Sixteen years after Voyager gets home from the Delta Quadrant Kathryn Janeway and her husband Chakotay share the story of their first ever Christmas together with their children.
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or the canon characters (unfortunately) but the story and the children are mine.
AN: I know it's past mid-January now but I thought I should post this story now anyway, I hope you like it :-)
When Federation Councillor Kathryn Janeway looked out the window of her house all she could see were snowflakes. Living in California, she and her family definitely hadn't expected snow on Christmas Eve but Kathryn loved it. She hadn't been overly fond of snow when she was a child but somehow, Christmas wasn't the same without it.
"Has it stopped snowing yet?" Kathryn's younger daughter, Gretchen asked impatiently. "I hate being stuck here."
"We can call Grandma Gretchen," Kathryn offered as she let go of the curtain to look at her daughter. "It'd be almost like being there with her."
"Can we eat through the com?" Kathryn's younger son and Gretchen's twin, Kolopak, asked sullenly. "I'm sorry, mom, but grandma's cooking is infinitely better than yours."
"I know," Kathryn agreed. "I'm sorry, but you know that in good weather it's a fifteen minute walk to the transport station and we can barely see the trees in the garden through this blizzard. We might end up miles away from the house or only go in circles and not get anywhere at all. It's better to stay here, maybe we can visit grandma tomorrow."
"I hope so," Gretchen said enthusiastically. "It's not Christmas without her mint chocolate brownies."
"We can try to replicate some," Kathryn suggested. "Though I know replicated aren't as good, and I'm quite likely to screw it up."
"You're not that bad with a replicator, mom," Kathryn's older daughter, Aliyana, who had just come into the living room, said smiling. Right on her heels came her father and Kathryn's older son, Aliyana's twin, Edward.
"It's not that your mom is bad with replicators, it's that all replicators seem to hate her," Kathryn's husband, Chakotay, said. "Has everyone wrapped their Christmas presents?"
Everyone had and Chakotay coordinated the effort to place all the presents under the tree. Every year the pile just seemed to get bigger. When the kids were younger they had often go two, even three presents each from their three sets of grandparents, Kathryn's mother, Tom Pari's parents and Harry Kim's parents who had all quickly adopted the kids as their surrogate grandparents.
While placing the presents under the beautiful, real pine Christmas tree distracted the kids for a while, it didn't take their minds of the weather in the long run.
"Isn't the weather suppression system supposed to prevent blizzards like that?" Kolopak asked. "And we are in California, where it never snows."
"The system is a technology and technologies fail sometimes," Chakotay said calmly. "I'm sure the weather will be back to normal tomorrow."
"I hope the snow stays for a little while," Kathryn said dreamily. "It's not really Christmas without some snow."
"Mom!" At least it was something all four of Kathryn's kids agreed on.
After some thought, Edward said, "It didn't snow on Voyager."
"Did you celebrate Christmas on Voyager?" Gretchen asked.
Kathryn had almost expected her to say that Edward was being silly and that of course it didn't snow on Voyager. Edward was exceptionally intelligent and was absolutely brilliant with engines, mathematics and programming and had recently taken an interest in theoretical physics but sometimes he had a tendency to state the obvious, which annoyed his younger sister very much. He and Gretchen had recently gotten into a fight about it. Kathryn had discussed it with Gretchen the day before and she had seemed very annoyed and sullen, but had apparently taken Kathryn's words to heart.
"Yes, we did, actually," Kathryn answered. "Every year. There was a big Christmas tree in the mess hall, we had a big party on Christmas Eve and spent weeks worth of replicator rations on presents."
"Really?" Kolopak asked, his eyes wide. "Christmas trees are too big to replicate, so where did you get them?"
"I don't know," Kathryn admitted. The tree had always looked so real and she had wondered for many years how Neelix had found one and gotten it into the mess hall every year, but somehow she didn't really want to know because she was afraid it might take the magic out of it.
"But not everyone on Voyager was from Earth," Aliyana pointed out. "I'm sure not everyone celebrated Christmas, or even knew what it is."
"That's true," Chakotay confirmed. "I had heard of Christmas but I had never celebrated it until your mother tricked me into it."
"How did she trick you?" Edward asked, apparently finding it hard to believe that his mother could be sneaky.
"She told me I would never find out what she got me for Christmas if I didn't attend the party," Chakotay said. "And because she got me a present, I had to get her one too."
"It was the first year of our journey," Kathryn said, "and those of us who were used to celebrating Christmas with our families were feeling a bit down. Trust your Uncle Neelix to take it upon himself to find out exactly why and do something about it so when I came to the mess hall for dinner on Christmas Eve there was a huge Christmas tree in the middle of the hall and Neelix had cooked and replicated all kinds of traditional Christmas dished and desserts, hung up holly, tinsel, fairy lights and mistletoe, he even had a small but personal present for everyone."
"The first year, you said?" Aliyana asked, a smug look on her face. "So there were no romantic meetings under the mistletoe between you and dad?"
"No," Chakotay said, unblushing. "First of all, your mother was my commanding officer and it would have been very unbecoming and unprofessional of us to engage in a romantic relationship. Second of all, we barely knew each other back then."
"Wow, that sounded so rehearsed," Aliyana said, smiling. "But I'm glad you worked it out in the end."
"So am I," Kathryn agreed and reached for her husbands hand, who took it and squeezed it.
"Stop it," Kolopak demanded. "That's gross."
"It's true," Aliyana said. "If mom and dad hadn't gotten together, we wouldn't be here."
"She has a point," Edward backed up his sister but his younger siblings refused to see that.
"I don't care, it's gross," Gretchen said. "Anyway, I believe mom was about to tell us a story."
"I was," Kathryn confirmed. "And you'll be pleased to know that there are no 'smoochies' in it."
"Great," Kolopak said excitedly but Aliyana clearly disagreed with him because she said, "Why not?" at the same time.
"For all the reasons your father just said," Kathryn answered her daughter's question. Aliyana was very romantic and absolutely loved her Uncle Tom's stories about the romance between her parents. Kathryn knew she would have just loved to know of romance between them earlier than there actually had been any. "Can I start now?"
"Please," Chakotay gave his consent but the kids were silent, just looked at her eagerly.
"So, like I said, your Uncle Neelix had organized a big Christmas party," Kathryn said. "I didn't know anything about it until I came down to the mess hall for dinner on Christmas Eve."
"It's unlike Commander Chakotay not to attend parties," Neelix said from behind Captain Janeway who was standing by the gigantic Christmas tree standing in the middle of the mess hall. "I did tell him about it."
"What?" Janeway reluctantly turned away from the enchanting Christmas tree and Neelix repeated his words. "Oh, he doesn't celebrate Christmas," she said. "Where did you get that beautiful Christmas tree?"
"A magician never reveals his secrets," Neelix said cryptically. "Perhaps you should have made attendance mandatory?"
"Why would I do that?" Neelix's suggestion finally tore Janeway's attention away from the Christmas tree. "First of all, I didn't know about it until I cam here, and second of all I can't force people to celebrate Christmas."
"Why not?" Neelix asked simply. "It's never too late to start."
"Well, Christmas is usually something people start celebrating as children," Janeway explained. "You can't expect people to start celebrating the birth of a deity they've never heard of."
"Christmas hasn't been about that baby for three hundred years, Captain," Tom Paris said, emerging from the other side of the Christmas tree. "Christmas is about family."