden bench that had been smoothened over the years by weathering.

"Hi, 'Mali."

"Hi, grandpa." She acknowledges. There's a pause before she asks, "Want some of my hot chocolate?"

"No, thanks. I'm fine." He answers and eliminates all chances of his granddaughter stating he's chilly, due to her better judgment that her father seemingly lacked.

"Grandpa?"

"Yep?"

"Why do you come out here? I asked my dad but he didn't know. It's really beautiful out here, with the black sky lit up by opposing bright stars and the moon, but why?"

He looks at the adolescent, wearing a grin on his soft face, "I've always come out here, 'Mali, but not always alone, almost never always alone. It was your grandmother that first started coming out here, no matter what season, ever since we bought this house. It took me a few months to come to light about it, though. She would go out here in the middle of the night, she told me, and when she couldn't sleep she'd stay here with a mug of coffee in her fragile hands until the golden sun signaled a new day. When I first found out, I began waking up with her and it would become our unofficial tradition."

"You still sit out here because it's never ended, right, grandpa? I guess she's still here somehow, like in a ghostly, -no, not ghostly- a heavenly presence. You still sit out here with her every night till morning. That's very sweet of you, grandpa. You must have loved her very much to cherish her and do this with her every day." Says Aemali with a glazed expression that a romantic carries in his or her eyes, "I think, that if one day I ever fall in love with someone that I would know I love them and they love me because of something like that. It seems like something only dreamed of as a teenager. The guys I know are so immature. Sometimes I want to give up on the hopes of courtly love."

With a smile still on his face, he says, "Don't give up on 'em yet, 'Mali. You don't know these boys deep down; they might just be hiding their feelings. Boys aren't as courageous as you are, my 'Mali."

She says through her laughs that 'that's stupid, grandpa! I think any girl would say yes to a guy that did something romantic.'

"Well, did I ever tell you how your grandmother and myself started 'going out' as you kids say?"

"No! Come on grandpa, tell me!" She demands, playfully.

Then he goes on to tell her the story of how her grandmother had had to ask him to go steady with him because he was much to shy to ask her.

The next morning, Justin and Aemali bound down the steps of the two-story house and into their grandfather's living room. Their grandfather is sitting with his glasses on the bridge of his wrinkled nose and a cup filled with a hot liquid in hands.

"Where's our dad?" Aemali asks her grandfather.

"In the kitchen."

"Tell him to hurry up, Aemali!" Justin demands, anxious, as he's always been, to open up his Christmas presents.

"O.K.!" She agrees and then she skips in her fuzzy yellow pajamas to the kitchen door, "Dad? Justin wants you to hurry up so he can open his presents."

"O.K., O.K. I'm coming," Is the reply from the kitchen.

Their father comes in and the two children settle down where they please.

"All right, you can start now, Justin."

At the go ahead, Justin and Aemali open their presents at their separate speeds until their grandfather says, "Oh, no, now! I've forgotten to buy you all some gifts. I'm sorry, kids. I'll make it up to you."

"No! Its O.K., right, Justin?" Aemali hints.

"Huh? Yeah, it is. Just being here is good enough, gramps." Justin explains.

Aemali smiles at the elderly man, "Exactly. We got to come here and spend Christmas with you, grandpa. Christmas is about spending time with the people you love: we love you, and I'm sure the relatives from the other side of the family love us too, but you're real. You don't pretend to be always happy and simple. You're just yourself and we love you. Our other relatives are always fake; smiling and acting like they know us but they live so far away that that's not possible."

"Yeah, dad. We love you. It's O.K. Merry Christmas, everyone."

"Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas to you all, too. I love you and thank you. I would have spent Christmas all alone with you."

"Except that you'd have our presences and hers. Always." Aemali tells her beloved grandfather.

A/N: This was a short one shot for a Christmas themed contest.

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