I know I'm a month early, but I got this idea in my head, and I don't want to lose it!
Only other thing I can think of to say this time is, things may seem a bit inconsistent here compared to things I've established in "Precious" and "Forever". But hey, back then, I didn't know small details like Mike getting arrested. The problem with writing for an ongoing show is that my headcanons are constantly changing... sorry to everyone who has to keep up! At least it's still internally consistent.
Other than that bit of possible confusion, enjoy the holiday fluff!
The twelve-year-old boy lifted his mug to his lips, with his arms tucked inside his oversized sweater to protect his hands from the cup's heat. He inwardly smiled as the hot cocoa flowed over his tongue, filling his mouth with a sweet, comforting taste. After making a brief sucking motion to get a few extra marshmallows into his mouth, he lowered the cup back down to the table and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Even though the sun had begun to set and bring Christmas Day to a close, the atmosphere still hung in the air. Tinsel lined every wall of the room, and the stereo underneath the TV constantly rotated through the several holiday CD's that had been placed inside it. The Christmas tree still stood proudly in the corner, beaming with the lights and brightly colored baubles that covered every one of its branches. Right in the center of the tree from the angle the boy could see sat an ornament that read "Mike's First Christmas".
The teddy bear figurine holding that proclamation may have been a bit juvenile, but the ornament still rang true for him when he'd seen it in the store. A lot of people had questioned his enthusiasm the day they went shopping for their tree and decorations. Strangers' questions about whether he was 'slow' still rang in his ears; a boy his age shouldn't have been so excited about picking out just the right color of tinsel, or gazing in wonder from being surrounded by so many large pine trees and stunned over the possibility of taking one home and decorating it. Too many questions and comments would often push him back into his shell, and he even blacked out a couple of times. (The part where he woke up perched on top of one of the pine trees and his parents had to quickly explain the situation to the salesperson and surrounding customers was probably Svetlana's doing.) But even when he became anxious and self-conscious about his excitement, all his parents had to do was point out a sort of decoration he'd never seen before, and he'd go right back to being his joyous self. By the end of the day, not even the funny looks others gave him as he clutched the box that ornament came in could break his mood again.
It wasn't as if he'd never heard of Christmas before that year; school activities and conversations, plus things he'd seen on television, had given him enough of an idea of what Christmas was supposed to be. It was a time for families to come together and at least pretend to get along for a few days, while a jolly fat man named Santa (or parents, as he later found out) would bring presents to the children. It was supposed to be a happy time of year, where for a short while, a person could forget about stress and simply be happy for what they did have.
He'd had some semblance of a Christmas before, too. His birth family may not have gone all out for the holiday – his old house was never decorated, and he'd never had a tree before – but the day would still be acknowledged. His mother would greet him in the morning with some things she managed to pick up at the thrift store; a stack of books, a plush toy, maybe the playset that had been popular two Christmases ago, although this used set would be missing a few pieces. It wasn't much, but Mike always appreciated how his birth mother did her best to provide for him.
Especially since clutching a soft plush and getting lost in a book helped distract him when her husband got too 'merry' on eggnog and rum. Perhaps that was the point of her presents from the start. Even with how the day started, the way the evening would inevitably go on Christmas had led Mike to dread the holiday. New toys just weren't worth it.
But this Christmas felt different. The whole house felt warm; not just from the furnace and his new sweater, although those things were nice too, but from the atmosphere that the day's guests provided. His cousin, a blonde boy his age named Billy, sat against the wall with a portable game system in his hand and a stack of games, all but one of which were still wrapped in plastic, at his side. He bit his tongue between his teeth and twisted his face in concentration as he jabbed wildly at the screen with his stylus. He'd been playing the game all day. Mike had earlier played a few rounds with him with the system he got that morning, but he couldn't keep at it nearly as long as Bill could. He halfway considered asking to try one of the games from his pile, but decided that Bill should be the first one to try his present. Maybe Mike could buy himself a copy with the money he found in his stocking that morning.
In another part of the room sat Billy's seventeen-year-old sister, an equally blonde girl named Julie, and the friend she'd brought with her, a brunette named Amanda. The two were paging through a magazine Julie had gotten that morning, pointing and laughing at something Mike couldn't see from where he sat. He hadn't talked to Julie much, since she spent most of the day with her friend, but from what he could tell, he liked her. She'd been kind to him in their brief interactions, without picking on him or making him feel lesser simply because he was new to the family. Amanda had been a bit more overbearing, spending some of the morning fawning over him and telling Julie how adorable her new cousin was – "He's twelve? But he's so tiny!" stuck out in Mike's mind – but he didn't even mind that much. It was simply more proof that the fears he'd had back in August weren't coming to pass. This family accepted him completely, without the slightest hint of him being an outsider.
Even the adults contributed to the day's warmth. Mike had grown concerned when the legal members of the family had begun drinking, considering what that normally meant for his Christmases, but their behavior hadn't been affected. His parents, his cousins' parents, and his grandmother all sat in the kitchen at the moment. Last time Mike had looked in there, they were playing cards and talking about all the things that had happened to the family over the past year. He couldn't make out the words from where he sat now, but he could still hear their tones well enough to tell that the conversation remained light-hearted. No arguments. No tears. No smashing of dishes. Just a group of adults enjoying each other's company, even after spending all day with each other.
Mike may have known intellectually that people were capable of acting like this, but it was still somewhat strange to hear it playing out this way.
As Mike took another long sip from his cocoa mug, the couch sank underneath him with the weight of someone else sitting by his side. He lowered the cup to see Amanda smiling at him and offering him a chocolate cookie she'd gotten from the kitchen.
"Cookie?" she asked, grinning widely. Mike returned the smile as he accepted her offer and sank his teeth into the treat. A few crumbs fell from his mouth and on to the couch as he bit; food wasn't normally allowed in the living room, but for the occasion, his parents allowed it. The cookie wasn't deliciously warm like it was the previous night, but Mike still enjoyed the taste all the same. As he ate the cookie, Amanda grabbed the book Mike had been reading earlier from the table and began paging through it.
"I didn't know they were still writing Morphimals books," Amanda commented. "I used to read these when I was a kid."
"They're really good!" Mike answered. "I've been reading them for a while, though I was missing a lot. I only had what I could find used. But Aunt Becky got me all the ones I didn't have!"
"Julie!" Amanda called across the room. "Your cousin's being cute again!" Mike laughed as Amanda ruffled his thick, messy hair.
"Come on, Mands, stop fussing over him," Julie replied. "I think you're making him uncomfortable."
"But he's so excited about books, Jul!" Amanda said. "When do you ever see a twelve-year-old boy get excited about books? Your brother doesn't!"
"Hey, I got books for Christmas!" Billy protested, surprisingly looking up from his game long enough to participate in the conversation.
"Game guides don't count, Bill," Julie said simply.
"Well, neither do fashion magazines," Billy countered, complete with a stuck out tongue. "So there."
"I'm not uncomfortable," Mike pointed out. "I like talking to people."
"See? He likes me!" Amanda said.
"I'm really sorry about her, Mike," Julie said. "She just really likes kids. You're sure you're all right?"
"Of course I am!"
At the assurance that her little cousin wasn't feeling smothered, Julie smiled, though her grin was a lot more subtle than her friend's. Her eyes darted over to the Christmas tree. "Hey, you know that board game I got you? Did you ever play that before?"
Mike shook his head. "I never had anyone to play games like that with before."
Amanda gasped in shock. "Never played board games? That's terrible! Come on. We should fix that!"
Even Billy closed his game system and placed it back on his gift pile at that announcement. "Yeah, a game sounds great! Julie and I play this one with Mands all the time. It's a lot of fun!"
"I'll go get snacks!" Amanda squealed, and before anyone could approve or deny that action, off she darted to the kitchen to gather more sweets. Julie gave a good-natured roll of her eyes at her energetic friend, then went to retrieve the game from Mike's pile of gifts. He didn't want to sound greedy or ungrateful for what his birth mother did before, but he couldn't help but feel excited by the fact that there were probably more presents in that pile than all of his other Christmases combined. Action figures, movies, CD's, video games, chocolates, sweaters from grandma, a medal with his face on it that another cousin had gotten made for him at a craft store... all sorts of presents formed a mountain that dwarfed the expectations he'd had the night before about just how much he'd get that morning.
Included in the pile was a stack of books and a plush cat. Some traditions never died.
Upon thinking about it later, Mike would realize that his excitement over this haul had nothing to do with greed or materialism. Instead, it proved once more just how accepted he was into this family. No one here judged him for not being connected by blood, or held the fact that he'd been in a cell "for his own protection" six months ago against him. Everyone in this family, even some people he hadn't met yet, was fully determined to welcome him in as one of their own.
"Here, while we wait for Amanda, I'll show you how to play," Julie said as she peeled the plastic off of the game box. "First, everyone gets five cards..."
The four kids spent the next hour playing the game, eating the cookies and chips that Amanda had provided, and laughing like any normal family should have done that night.
Like every normal family. It wasn't a word Mike thought in relation to himself very much, but tonight, things were normal.
"Julie, you always win! I think you cheat!" Amanda whined at the end of the game, although the laughter in her voice hinted that she wasn't entirely serious.
"At least you got second," Billy said. "I lost to the kid who never even played this before!"
"I'm sorry!" Mike said. "I don't even know what I did, I think I just got lucky-"
"Aw, c'mon, Bill, don't make him feel bad," Julie said.
"Yeah, Mikey, you don't gotta apologize!" Amanda chirped as she pulled him into a one-armed hug. "We all had fun, right? Even though Julie's a big cheater pants."
"Hey!" Julie protested, before turning her attention to a matter possibly more important than whether or not she played fairly. "You did have fun, right, Mike?" she asked.
"Yep!" Mike said. "You guys did too?" He smiled as the other three nodded; people actually wanted to spend time with him. "Can we play again?"
"Sure!" Julie said as she gathered the cards scattered across the table and reshuffled them.
"Yeah, give me a sec," Billy said as he rose to his feet and walked toward the stairs. "I gotta pee."
"You don't need to tell us," Amanda said. "Boys are so gross... oh, but not you, Mikey." She stood up herself and grabbed the chip bowl, which now only contained crumbs. "I think we ate all the chips. Maybe there are pretzels, though?" she wondered aloud to herself as she walked off to the kitchen. Julie watched her go, and once she turned the corner, switched her attention to Mike.
"Hey, I'm really sorry about her," Julie said.
"Why?" Mike asked. "She really nice to me! She tells good jokes, too. And it was funny when she started flicking game pieces at Billy."
Julie laughed. "And Billy threw the card box at her head... they're always bickering. You'd think he was her brother, not mine." She stopped to let the laughter fade from her voice so she could speak more seriously. "You're sure you're okay, though? You'd tell us if you weren't?"
"Of course I would," Mike said. "But why wouldn't I be okay? This is one of the best nights I ever had!"
"It's just... mom and dad told me that you- you came from- well..." She frowned as she tried to find a sensitive wording for what she knew about her little cousin. "They told me you get stressed out easily, and you don't always handle it well. I just wanna know we're not causing you any trouble."
"You're not!" Mike swore. "Really, I had a lot of fun today. You guys'll come back next Christmas, right?"
Julie smiled again. "Hopefully before that." She reached across the table to ruffle his hair like Amanda did, though not as enthusiastically. "You're a good kid. I'm glad I got to meet you today."
Amanda reappeared in the doorway, but instead of the bowl of snacks she promised, she came bearing an exaggerated frown, with the rest of the family behind her. "Your grandma said it's time to go home," Amanda pouted.
"It's getting late," Mike's grandmother said, "and I'd like to get on the road before the snow starts. It was nice seeing you again, Mike."
Mike leaped to his feet and ran toward his grandmother to hug her goodbye, nearly tripping over his sweater in the process. "It was nice seeing you too, gran."
"Mom, you really did make those sweaters too big," his uncle said.
"I want them to last him a while," his grandmother replied. "I know he's small now, but you guys just watch. He'll be the tallest member of the family by high school."
"Aw, I dunno about that," Mike said. "I'm always one of the shortest kids in class..."
"You're just a late bloomer, dear," she said as she knelt to kiss his forehead.
"Yeah, Mike, you'll grow!" Amanda contributed. "You'll get really tall and you'll have the girls all over you before you know it!"
"MANDS!" Julie scolded as Mike froze, a heat filling his cheeks at the thought of female attention. He quickly shook it off and turned to his aunt and uncle, eager to get away from this line of conversation.
"Thank you for the books, Aunt Becky! And thanks for the movies, Uncle Rob! I can't wait to watch them – I never heard of any of them before!"
"No problem!" his uncle replied. "I'll get you into cheesy monster movies, just you wait!"
"Thanks for everything..." Mike repeated his thanks quietly as he looked toward the floor. "I know I'm not really... but you guys still..."
"Aw, honey, not really what?" his aunt asked as she crouched to his eye level. She took his chin in her hand and turned him up to face her. "You're a Skinner now. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, all right? You're one of us, and we're going to treat you that way. Don't think we won't."
"Yeah, you're my cousin and I'll treat you like it!" Billy chimed in. "I mean, we keep Mands, so why not you?"
Amanda lightly kicked Billy in the shin, but gave no verbal protest.
"All right, everyone, coats," Mike's grandmother announced. She hugged Mike's parents, her son and her daughter-in-law, and said her final goodbyes, and one by one, everyone gathered their things and filed out the door.
"Bye, everyone! Please come back soon!" Mike called out the door and watched as the car pulled out of the driveway and rolled out of sight.
"It's time to clean up and get your bath," Mike's mother told him once he came back in. "Did you have a nice Christmas?"
"I did!" He moved in to hug her – hugging was the best way he knew to show his gratitude – and went to straighten up his toys. "Thanks so much for all the presents!"
For doing all this for me, even though I just got here...
'You're a Skinner now.' That, over everything else, was the best thing he'd received that Christmas.