"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas."

Jane had been humming some strange Midgardian tune all day, and it was driving Thor up the wall. (Tony had taught him that expression last week, and he found he enjoyed it immensely. Mortals were so odd.)

Jane had attempted, several times, to explain the Midgardian tradition of Christmas to him, and Thor found that he could not quite understand it.

"Everywhere you go, take a look in the five and ten,"

"A boy child was born in a barn, bound, and bedded in a feed trough?" He asked, bewildered. On Asgard, children were bound after birth, but they were most assuredly not placed in feed troughs.

"Yes," Jane sighed, stirring her batch of cookies.

"And then wise kings and herders of sheep came to see this infant?"

"Exactly," Darcy chimed in.

"If these kings were so wise, why did they see fit to visit a boy child not yet old enough to wear clothes?"

"Never made much sense to me, either," Darcy assured him, passing him a Hershey's kiss. Thor unwrapped the chocolate slowly.

"But . . ."

"Just roll with it, dude," Darcy advised, and Thor, taking one look at Jane, decided to heed the lady's words of wisdom.

"Glistening once again, candy canes and silver lanes aglow"

Later

"So a large, enigmatic elder attired in red enters one's residence via the chimney?"

"Yes, Thor," Jane sighed, shivering slightly against the wind. She was taking Thor on an excursion she termed 'window shopping.'

"Is it wise to allow one so unknown to enter one's dwelling?"

"It's Santa Clause, Thor."

"And then you say that this Saint of Clauses leaves presents?"

"Yep." Jane popped the p, like Darcy did sometimes, and Thor knew she was annoyed.

"Midgardian customs are so odd," he pronounced. "But I should like to understand them more."

"Look, Thor, no one understands our customs fully. Not even us."

"Then . . ."

"It's in your heart, Thor. In our hearts we want to believe in what we did as children, that there is a kind old man who wants to give us presents, that for one day or one season humanity can put aside their differences and petty squabbles and be good."

Thor stopped, pulling Jane at his side. She tilted her face up, curious.

"There is good in humanity," he insisted. "I saw it- I see it, in you, in Tony and Clint and Bruce and Natasha and so many others. That is why I fight with my brothers in arms the Avengers, that is why I come back. It should not take a season to realize such a thing."

"But the prettiest sight you'll see is the holly that will be on your own front door."


Author's note: I've always wanted to write one of these :)