Welcome! Here's a short little drabble I produced over the holidays - I wanted to get the first half out while I worked on the second half. Updates every day until done - should be 13 or 14 chapters (intro, epilogue, and '12 days of Christmas' with each day as a chapter. It'll make more sense as it goes on.)
Enjoy, and please leave a review! All criticism appreciated as long as it's constructive.
Merry Christmas!
Lance grumbled, and with a puff of air blew his ever-growing locks out of his eyes. He really needed a haircut.
He sighed once more as he looked out the window of the minivan's backseat, his warm breath causing condensation to form on the window chilled by the outside air. After a moment, the teenager lifted a finger and drew a frowny face on the window before the picture disappeared once more.
"Lance!" A sharp rebuke came from the passenger seat in front of him, and the boy lazily swung his eyes forward to meet the frown reflected back at him in the rearview mirror.
"Yes, Ilana?"
"Stop being such a frowny-face! This is supposed to be the happiest time of the year!"
Lance raised a single eyebrow, and rested his chin in his hand as he replied, "It's not happy until school's out."
"I've been detecting an abundance of similar sentiments amongst our peers. It seems they are all eager for the break of winter."
"You two! You know that's not what I meant!"
Lance shrugged. "I don't see what's so happy about having to add another layer every morning so I don't freeze on the way to classes, or having to buy galoshes to trudge through cold baby powder."
"It's snow, Lance! Snow! We had it back on Galaluna!"
"Eh. Whatever."
"Ugh!" Ilana threw her head back against the headrest and moaned in frustration at her comrades' stubbornness. "You two are hopeless. Where's your holiday spirit? Lighten up!"
"Newton" gave Ilana as much of a sideways glance as he could while still watching the road. "Holiday spirit?"
"Yeah! I learned today about this great thing that they celebrate here on Earth! Well, most people celebrate it, some people celebrate other holidays at this time of year –"
A long, drawn-out moan from the backseat interrupted what was sure to become a veritable lecture on Earth culture from the teenage girl. Ilana fully turned around from shotgun to glare at her 'brother', who had just finished rolling his eyes dramatically.
"Of all the times to be an angsty grump, you just had to do it when I was in the middle of talking?"
Lance's eyes turned forward, uninterested. "Angsty?"
"Angst", Newton replied. "a feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general. Example: "adolescent angst"."
"I am not angsty."
"I personally prefer the urban dictionary definition", Newton replied with something suspiciously close to a smirk. "Angst, often confused with anxiety, is a transcendent emotion in that it combines the unbearable anguish of life with the hopes of overcoming this seemingly impossible situation. Without the important element of hope, then the emotion is anxiety, not angst. Angst denotes the constant struggle one has with the burdens of life that weighs on the dispossessed and not knowing when the salvation will appear."
Both Ilana and Lance moved to look at their robot friend in confusion. After a moment of silence, Newton's eyes shifted to look at them for a second, and he readjusted his hands on the steering wheel to a more perfect ten-and-two position. "I could also read the definition of 'teen angst', but that includes profanity and-"
"No", the two teenagers chorused. Newton shrugged nonchalantly and Lance returned to his melancholic gazing out of the window.
After a couple of minutes of silence, Ilana tried again. "So, the holidays here on Earth mostly refer to the month of December, at the end of which the humans here celebrate something called 'Christmas', where-"
"Christmas: The celebration of the birth of commercialism... Oh yeah, and Jesus. Example: I'm gonna set up traps to kill Santa –"
"Octus, for once", Lance groaned, "I think I'd prefer Ilana's explanation."
"Yes", Ilana smirked. "Thank yo- hey!"
The lock to the front door of the Lunis household clicked open with a key, and the three interstellar refugees entered the frigid household as Newton remotely flipped on the lights, heater, and fireplace on his way to the kitchen to brew some hot chocolate.
Lance and Ilana both trudged toward the growing fireplace, shrugging off their backpacks as Ilana grabbed two blankets and Lance pulled up an armchair and a beanbag. As had they had become accustomed to as the months grew increasingly chilly, Lance sat down in the armchair and Ilana plopped onto her beanbag, both grabbing their respective blankets and backpacks before pulling out their homework for the night.
"Okay, so let me get this straight", Lance groaned as he hefted his history book onto his lap. "The people here blow tons of money to bribe their family and friends into putting up with them for another year by buying each other presents, putting them under a dead, decoratd piece of nature, and exchanging them on the 25th of December every year. Meanwhile, small children bake sweets and leave out another animal's lactate for a mysterious, bearded, immortal fat man who annually breaks into people's houses by somehow sliding down the chimney to leave even more bribes anonymously, and he does this for every house in the world with his magical flying reindeer and the help of his small, pointy-eared, midget slaves called 'elves'. And somewhere in here, a super-special baby named 'Jesus' was born, like, 2,000 years ago on the same night under a really big star in a barn. Do I have that right?"
"Pretty much", replied Newton from the kitchen, and Ilana groaned and fell back into her beanbag, covering her face with her hands.
"No, that's not – you know what, actually? Sure, Lance. Sure."
The boy shrugged. "Okay. I guess that's no weirder than when thousands of poultry died and people wore funny hats and got together with the family they hated a couple of weeks ago on 'Thanksgiving'." Lance ruffled through his bag. " You said there were other holidays?"
"I am not going to explain some of the most sacred human rituals and traditions just to have you butcher them with your cynicism, angst, and lack of holiday spirit."
"I am not angsty!" Lance huffed as he opened his book and slapped a blank sheet of lined paper and a pen onto the table next to his armchair.
"I beg to differ. I actually agree with Ilana on this one," Newton said as he came into the living room with two steaming hot chocolates and gave them to their respective owners. "I combed through 'angsty' movies the humans here have made while I was making these beverages, and you are certainly the tall, dark, handsome, and cynical teenage boy that is often afflicted with angst and occasionally classified as 'emo'-"
"Nnngh", Lance groaned into his hands as Ilana stifled a giggle over her hot chocolate.
After a moment of shuffling to balance his hot chocolate, history book, and paper atop his blanketed lap, Lance sighed. "So, why did you tell us about this… 'Christmas' stuff in the first place?"
Ilana grinned brightly, and Lance raised an eyebrow in suspicion.
"Because, Lance!" she exclaimed. "We're going to celebrate Christmas this year!"
