Hat Trick sat quietly in his school desk trying to read an adventure book in his head while fighting off persistent thoughts of the coming winter break and an ocean of possible Hearth's Warming gifts that he might unwrap. The adventure came to an abrupt pause when the quietude of the schoolhouse was shattered.

“The snow is here,” gasped a colt on the other side of the room.

Hat looked up from his book to see a veil of fat snowflakes drifting silently down from above just outside the window. Students catapulted out of their seats and suddenly everyone was on their hooves and lined up along the windows admiring the long-awaited weather change. Even Cheerilee left her desk to look.

“It's beautiful,” she said.

Snow was clinging delicately to the tops of the playground equipment. The blacktop outside was slowly turning a hazy gray under the soft blanket of ice.

“Can we go out and play in it right now?” ask an ecstatic filly over the murmur.

“Not yet,” sighed the teacher. “We still have ten minutes left of silent reading.” Her comment spurred a chorus of disappointed groans from the foals.

“Okay fine we'll have an early recess but we'll finish reading when we come back in. Don't forget your coats,” she begged, nearly drowned out by their resounding cheers.

There was a raucous scramble to get ready and line up at the door. Hat slipped on a hoodie that wasn't waterproof and squeezed into the queue.

Cheerily went to the head of the line and pushed open the door. “Alright My Little ponies, be safe.”

The foals shouted with delight as they scampered freely out into the falling snow. The flakes were so big and copious now that it was almost like running through a fog. Hat stuck out his tongue to catch samples of the pristine icy lace in his mouth. Some landed in his eyes. He ran through the field with his friends, dodging snowballs and laughing. - - -

Starlight levitated a cluster of new notifications from her box in the office, clumping them together with her floating hot tea. “These had better all be about upcoming holiday functions and not mandates and new criteria,” she muttered to herself.

Apple Bloom walked by with a stack of handouts cradled in her foreleg, her eyes catching on Starlight's impressively maternal physique.

“That baby's not gonna come before the shower is it?” she marveled.

Starlight absently stroked her plump underside with one hoof. “She'd better not. Still got a month and a half left.” Her eyes bulged at the enormity of her own words. “Another month and a half of this,” she groaned. “I can barely walk anymore.”

“Yer almost there,” encouraged Apple Bloom with a smile. “A Year's a long time ta wait fer a foal. Good luck on the last leg. Ah’m excited ta meet ‘er.”

“Thanks. Hope I see you at the thing.”

“Ah'll be there.”

Starlight teleported to the counselor's office with her tea and her mail. She abruptly lost her train of thought upon seeing the stack of brand new, unboxed Hearth’s Warming ornaments on her desk. As an adult she never really cared much for the holiday. She even had a somewhat adverse reaction to it when she left Ponyville. But now thatHat Trick had entered her life her interest in celebrating the season was nearly at the level it was when she was a filly and she suddenly found herself excited at the prospect of decorating her office.

Abandoning her tea, she began unboxing the decorations and brainstorming about where to put them. She was in the middle of hanging little sparkly balls on Phyllis when she heard a knock at her door.

“Come in,” shouted Starlight. She looked to see the crystal pony student Chardonnay Swirl peering into her office. She was easily recognizable by her crimped blue mane sweeping over one eye.

“Do you have time right now?" she asked listlessly.

Starlight set down her decorations and looked at the clock, “Uh… a little,” she answered apprehensively. She still couldn't commit to either encouraging or discouraging drop-ins. Sometimes they were the ones who needed the most attention. She went to her desk and sat in her chair. “What's going on, Chardonnay?”

The filly sighed and ambled over to the pair of chairs to take a seat in front of her.

“Well you know how they had cheer squad tryouts a couple of days ago?”

“Oh, did you not make the cut?”

“No it's not that. I didn't even get to do tryouts. I went to the gym that day and they couldn't even find my name on the sign up roster. I knew I had signed up but the way they saw it I had missed the deadline. And it was so packed they weren't going to make an exception for me. I was there with my friend, Slackline. We both signed up but only her name was on the list. She did the tryouts and I just cheered her on from the side.

“I'm sorry. I'm sure you were really looking forward to that too.”

“Yeah but it gets worse. Today I found out that she actually somehow erased my name off of the list.”

“Slackline did that?” gasped Starlight. “Why?”

“Because we were both going for captain. She's good but I am clearly better though I try not to mention it. She honestly doesn't stand a chance if I’m in the running so she took me out to boost her chances.”

“You know her better than I do but that's kind of shocking,” added Starlight.

Chardonnay hung her head. “She's been my friend since second grade; I can't believe she would do this to me.”

“How do you know it was her?”

“She told me herself. She apologized to me and dropped out of cheer squad. Said she was jealous of me always being better and forgot about our friendship.”

“Have you told them what happened? They should be able to work something out for you or maybe you could even take her slot if she makes it on.”

Chardonnay shook her head. “It's already a done deal. They posted. Even if I could find a way to get in now I don't even want to anymore. The whole point was that we were having fun doing it together but she betrayed me. I'm so angry and sad. She said she was sorry but I never want to forgive her. I never even want to talk to her again.”

Starlight exhaled. “I can certainly see why you feel the way you do. Just missing your chance like that is bad enough but having your own friend do that to you…”

Starlight's eyes cycled through the cluster of framed photos propped up on her desk. Her wedding day, a family trip to Manehattan, her with her dad and her with Trixie on stage.

“You know, forgiving someone is more about you than it is them. It's true that someone can feel guilt and sadness for what they did to you. You can choose to withhold that forgiveness, hold their actions over their head to prolong their agony or just stay angry at them forever and carry that heaviness because you can't move on. Holding a grudge can feel validating and empowering but the fact is that refusing to forgive someone is a poison you both drink.”

On the other hoof, saying you're sorry means nothing without a sincere commitment to change your behavior and make things right. She’s clearly feeling very guilty about it otherwise she never would have told you. I know she said she was sorry. It might not feel like it right now at all but that's a sign of respect. If you believe someone learned a lesson from their actions and you truly valued the friendship you had with them before then I don't see why you wouldn't forgive them. Does that make sense?”

Chardonnay crossed her forelegs. “Yeah but I'm still so pissed off though,” she growled.

“I know. Don't forgive her before you're ready and don't do it just because I told you that you should. Wait a little bit and see how you feel about things later. And even though you missed your chance to be on cheer squad together next year, there are plenty of other clubs and extracurricular activities that are always open that you two might want to try together if you make up.”

“Okay,” she sighed gruffly.

“I'm going to see if I can talk to Slackline to mediate. Unfortunately it's probably unavoidable that I'll have to get the school involved if they aren't already because this is equivalent or worse than academic dishonesty.” Starlight glanced at the clock again. “Ugh… Sorry, I don't want to kick you out but I do have appointments coming imminently.”

“Yeah,” breathed Chardonnay, getting out of her seat. “Well, thanks for listening to me and for the advice even if I can't take it.”

“Just put that advice in your pocket and remember it when you wake up tomorrow morning and the next morning and the next morning. The dust hasn't settled yet. Keep an open mind about it and just keep asking yourself is today the day I can talk to her again?” - - -

Hat Trick swept his hoof across the top of his mother's headstone, knocking the clump of gathered snow onto the ground. Then he placed a little blue flower that he'd picked on top of the naked granite.

“That's probably the last wildflower she'll be getting for a while,” mused Starlight.

“Do you think this one will last longer in the cold,” he asked.

“Maybe,” she shrugged.

Instead of brushing away the old withered flowers from past visits he would simply add his new one to the stack until eventually the pile got big enough that the caretakers cleaned it up and he'd just start over.

Hat placed a hoofprint in the snow at the base of the headstone. Sunburst and Starlight put their own prints on either side of his. Everyone was here.

The silence of the snow was deafening as they stood there reflecting. Starlight stared into the depressions they'd made. At no time of the year other than Hat's birthday was Trixie's absence more sorely felt.

"I want to show her the new baby," murmured Hat, drawing circles in the snow with his hoof.

Starlight swallowed a lump in her throat. "I do too," she agreed. "We will... as soon as we can."

“Hey, look.” the colt pointed to a marker three graves down that was wrapped in a strand of little colorful Hearth’s Warming lights. He smiled at the oddly cheery sight. “Can we do that for Mom's grave?”

Sunburst looked and laughed weakly. “Sure. I think she'd like that.”

“Can we decorate the house for Hearth's Warming today too?” Hat followed up hopefully.

Sunburst nodded. “That sounds like a good idea. The snow is here, the decorations should be too. All the other houses on our block seem to have left us in the dust at the starting gate.”

“Let's get a tree today,” added Starlight.

“Yeah... Oh, there's other ones that are decorated too,” Hat declared in surprise.

The snow crunched as the colt wandered away with Sunburst behind him. They waved goodbye to Trixie.

Starlight turned away to follow them but looked back at the golden inlaid letters on Trixie's headstone and sighed a puff of steam. - - -

The three of them went into town and brought a healthy new fir tree back home. Sunburst set it up in the stand in the living room and then helped Hat hunt down the rest of the Hearth's Warming decorations up in the attic and in the closet. Starlight put a kettle and a pot of water on the stove to boil and then went out to get the mail. She came inside, knocking the slush back off of her hooves and flipping through the envelopes. She paused when she came across an official looking one from the government. Her heart skipped a beat as she ripped it open to see if it was what she thought it was.

Starlight marched into the living room which had become a holiday disaster area with the boys rummaging through half a dozen boxes. “Look, Hat,” she levitated the document high in the air. “You know what this is?”

The colt looked back at her curiously, playfully wrapped in a coil of shiny garland. “Huh?”

“My adoption papers finally went through. You officially have two legal parents now for the first time,” she smiled.

His eyes widened. “Oh!”

“You're my first foal but just barely,” she laughed.

“This is exciting. We should take a picture to commemorate the moment,” suggested Sunburst, standing up.

“We should take it in front of the Hearth's Warming tree,” said Hat.

“That's a good idea,” nodded his dad. He turned to look at the fluffy green fir. “I think we should decorate it first.”

The family focused there energy on adorning the tree, wrapping it in lights and dozens of ornaments. At the end it was all lit up and sparkling. Sunburst got out the tripod and the old camera Starlight had gotten him at the antique fair before they were married. She had only bought it for him because she was sure she could create a magical alternative to the chemically photosensitive plates used to make the negatives and she did.

“Okay,” said Sunburst, tightening the tripod shoe. “We'll take one old timey one first and then one with the new camera. With this lighting it'll probably be a three second exposure so hold really still while the lens cap is off.

The three of them assembled in front of the glowing tree and waited for Sunburst's cue.

“Should I swing out a little bit so you can see my bump?” asked Starlight turning her broadside toward the camera.

“We'll both do it,” answered Sunburst.

The two of them made a v with Hat Trick at the point standing in the front. They rested their hooves on his shoulders.

Sunburst grabbed the lens cap with his magic. “Okay, smile everyone.”

Author's Note

The End. Thanks for reading!
If you’d like to support my writing you can buy one of my novels.