A Christmas story

It was the time between Christmas and New Year. The whole family was gathered in the kitchen, Pontus contently playing on the floor while my husband I stood and talked quietly, lovingly looking into each others eyes the whole time. Soft music, delighted laughter and the smell of the delicious food in the oven filled the room. Suddenly we became aware of a movement outside the house. My husband, wearing a reindeer sweater I handknitted for him, carefully approached the window and looked out. There, sitting in the snow, were two people, huddled together to protect themselves against the icy cold, but still shivering. Their big, empty eyes looked at us from faces that were clearly marked by the hunger they were suffering. One of them was so lanky it seemed that he had gone without a proper meal for a very long time. My husband looked at me and we both knew in our hearts that we had to help those poor souls. My husband opened the door. The warm shine of light from the kitchen lamp touched their faces and they turned away, almost as if they were embarassed to be seen like this. My husband walked over and gently helped them up. It was only now that we saw that they also had a baby with them, a little boy with golden curls who looked just as malnourished as his father. We quickly led them into the house and sat them down at the table. My husband took the food from the oven and served them each a generous portion. They ate hungrily and in silence, their eyes gleaming with joy over the feast. We also gave them a sweet treat, something to drink and allowed them to rest on our couch, while Pontus played with their son. The little guy carefully touched all the toys, as if he had never seen anything like this in his life. After a while our guests insisted on moving on, thanking us over and over again for our generosity and hospitality. They carefully wrapped the child in blankets and disappeared into the night as we stood there at the door, feeling that our hearts had been touched in a very special way.
The end.

(That is how the story would be told if we were living in fairytale land, but the truth was of course a little more like this: We were making dinner while Pontus was running around and screaming because he was unhappy. He had been unhappy and very vocal about it all day, so we were counting down the minutes until bedtime. My husband told Muddiz's husband on MSN that we were about to eat and he mentioned that they were hungry as well, but had not cooked anything yet. We had enough food so we asked if they wanted to come over, which they did. We had made noodle gratin with spicy sausages and right away Muddiz's husband informed us that he never eats the noodles in the top layer of the gratin, because they are hard (he is a little older than the rest of us, you know, and he was taken care of by a childminder instead of going to Kindergarten). Pontus was not happy with the food either, so he screamed instead. Everyone else enjoyed the meal, but of course the obligatory 3 noodles and 1 slice of sausage were left in the dish (Swedes NEVER take the last bit of food, don't ask me why). We rounded off the meal with some leftover Christmas cookies and proceeded into the living room, where Muddiz and her husband collapsed on the couch. My husband immediately exploited their immobility and presented his latest technical gadget, while Pontus and Milton completely tore the room apart. At one point Milton tried to climb into one of our highchairs from below (through the opening for the leg, which is TINY) and got stuck halfways. While I looked on, equally amazed and fascinated, his parents seemed somewhat indifferent, like they had seen it before and then some. Or maybe they were just captivated by my husband's demonstration, because Muddiz's husband started to talk about also needing to buy that very device. The children were screaming, my husband was selling and I just "was". After a while the Muddiz clan got up, thanked us for dinner and left. We put Pontus to bed and with that another day was over.)