Title: "Happy Birthday, Jesus"
Author: Pirate Turner
Dedicated To: This is the 11th Christmas story of my 12 Days of Christmas 2012 series for my beloved and wonderful husband, Jack aka Drew, who's always such an inspiration, and also our sweet children! Thank you, my darling soul mate! I love you!
Rating: PG
Summary: It was an argument almost as old as time.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, names, codenames, places, items, fandoms, titles, and etc. are always © & TM their respective owners, not the author, and are used without permission. Any and all original characters and everything else is © & TM the author and may not be reproduced in any way without the author's express, written permission. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Note: 244. That's the number of stories that were sitting on my hard drive collecting dust because I lack the energy and time to take care of them as I once did. My betaing pattern has always been to write, then type up if written on paper, the story, read it aloud to my beloved Jack and our children, editing as I go, and then finally format and post. Sadly, this part is simply taking too much of my time and energy, and my beloved Jack and I have too little time together in person these days to be able to keep up with my stories. So what to do? Give up writing? I actually considered it for a while, tried to make excuses to myself other than the large number of stories collecting cyber dust on my computer, as to why I lacked the energy and Muse to write new tales. And then, with the turn of the new year, I decided to stop running and face the problem. The problem is, quite frankly, that once one gets so bogged down in formatting and editing that writing is no longer a pleasure but the actual posting of those writings becomes a hassle and - egad! - work, it's time to cut something out, and that will never be the writing process. So, in short, yes, there will be mistakes in this tale. Yes, it's missing about half of the header information I usually include. But I wrote it for pleasure and am posting it in hopes of sharing that pleasure with others. Do with it as you will.

Sabrina Spellman never knew to what she would open her bedroom door. There was never any way to know what lurked inside her bedroom until she did brave grabbing her own knob and twisting it open, but at least experience had taught her never to expect anything partially calm and especially not normal inside what should have been her own private sanctuary. But, she supposed, that was what happened when you shared your room with a cat who'd once tried to take over the world - and whom held regular conferences with Supernatural beings in her bedroom, threw catnip parties, was trailed by actual canine detectives, not merely police dogs but detectives who really were dogs, and who basically treated her room as though it was the kingdom he'd never succeeded in conquering.

She longed for her own room, but in the mean time, she knew better than to expect anything normal. Why, after all, she'd once come home to find Salem throwing a Saint Patrick's Day party and her room flooded with Leprechauns! And then there was the time the Troll had gotten into her room . . . She shuddered at the mere memory and opened the door, bracing herself for the worst and whatever her tired mind least expected.

Yet, of all the monsters that might have been in there, of all the organizations that could have met in her bedroom, of all the other worlds she could have been zapped to by merely opening her own bedroom door, as usual, she got what she absolutely did not expect. The air was deceptively calm, and no one was there but herself and Salem - Salem, who sat on her bed with a Christmas cap on his head and a drum before him, singing, "Pa rum pum pum pum."

She stopped just inside her bedroom and gawked at him. He was singing Christmas carols?! The Wizard who'd tried to conquer the entire world was singing about bringing gifts to a baby Jesus?! Before her startled eyes, Salem's tail struck the drum, beating out a rhythm, and he continued to sing as though she wasn't even there. Finally, she managed to squeak out, "What the heck are you doing on my bed?!"

He glanced at her with that superior look he had that made it seem as though he still had all the power in the world and she was nothing more than a black spot soon to be made oily beneath his mighty paws. His tail swished one time through the air, and then he hit his drum again and resumed his singing. "Pa rum pum pum pum!"

Sabrina continued to stare. "You're singing a Christmas carol?" she demanded, and at last, he stopped. This time the look he gave her clearly bespoke her stupidity, or what he presumed to be her stupidity, but Sabrina knew she wasn't stupid. He was the stupid one - having been a Wizard, and now celebrating Jesus Christ like he really was some kind of Messiah! Perhaps for the humans, but Sabrina had given up that faith, and belief, a long time ago. She'd stopped going to church when she'd became a Witch, and since then she'd seen, and fought, Gods - not just one God, but Gods plural. There wasn't just one.

Salem gave a heavy sigh and finally stopped singing. His tail relaxed onto the bed. "What does it look like I was doing before you so rudely interrupted me?"

"Singing a Christmas carol!"

Salem inclined his head in a nod. "And to whom do you think I might have been singing?"

She gaped at him, her mouth open but soundless. "I don't know!" she finally squeaked.

"To God, of course."

She continued to gawk at him. "You were signing gospel?"

"If you want to call it that, yes, and it's very rude to stare."

"It's very rude to sing gospel in a Witch's bedroom! Besides, why in the heck are you worshipping Jesus?! We're Witches! You tried to conquer the world!"

"As if I could ever forget," Salem spoke sadly, his long, black tail curling around his furry buttocks.

"Oh, please! You don't regret that!"

"No," he admitted truthfully. "I only regret failing. The world would have been so much a better place for our kind. It would have - "

"Yeah, right," Sabrina snapped, cutting him off. "We would have all had to bow down and worship your butt, Salem, so what's with the sudden singing to baby Jesus? I know you don't buy into that Christian crap!"

"It's not crap. If you'd ever bother to read your Bible - "

"What Bible? I don't own one of those things, and I'm not about to! I know the truth! There isn't just one God! There's many!"

"Yes, and the Bible admits that, but there's only one we're supposed to worship, Sabrina, and He's the only one who cares about us." His solemn, green eyes gazed steadfastly into her own eyes, so big and round with disbelief, annoyance, and a yearning even she didn't recognize but he did. "And that God is the One who cares so much that He gave His only begotten Son so that we could - "

"So that we could be saved, be kept from going to Hell, yadda, yadda, yadda." The young, blonde Witch rolled her eyes. "You forget about the place in the Book where it says, 'Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live'?"

"It's lost many truths in the many translations over the centuries. The original text was not just about any Witch, Sabrina, but truly evil beings. There's magic in the Bible. Some think Jesus Himself to be the greatest Wizard who ever lived. He's more than that, by far. He's the son of God, but He did practice magic. Think about it," Salem urged, his tail slowly beginning to swish again. "He made the dumb speak, the blind see, and the lame walk. He made enough food from five loaves of bread and two fish to feed thousands of people. He transformed water into wine. He raised the dead!"

"He died on the cross so we could be saved," Sabrina spoke mockingly, once more rolling her blue eyes. "Geez, Salem, I don't believe you buy into that bullshit!"

"It's not bullshit!"

"Says the cat who was the Wizard who tried to conquer the world."

"You're never going to let me live that down, are you?"

"No," she said, grabbing her jacket, "and you're not living this stupidity down either! I don't believe how stupid you are, buying into that Christian crap!"

"It's not crap, Sabrina. If you would just listen - "

"To what? The lies that brainwashed you? No, thank you!" She slammed her door, and he could hear loudly singing a Witch's Solstice carol as she stomped away.

Salem sighed, hung his head, and then shook his head. It seemed like the girl would never believe, but then, there'd been a time when he'd thought he would never buy into the Christian bullshit, as she had called it and he, too, had once considered it to be. It wasn't crap, though. He'd learned that for Jesus had turned his life around when he'd finally stopped running from Him. He had saved him. He'd given him a family and a new chance at life. He was the reason why the Witch's Council had not simply destroyed Salem when they'd finally caught up to him, but Salem couldn't tell Sabrina that fact. It wouldn't have done him any good if he had for she would not have believed him.

Jesus, to her, at this stage in her life, was a myth, but one day she'd need Him. One day, she'd find herself praying and thinking no one cared, find herself on her knees, hurting so badly that she thought she would die, and on that day, she'd find that Jesus had been waiting for her all this time - just like he had been for Salem when Salem had finally stopped running from Him in that jail cell so long ago and accepted Him into his heart, soul, and life.

Salem sighed and tapped the drum with his tail. He was suddenly tired but still felt content and warm inside his fuzzy, little body. He knew that warmth was because he was loved. He curled up beside the drum, tapped it again with his tail, and murmured once more, "Pa rum pum pum pum." Then his green eyes rose to the ceiling and looked pass it to where he believed the Son of God who was the greatest Wizard who would ever live was still looking down upon him. He smiled and flexed his tail. "Happy birthday, Jesus," he spoke and shut his eyes.

He was growing older with each day but was still loved. His age, however, had taught Salem the best way to celebrate birthdays and other favorite days: spend your day the way you want to, take a nap if you so choose (which he often did), and always, always celebrate the love that made you whole. "Happy birthday, and merry Christmas," he murmured and then hummed himself to sleep, his little tail still whacking the drum from time to time until he slipped into that peaceful and wonderful world of Dreamland.

The End