This Christmas story went viral because it will give you feelings

Searching for the true spirit of Christmas we stumbled across this and we think we might have found it (or something very close to it).

It’s a rather lovely thread shared by Hayley Webster on Twitter which went viral and you’ll see why.

1.

https://twitter.com/bookshaped/status/937248640162304000

2.

My sister was nearly five. We lived with my dad. My mum lived the other side of town with her boyfriend. Her and my dad were Not In A Good Place. She still had a key to the house and would sometimes use it, unexpectedly.

— Hayley Webster (@bookshaped) December 3, 2017

3.

My dad had a girlfriend I really liked. She was a teacher. She drove a green 2CV. She took us orienteering. She had let us make make menus for Christmas dinner in Black and blue and silver.

— Hayley Webster (@bookshaped) December 3, 2017

4.

My dad had a girlfriend I really liked. She was a teacher. She drove a green 2CV. She took us orienteering. She had let us make make menus for Christmas dinner in Black and blue and silver.

— Hayley Webster (@bookshaped) December 3, 2017

5.

She didn’t live with us, though. It was the year the Snowman was really big. I loved that film, and the music and had to be a ‘snowman at the dance’ in the school play.

— Hayley Webster (@bookshaped) December 3, 2017

6.

Anyway, we didn’t see my mum for chunks of time. It wasn’t a great time. This girlfriend turned up and made things nice, little gestures, little noticings.

— Hayley Webster (@bookshaped) December 3, 2017

7.

I made my sister a card every day from Santa’s elves and hid little gifts about the house, little glitter footprints, bought beautiful soaps from the gift shop in town in the shape of sea shells, and bells and apples using my savings, and wrapped them for her.

— Hayley Webster (@bookshaped) December 3, 2017

8.

I put tinsel around the spoon for her yoghurt in her lunchbox. I made and cut her sandwiches into snowflakes or stars. When I put her to bed at night I made up stories about two girls called Hayley and Jodie who went to live with the elves.

— Hayley Webster (@bookshaped) December 3, 2017

9.

(One night my mum turned up and she and my dad were drinking. I could hear them downstairs shouting and crying. One of them was sick on my school bag. My mum had hit a bollard and they went out to clear it up.)

— Hayley Webster (@bookshaped) December 3, 2017

10.

I was always told not to tell his girlfriend if Mum had come over, but I found that hard. She was so nice, honestly. The sort of person who actually remembered to do the things she said she would, and she was so clean and nice.

— Hayley Webster (@bookshaped) December 3, 2017