Bonanza
~*~*~ Advent Calendar ~*~*~
*Day 2 *

Summary:  An explanation and WHL for the episode The Iron Butterfly
Rating: G
Words:  420

We Are Merry

My dearest Hoss,

I had not intended to write to you. After all that happened, I thought it was better to just let you move on with your life – to let my days in it fade into memory. Christmas is nearly upon us, though, and the nearer it draws, the more abundantly obvious it becomes to me how much I have been changed by our brief moment together. After much reflection, I have decided that it would be ungrateful of me not to let you know.

I never understood Christmas. I never believed it. No one just gives himself up like that for someone else, especially someone like me – a lost, angry, manipulative woman with no use for anyone who couldn’t protect or advance me. I thought that anyone who truly believed in Christmas was suffering under the strain of self-delusion. Wishful thinking. Desperation.

Those I understand – my life has been made of those.

And then you came along. You loved me for no reason other than because of who you are – I certainly didn’t deserve it. I definitely didn’t want it. You would have left your home and your family for me, and I didn’t even know you. You fully intended to trade your life for mine, even knowing what I had done. 

All so that I could be free.

Christmas suddenly doesn’t seem so far-fetched to me anymore.

I see now – at least, I think l am starting to understand – that it’s not the parties, nor the food and drinks, nor the expensive gifts, nor the tinsel and the lights that bear witness we are merry. It’s not the frantic activity and the loud laughter and the late nights. No, it’s something quieter, something in the eyes and the voice and in the way we relate to others. It’s whatever shows we have accepted a love and a gift offered gladly to us even when we have nothing to give back. Now that I’m looking, I can start to see that joy peeking out of others, when it’s there to be found.

I saw it in you, and that was enough to open a whole new world to me. 

Merry Christmas, Hoss. For my part, life will never be the same – and knowing that makes me very merry indeed.

All my love, always,

Lola Fairmont

**Lola Fairmont appears in the Season 13 episode “The Iron Butterfly.”

My phrase: “Bear witness we are merry” from A Christmas Carol by George Wither

🎄🎄Merry Christmas!!🎄🎄

Link to Bonanza Brand 2023 Advent Calendar – Day 3 – Sterling and Bright by BluewindFarm