The Two Gifts:

A True Story of the Santa Claus

By Benito Cereno

Illustration by Chuck Knigge

Close your eyes and think of Christmas. Chances are good you’re imagining strings of colored lights hung on eaves and trees, candles both real and imitation, maybe a roaring fire. Hot drinks, steaming gravy, cozy sweaters. Maybe you pictured a housetop, with jolly old Saint Nick jumping down the chimney with lots of toys, all for the little ones’ Christmas joys.

Do any animals come to mind in this mental tableau? Reindeer, surely. Perhaps a jingle-belled horse pulling an open sleigh. A mouse, not even stirring. A dog in a ridiculous antlered headband. A goose getting fat, if you’re the old fashioned type. Swans a-swimming and French hens and so on.

These days as we sit opening presents in our brightly lit, centrally heated dens, it can be hard to remember that Christmas comes at the darkest, coldest time of the year. In the years before Mr. Edison’s bulb and power in every home, the winter solstice was a time of danger and fear in addition to joy and hope.

It was believed that evil creatures came out to frolic during the days between Martinmas and Epiphany, resentful of the celebration of the Christ child's birth. Witches and fairies would make trouble for innocent people wanting only to enjoy the compliments of the season. Vampires prowled on St. Andrew’s Eve and hammer-toting ogres lurked in the woods for St. Thomas Eve. No red-nosed reindeer or jingly-harnessed Clydesdales here.

You might be surprised to learn that the creature most associated with Christmas was the werewolf. Indeed, the Swedish scholar Olaus Magnus wrote that "in Prussia, Livonia, and Lithuania, although the inhabitants suffer considerably from the rapacity of wolves throughout the year, in that these animals rend their cattle, which are scattered in great numbers through the woods, whenever they stray in the very least, yet this is not regarded by them as such a serious matter as what they endure from men turned into wolves.”

He continues: “On the feast of the Nativity of Christ, at night, such a multitude of wolves transformed from men gather together in a certain spot, arranged among themselves, and then spread to rage with wondrous ferocity against human beings, and those animals which are not wild, that the natives of these regions suffer more detriment from these, than they do from true and natural wolves; for when a human habitation has been detected by them isolated in the woods, they besiege it with atrocity, striving to break in the doors, and in the event of their doing so, they devour all the human beings, and every animal which is found within. They burst into the beer-cellars, and there they empty the tuns of beer or mead, and pile up the empty casks one above the other in the middle of the cellar, thus showing their difference from natural and genuine wolves.”

In addition to this, in his encyclopedic work Dies Caniculares, the Italian bishop and lawyer Simone Majoli says of the Livonians, “At Christmas a boy lame of leg goes round the country summoning the devil’s followers, who are countless, to a general conclave. Whoever remains behind, or goes reluctantly, is scourged by another with an iron whip till the blood flows, and his traces are left in blood. The human form vanishes, and the whole multitude become wolves.”

He goes on: “They fall upon herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, but they have no power to slay men. When they come to a river, the leader smites the water with his scourge, and it divides, leaving a dry path through the midst, by which the pack may go. The transformation lasts during the Twelve Days of Christmas, at the expiration of which the wolf-skin vanishes, and the human form reappears.”

While most know from movies and other such tales that the curse of the wolf is passed one from the other by means of a bite, in fact, most werewolves become such voluntarily, by agreeing to follow the devil in exchange for the power of the wolfskin.

One such story came to light in a werewolf trial of December 1512 held in France by the Inquisitor-General, the subject of which was one Pierre Bourgot, known popularly as Peter the Great due to his rather extraordinary stature. Briefly into the course of his trial, Pierre offered a full confession to his hideous crimes.

Some nineteen years before, on New Year’s Eve, Pierre was out watching his flocks when they were scattered to the four winds by a terrible and sudden storm that arose over the countryside. Searching in vain for his sheep, Pierre eventually found himself approached by three horsemen dressed all in black who asked him what was troubling him.

When he told the riders of his misfortune, the last of the three men told him that his master would take charge of the flock and protect them. What’s more, Pierre would find his straying sheep very soon, and indeed would come into an unexpected sum of money, if he should but rely upon this horseman’s master. The two agreed to meet in five days. Within that time, Pierre recovered his flock, and when he met the rider again, he learned the man’s name was Moyset, and he was a servant of the devil.

Pierre renounced God and all the saints and kissed the rider’s jet-black, corpse-cold left hand, binding his allegiance to Satan for two years, during which he never entered a church until after Mass had concluded and the holy water had been sprinkled.

For these two years, the devil protected Pierre’s flock from wolves, but in exchange made a wolf of the man himself. In Pierre’s own words: “After I had stripped myself, he smeared me with a salve, and I transformed into a wolf. I was at first somewhat horrified at my four wolf’s feet, and the fur with which I was covered all at once, but I found that I could now travel with the speed of the wind.” Thus began Pierre’s spree of hunting and devouring children, of which we shall speak no more.

One desiring to become a werewolf may otherwise do so by drinking water that has settled into a wolf’s footprint.

While many werewolves assumed the furry mantle in exchange for power and riches as Pierre did, not everyone finds themselves in such a predicament voluntarily.

*************

In the twelfth century, a priest set out from the north Irish city of Ulster towards the wilds of the south, accompanied only by his squire, undoubtedly on some divine work or other that ultimately doesn’t relate much to the matter at hand. It’s possible they were making their way to kill a dragon, as that was the kind of thing that holy men did in those days, but you will never know, because this isn’t a story about dragons. It’s about another type of beast entirely.

On one day of their travels, as dusk began to muddle itself into night, the priest and his squire stepped off the road and into the cover of the forest to seek shelter. There they built a fire to warm themselves through the chill Irish night, but even more to scare off any unwanted inhuman company. The priest suspected the Devil might be out to impede his holy mission (his dragon-killing mission? Alas, we can’t say for sure) and he knew he needed to keep a watchful eye.

The goal of the fire’s warding off any potential dangers was perhaps not as successful as it could have been, for soon the night grew eerily silent, too silent by far for a thick-grown forest. The silence was soon broken, however, by a growling rasp emerging from the shadows. “Father,” the voice said, “don’t be afraid. I intend you no harm.”

Admittedly, the priest had some difficulty in ceding to the voice’s request, but he did his humble best. “Prove me you mean no harm by stepping out of the dark and into the light of the fire, good sir.” The voice hesitated but soon replied, “The shape I bear might bring you great afright, Father, that is all that stays me from approaching your fire. But I assure you that I am a Christian man and do not mean to cause you alarm. I am simply in some dire need of a holy man.”

The priest informed the voice that there were very few forms that the human figure could assume that would shock him by this time, as his missions of mercy had exposed him to the terrible fates the ravages of illness could wreak upon a person. But all the forms he had witnessed in the past had not prepared him for this one. The body that bore the voice he had heard from the treeline was not human at all: what emerged from the shadows was a hairy beast with slavering, pointed fangs, large paws, a coat of matted gray fur, and piercing yellow eyes. The priest knew at once that what stood before him was a wolf-man, the likes of which the ancient kings of Ireland had used as soldiers in their legendary battles.

“Stay back, sir,” stammered the priest, “and know that I bear the protection of the Lord Christ.” The wolf-man bowed his head low before the man of God and replied, “Father, I, too, am a follower of Christ. And indeed, it is his very power that has brought me to the fate you see before you.”

The wolf explained that he was of a clan native to Ossory, and many years before, the great saint Natalis had been traveling through that kingdom and cursed the wolf’s clan. What offense had invoked the anger of the abbot was long forgotten, but the curse stood to this day: every seven years, two members of the clan, a man and a woman, must be driven out of Ossory and assume the forms of wolves, wearing their skins and living deep in the woods, far from their clan, until such time that the seven year period was up and another two would replace them. It was, the wolf assured, a terrible burden, and one he hoped would be lifted when Natalis died.

The priest didn’t find this story surprising. He had heard of the legendary temper of Saint Natalis, who once, out of anger and thirst, struck the earth with his crozier until water sprung forth. It was likewise not unheard of for him to curse those who crossed him. The curse of the wolf was not unknown to him either, as Saint Patrick was said to have transformed a clan into such beasts as a fitting punishment for howling to cover up the sound of his preaching. But one thing that the priest knew that the wolf apparently did not was that Natalis had died some six hundred years before. Some anger exceeds the lifespan of a man, the priest supposed.

At any rate, the wolf-man continued, “Father, my wife and I were already rather old upon the event of our turning, and now my dear wife lies dying in the woods. I beg that you will administer to her the last rites, that she may die a Christian and enter the kingdom of Heaven as a woman and not a beast.”

Though terrified, the priest knew that he could not refuse the sacrament to someone who needed it, so he told his petrified squire to remain at the fire (an order he happily fulfilled) and wait for his return. The priest followed the wolf into the dark of the forest until he saw outlined above the ground the limp body of a dying wolf, breathing raggedly in the chill air.

“Hear my contrition, Father,” she gasped. “Help me escape this cursed form.”

“I shall,” replied the priest, “but first I need assurance that indeed a human soul resides within you.” With the last drop of vigor remaining to her, the she-wolf used her razor claw to cut a slit along her flank. The matted fur and tough skin parted at this new seam to reveal beneath it the papery skin of a woman of greatly advanced age.

Fully assured now, the priest gave the dying she-wolf communion and blessed her. A look of relief passed over both her face and that of her wolfen mate as she passed from this cursed life. In deep gratitude, the wolf-man guided the priest back to his camp and his squire, grateful to no longer be alone in these woods that he knew with some certainty had werewolves in them.

As the now solitary wolf-man loped back into the snowy woods, the priest called out to him that he would come back for him on his way back to Ulster. However, after completing his mission and reporting the tale of the werewolf clan to his bishop (which was then reported to Rome, officially documented in 1185; look it up), the priest found himself unable to find hide or hair of his lupine acquaintance.

Nevertheless, tales of the werewolves of Ossory continue to this day. The cause has long passed away, but the curse remains.

*************

But perhaps the most tragic way to become a werewolf, and the one that ties the beast most closely to the holiday season, is the terrible fact that babies born during the twelve days of Christmas are cursed to become werewolves for their audacity in trying to overshadow Jesus on his birthday. (In Greece, though, the curse is altered somewhat that the brazen infant is destined to become not a traditional werewolf, but rather a trouble-making, food-soiling furry goblin known as a kallikantzaros. We are not here for such things at the moment, however, which perhaps you read with some relief.)

Whether in league with the devil or cursed by some unknown ancient slight or marked by the day of one’s birth, a werewolf can be distinguished from a natural wolf by a number of means. The primary piece of evidence is that transformed witches have no tails, and so any such animal missing an expected tail should be treated with some suspicion. (Manx cats, however, should be fine.) A werewolf, even outside of their wolf’s skin, can easily be told by their broad hands with short fingers and hairy palms. And of course, a werewolf will retain in human form any damage inflicted upon it in wolf form, such as the countryman related by Majoli who bore great wounds on his face that he had received from dogs while trying to eat his neighbor’s cattle while in the shape of a wolf. The surest sign of a werewolf, of course, is that their eyebrows meet in the middle.

And so our story--for indeed, there is in fact a story here, of sorts--opens on just such a werewolf, tailless and matted, carrying his intended next meal back to his lair in the sharp and chilling air of a cloudless Christmas Eve night. His intended Christmas dinner, however, is not a lost sheep or ill-fated calf, but rather the favored meal of such famed werewolves as Pierre Bourgot and teenage werewolf Jean Grenier: a small, innocent girl child, of whom Grenier was known to say, “their flesh is tender and sweet, their blood rich and warm.”

The girl screamed, squalled, squirmed, and cried as the lupine beast lugged her resistant form deep into his hidden cave and dumped her on the cave floor, which was strewn with the bony debris of past meals. The girl naturally scrambled for escape, tears and more streaming down her terrified face, little knowing that the thrill of the chase merely enhanced the experience and enriched the flavor for the hairy creature towering over her. The wolf’s jaws slathered at the thought of the child’s sweet, tender flesh, his broad, short-fingered hands opening and closing in grasping anticipation.

But as the beast prepared to attack the hapless child, to fill his gullet with warm child’s blood--his onset was interrupted by an unexpected sound: the distant but growing sound of sleigh bells. His voracious appetite temporarily suppressed by the surprise, his prey momentarily forgotten, the wolf turned from the child to the mouth of the cave.

A powerful and familiar silhouette stood at the mouth, ringed by moonlight as if by a halo. The broad-bodied man strode fearlessly into the cave, revealing his famous red and white coat and long, white beard. In that moment, the two figures, both dressed all in fur from their head to their foot, stood eye to eye in the dimly lit cave. For a tense while, they stood quietly, sizing each other up, twinkling eye to bloodshot eye. It was the jolly newcomer who first broke the silence.

 “Oh, ho ho!” he laughed. “I'm here looking for a child! She wasn't in her bed, and I need to deliver her gifts! You haven’t seen a curly-haired young child around here by any chance, have you?”

In lieu of an answer, the slavering beast lunged toward the red-clad man, claws spread wide and jaws fully open. In response, the man reached simply into the deep pocket of his coat and withdrew a large, antique key, into the bow of which had been engraved a stag’s head with a shining cross floating between its antlers.

“Christmas,” uttered the man as he held forth the key. “What a horrible night to have a curse.”

*************

In the seventh century, the Duke of Aquitaine found himself in possession of a son, whom he decided to name Hubert, as that was the kind of thing you might name a son in the seventh century. As a young man, Hubert was sent off to court in Paris, and thanks to his charm and natural charisma, he soon became the delight of the court and the king’s favorite. As has long been the case with the leisure class, Hubert found himself addicted to the thrill of the chase and indulged much of his time in hunting.

This tendency only increased following the death of Hubert’s wife Floribanne (daughter of Dagobert) in giving birth to their son, Floribert (which would be a charming, if strange, amalgamation of his parents’ names if it weren’t for the tragic circumstances under which it was gained). At the loss of his wife, Hubert withdrew almost entirely from society, spending almost all of his time pursuing game in the forests of the Ardennes. And so it came to pass that one Good Friday morning, when all good people should be attending mass, Hubert found himself face to face with a magnificent, if imposing, stag.

It wasn’t the stag’s face that caught his attention, however. It was the glowing crucifix floating between the stag’s vast antlers, the light of which caused him to shade his eyes. As he stood in awe of this miraculous sight, a booming voice issued forth from the stag’s throat, saying, “Hubert, unless thou turnest to the Lord, and leadest an holy life, thou shalt quickly go down into hell.” Terrified--the natural response--Hubert descended from his horse and threw himself face down before the mighty stag, managing to blurt out, “Lord, what wouldst Thou have me do?”

As it turns out, what the Lord would have him do was seek out St. Lambert, a bishop in the Netherlands. Under Lambert’s tutelage, Hubert disowned all his land and titles, giving them (along with his son) to the care of his brother Odo. He further sold all his goods and gave the whole of his wealth to the poor, entering the priesthood. While on a pilgrimage to Rome, Lambert was killed and a vision came to the pope telling him to appoint Hubert his successor. Hubert enjoyed great success as a bishop, renowned for an asceticism that stood in stark contrast to the lavish life of his youth and for his evangelism to the pagans of the Ardennes.

But the stag didn’t stop at telling Hubert to seek out Lambert. He also told him at length how to hunt ethically and humanely; how to only shoot when guaranteed a quick, clean kill; how to kill only stags past their breeding prime and never a doe with child; how it is better to euthanize a sick animal than to aim for one that might make a better trophy. Hubert passed on the teaching of the stag to young hunters in addition to his spread of the Gospel, and for this he is known to this day as the patron of hunters and the protector of those who seek game ethically.

So great was Hubert’s reputation as the Apostle of the Ardennes that he found himself visited by a vision of St. Peter, the holder of the keys to Heaven and Earth himself. One such key, made all of gold, Peter handed over to the huntsman, telling him that it would give him a great power over evil spirits, aiding him in his role as protector of those who roamed the woods. And so it was: soon after this spectral encounter, Hubert healed a man who had been bitten by a rabid dog. And then he found himself healing a man who had received a bite of another sort entirely.

Following Hubert’s death, his shrine became a destination for those afflicted with rabies--and, well, other situations caused by an animal bite--and the abbey dedicated to him a site for those who could not make the pilgrimage. At this abbey, the monks would prepare what they called St. Hubert’s Keys, pieces of iron shaped like a nail, cross, or cone, which could be hung in the home or heated and applied directly to the skin of someone afflicted with, you know. Rabies, or some other infectious condition.

*************

The werewolf’s lunge lost all its momentum at the manifestation of the holy key, and he found himself fully powerless before it. All he had the vitality to do while bathed in its blessed light was to skitter off into the darker corners of the cave. A few moments thus bought for himself, the jolly man in red had a moment to address the frightened child, whose bawling had paused at the enrapturing arrival of man with the abundantly full bag over his shoulder. With the beast subdued, he turned softly toward her.

“Don't be afraid,” said Santa to the child. “I've come to deliver your Christmas present. Reach inside the bag and you will find exactly what you most wanted.”

Eyes wide and all fear forgotten at the prospect of a present, the child reached eagerly into Santa’s bag. This eagerness was short-lived, however, as what she pulled out was a large, garish, holiday sweater bearing the image of a reindeer wearing sunglasses. “Clothes!” shouted the child. “This isn't what I wanted!” Her dismay increased as she held the sweater up and saw that its shape dwarfed her tiny frame. “This doesn't even fit me!”

In disappointment and frustration, the formerly terrified child threw the unwanted sweater over her shoulder into the darker corners of the cave.

*************

In Denmark they tell the following tale:

A woman who wishes to bear children without any pain may accomplish this relatable goal in a few simple steps. First she must take the birth caul of a newly born foal and stretch it between four sticks at midnight and then crawl through it. And, well, that’s it. There are no more steps. That is not to say, however, that there will be no consequences. All boys produced by this method--painlessly, mind you--will grow up to be werewolves, while any girl born will become a succubus. This price may seem steep, but when anesthetic is not an option, all bets are off. At any rate, one can recognize such a werewolf even in their human form because their eyebrows meet in the middle above their nose. Not even vigorous waxing can disguise it.

One such singularly eyebrowed man was, on a certain Christmas Eve, returning with his wife from a particularly pleasant celebration when he realized, to his chagrin, that it was the appointed hour in which the curse of his eyebrow manifested itself. He consequently handed the reins of their carriage to his wife and climbed out onto the ground. He removed his coat and handed it to her, saying that should she be approached by anything from the woods, she need merely strike it with the coat.

He then fled into the woods, and surely by this point needless to say, a werewolf soon emerged from the treeline and attacked the woman and her vehicle. Keeping true to her husband’s instructions, she flung the man’s coat at the slavering beast, which ripped a sleeve off with his teeth and withdrew with haste back into the woods.

After a few confused minutes in which the woman sat stunned, holding reins in one hand and a torn coat in the other, her husband emerged from the woods, bearing the torn sleeve of his own coat in his mouth.

Seeing this, the wife screamed, “Good Lord, man, thou art a werewolf!” Only, you know, in Danish.

The husband, smiling, redonned his now single-sleeved coat. “Thanks to thee, wife,” he said, planting a kiss on her shocked face, “now I am free.”

And from that time he was no more afflicted.

*************

Now, if your knowledge of werewolves comes from movies, you know that the surest cure for werewolfism is silver, most often in the form of a bullet. But what most scary movies nowadays won't tell you is a nearly forgotten fact about werewolves, that a Danish wife once fortunately knew: if you throw a piece of clothing at a werewolf that belonged to him in his human form, he will shed his beast form, never to return to it again, cured of his curse.

And as it happened, this particular Christmas sweater--this hideous, reindeer-bedecked sweater--belonged to this particular werewolf--this hideous, gore-bedecked werewolf. What arose from the darker corners of the cave--to which the werewolf had skittered, to which the sweater had been thrown--was no lupine howl, but rather an all-too-human cry of recognition and relief.

“My sweater!” the now-former werewolf cried. “And just in time! I'm suddenly much colder than I was a minute ago!” At the man’s feet lay the sloughed-off, no longer needed wolfskin cape that marked his affliction, unfortunately leaving his uncursed human skin largely exposed to the Christmas Eve elements. Sheepishly, he tied the reindeer sweater around his waist.

The child turned upon hearing this unexpected voice behind her and saw a face she didn't expect. One she didn’t think she would see for another, oh, twelve days.

“Daddy!” shouted the child. For, you see, another forgotten aspect of werewolf lore is that a werewolf is cursed, as one Dr. Yogami once said, to instinctively seek to kill the thing it loves best. And who this man loved best was his daughter.

*************

That one is, admittedly, from a movie.

*************

“Santa, you were right!” the child cried with delight. “This is just what I wanted for Christmas! I wanted my daddy to come back! How did you know?”

“Oh, ho ho!” Santa said, with a twinkle in his eye. “I have my ways. And everyone gets a gift on Christmas.”

“A gift? One gift?” the man spouted out incredulously, rubbing the small patch of hair just above his nose. “You've given me two priceless gifts tonight. You saved my child's life and cured me of my terrible curse. What have I done to deserve two such wonderful gifts?”

“'Tis the season,” Santa said, shrugging, “and giving gifts is what I do. Speaking of which…” He reached back into his bag and pulled out a set of warm clothes for the both of them. “You two get home safe now. Merry Christmas!”

As he walked out of the cave and back into the now-snowing night, Santa laid his finger against the side of his nose and winked back at the curse-free man.

“And happy birthday.”

*************

In Norway they tell the story of a man named Lasse, who lived in the woods with his wife Hedda in a small cottage. Early one morning he rose to go cut down a tree for firewood, but either in haste or perhaps the mental fog that comes from getting out of bed before the sun rises, he forgot to say his prayers and make the sign of the cross before leaving his home. These days, in big cities where street lights are more common than trees, that isn’t such a big deal. But long ago, in that time, in that forest, leaving home with one’s soul unprotected was a dangerous proposition. For in that forest lived a varga mor--a witch with the ability to turn men into wolves and make them do her bidding. We can’t know for sure what happened to Lasse that day, but we do know he did not return home to his wife that evening.

Not that evening, not that week, and indeed, not for many years. Hedda mourned the loss of her beloved husband for many years, struggling to make it on her own in that dark and dangerous forest, something which, as we have seen, is dangerous enough for one not on their own. Everything changed, however, one special night, and I suspect by now it will not surprise you to learn that the night in question was Christmas Eve. On that morning, Hedda heard a faint but persistent knock at her door. She did her best to suppress hopes that this might be her beloved husband, but on this night of nights, it was hard not to imagine that perhaps the Julenisser had thought kindly of her.

But rather than her husband or a generous gnome, she found instead at her doorstep an old beggar woman, haggard and bent, dressed in tattered furs and with ragged bags the only cover protecting her feet from the snow. Hedda did not hesitate to welcome the woman in. Though she had been alone for many years, she always set out a second plate, hoping, so it was the smallest of matters to present her visitor with the largest meal she had likely had in some time. Further, though Hedda hardly had enough herself, she gave generously of her own things to help dress the woman more warmly and provide her with a pair of proper shoes.

“The long Christmas Eve is dark and full of horrors,” the beggar woman said as she stood on the threshold, preparing to return to the snowy night against Hedda’s protests and entreaties. “But your heart and hearth are warm.” She smiled faintly to herself. “Your husband is not dead, he merely wanders. You will likely see him again, and if you know him, you will have him.”

Hedda struggled to get more information out of the woman whose unexpected proclamation had left her stunned, but by the time she managed to wipe away the warm tears that had so quickly welled in her eyes, the old woman was nowhere to be seen. Her mind swam with the possibilities of what the woman’s words could mean so overwhelmingly that she hardly noticed the passing of time until the night was falling and she remembered she must put the piece of meat she had prepared for her Christmas dinner in the pantry before the darkness came and she found herself vulnerable to the same forces that had taken her dear Lasse.

The cut of meat was her husband’s favorite, saved each year for Christmas day, a special treat not afforded the rest of the year. Her mind and gaze were thus affixed to the meat as she left the warmth of her cottage to walk toward her pantry, and so she did not at first notice what awaited her on the pantry steps.

It was a wolf, huge of frame but gaunt, with its ribs visible through its bristling gray fur. The wolf had placed its enormous paws on the pantry steps and was raising himself up toward Hedda, exhorting her with the sorrowful looks of a starving dog. It was a look, she realized, she had seen before.

“I would give you a bit of meat, wolf, but this cut is for my husband’s Christmas dinner,” she said, with a knowing look in her eye. “If only you were my Lasse, if you could prove to me that you were he, I would give you your fill.”

At that very instant, the fur coat of the forest beast slid off, like skin from a boiled tomato. There before the faithful wife stood Lasse, exhausted and starving, but wearing the same clothes he had put on that fateful morning so many years ago. And soon from across the forest, the bells of the hamlet rang out for Christmas Day, welcomed in by the woodsman and the woman who didn’t give up on him.

Sometimes love is enough.

THE END

Merry Christmas 2019!