Disclaimer: I do not own the Chronicles of Narnia. Or Christmas, for that matter.

A/N: To my great sadness, this year's Christmas has been extraordinarily busy, even surpassing last year's business. I shouldn't wonder if it gets worse every year. Somehow, even with all the business, I managed to write this fic. It has no plot, and is mostly a bunch of vignettes about the Pevensies and what they remember about Christmas, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. If I have time next week I'll try to finish the one I'm writing about Cor and Corin (hehe…) but we'll see. ;) Also, I didn't have much time to read this over, so please pardon any typos or mistakes.

Oh yeah….

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

Christmas Is

I.

To Lucy, Christmas used to mean snow and the sting of snowflakes on the skin; the frosted windows and glowing lamp-posts in the street that were hung with holly and ivy. Mint and mince pies and tinsel on the tree. Caroling and candles and the sound of jingling bells.

And then the war came. Of course, the war did not prevent Christmas—it just made it a little harder to feel the magic. It brought sorrow at the missing place at the table on Christmas Eve, at a different, younger voice reading the Christmas story as the others acted it out. At the smiling gaze and deep laughter that wasn't there on Christmas morning to open the lonely pile of presents that remained for him.

They knew he wouldn't be there for Christmas—he'd told them so himself in one of the letters they'd got in the months he'd been gone. But Lucy wrapped his present anyway, hoping against hope that he would be there.

He wasn't, of course. But the joy of Christmas was too great to let sorrow ruin the magic in the air.

For Lucy knew that even though her father was not present in body, he was in spirit. And that was enough to make her smile anyway as she watched the snow fall outside the window, and think of him as the magic of Christmas washed over her.

And then they went to live with the Professor because of the air raids. When she stepped through the wardrobe into the snowy wood and saw the lamp-post gleaming in the middle of the firs, it brought back such lovely memories, and gave her a shiver that, had she known, would've told her that this moment was the beginning of a whole new life.

And yet she was shocked when Mr. Tumnus, the strange creature called 'faun' she'd met in the woods, told her there wasn't Christmas here.

Eventually the others followed, if somewhat reluctantly. They met Father Christmas (a sign that the Witch's power was weakening, the Beavers told them), and the diamond bottle he gave her brought joy as it restored lives that were almost gone in year after year that followed.

And then, fifteen years later, after Christmas Balls and Great Snow Dances and experiencing Christmas in Narnia to the fullest, they returned.

To her surprise, the magic was still there on the Christmas that followed their return. It was as if one month out of the year took on a hint of the magic that had existed in her beautiful country—the magic, she soon realized, that came not because of snow or presents or holly or caroling—but because of a birth that would lead to a sacrifice; a tiny babe who would one day save the world.

And so, every Christmas Eve as she waits for Father Christmas, Lucy lies on her bed, stares out the window at the falling snow, and thinks, Unto us a Child is born. God with us. He brings peace on earth, and goodwill to men.

She can only find one word to describe the magic that Christmas brings, so that is what she calls it—the feeling she gets when a particularly lovely strain of music or scent wafts past her and gives her a tingly feeling and goosebumps on her arms and the good kind of shiver. She calls it Joy, for the lack of a better word.

And to Lucy, Christmas means Joy.

--

II.

Christmas was always a time of memory and sentimentality to Peter. He could only just remember those golden days before the war, in which there was much tearing of presents and cooking of gingerbread. When all was right with the world, and there was peace on earth.

But somehow, Christmas without Dad just wasn't the same. Because now he was the man of the house, responsible for watching out for the younger ones and seeing that they smiled. Mum, too, needed taking care of. They always went caroling on Christmas. But that year, the first, Mum caught a cold and they went alone, Peter in the lead with red, frozen nose and fists clenched in knitted mittens.

They went to three houses, but then Lucy started crying because she was cold and tired, and Edmund started grumbling about having to wear gloves, and Susan's voice trembled with tears whenever they sang Silent Night (it had been Dad's favorite), so after the fourth house, Peter turned and led them back home, carrying Lucy piggy-back. He made them hot tea with Susan's help (their chocolate ration had to be saved) and they sat around the living room staring at the spindly tree, looking so glum that he wanted to cry or shout or knock something down.

But he didn't. He added a log to the fire, put the Christmas record on the phonograph, and started to sing as loudly as he could. Susan tried to sing, but couldn't until he grabbed her hand and pulled her into a dance that led across the living room and around the tree. She was giggling by the time they returned to Lucy and Edmund, and the two eldest caught the two youngest by the hands and led them trailing through the living room, singing 'Deck the Halls' with gusto.

Mum came down in her bathrobe, looking surprised and sad, but when she saw the bright scene before her, she began to laugh. They led her into the circle of warmth and drank of hot tea and oblivion as they forgot the troubles of the world for a little while and smiled.

The next day Peter found some garland for sixpence and picked some sprigs of holly with Lucy. Somehow it managed to give some sort of appearance of Christmas, and it made Mum smile. That was worth it all. Because when tears appeared in his mother's eyes as she stared into the fire, looking as though her thoughts were very far away indeed, Peter felt so helpless. To keep her from crying, he played with the younger ones and teased Susan merrily and fought back tears in the dark of the night with a valiance his father would've been proud of.

He even went so far as to spend the money he'd been saving toward a bicycle to buy their mother a new pair of gloves. Susan pitched in—Edmund whined about it so long that Peter told him he didn't have to. He'd never forget the look on Mum's face when she unwrapped them—or the way she held them to her heart and laughed and cried at the same time. It hurt to see the tears, but he knew that she still missed Dad, and that was what made her sad. If only he could've brought him back!

The Christmas after they returned from Narnia, after they'd left the Professor to return to their home in Finchley, Peter thought it would be the same. Somehow, though, he found the burden of being the 'man of the house' somewhat easier to hold, the mantle easier to carry. It was because he'd been a king—that much he saw. And internally he praised Aslan for teaching him how to take the suffering of his family and country upon himself—to bear it for them.

The burden fell away when his father walked through the door on Christmas morning. Peter knew by the look in his mother's eyes and the tears that flooded them, and by the way his father clapped his shoulder and looked him in the eye, that he had seen them through all right.

And that's why, to Peter, Christmas is cheap garland and brittle holly, and a forced smile so the others wouldn't give up hope. Of laughing when you'd rather cry and smiling when you want to die. Of hard times and dealing with them. So to Peter, Christmas is about family, and keeping it together.

---

III.

Edmund hated Christmas almost as much as he hated Turkish Delight. For him, Christmas brought the sound of an icy, temping voice; of gummy, sickening sweetness on his breath; of snow piling up on top of him and suffocating him, closing in around him with the coldness of winter.

For no matter he tried, Edmund could never quite forget the feel of the White Witch's cold glare, or the sickening twist in his stomach as he watched the innocent animals freeze into stone—partially because of him. Christmas is cold—and the Witch was cold. For a while, it brought a sense of horror and fear and pain.

The first Christmas spent in Narnia began horribly. Edmund was awakened by someone bouncing on his bed, shouting "Edmund! Edmund! Come see, come see!" in his ear. Before he'd even rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, Lucy was dragging him across the stone floors and through the corridors until they reached the heavy wooden door that led to the courtyard. She opened it with a kick and dragged him outside laughing as a snowball flew through the open door behind them.

And Edmund froze at the world of whiteness that had descended upon his beloved Narnia. He could not move. The white brought a world of fear and a sense of danger to him—one that told him that the Witch had returned.

A snowball hit him in the arm, and he staggered back, feeling his face go pale. It felt like his blood had frozen in his veins. He heard Susan and Lucy shouting, their voices coming closer.

When he opened his eyes, he was on the ground and three anxious faces were peering down at him.

"Oh, Edmund, I'm so sorry! The snow was so exciting and fluffy and it's so much more than we get in England, and it just came last night, and I simply forgot all about—"

Susan put a hand calmly over Lucy's mouth, and Edmund felt his lips curve in a slight smile. Peter slid an arm behind his back and helped him sit.

"Can you make it inside, do you think?" the elder asked, watching the younger worriedly.

Edmund nodded. He didn't set foot outside the rest of the day—and the rest of the next few days. And then came the Christmas ball—the first in Narnia for a hundred years. Half of the ballroom was outside—part of a snow dance with the fauns—but some was inside. Lucy and Susan each danced with him inside once, but the dance outside was so wild and free, with the falling snow and the moon shining through the tattered clouds, that they couldn't remain any longer, and left him standing alone on the edge, holding a crystalline goblet of blood-red wine and staring out with mixed longing and fear, shivering in the chilly air.

Then a warm breath washed over him. He turned and met great Golden eyes, the eyes of The Lion. Aslan smiled at him gently and shook his mane.

"Why join you not in the dance?"

Edmund averted his eyes and shuffled his feet like a guilty child.

"I…she…the snow…"

A growl from the Lion brought his face jerking up. But surrounding him no more were the blue and silver banners, the candles and evergreens that decorated the Cair. Instead, he stood on the top of a hill by a place he knew very well.

But he was not alone.

"Do you know this place, Son of Adam?" asked the Great Lion.

Edmund's eyes traced the outlines of the rough table of stone that stood, broken in two, a few feet away. Drifts of snow lay across it. In fact, snow was falling from above—a fact that Edmund tried not to think about as he brushed it off his tunic and shivered again.

"I…I know it," he managed to stammer. He was standing in snow. The bile rose in his throat and it was all he could do to keep from losing it completely.

"And do you know what happened here, Son of Adam?" Aslan asked, apparently oblivious to his suffering.

The boy eyed the strangely cut signs in the stone, and shook his head. The flash of torchlight and the cruel black of a stone knife sliced through his vision, like a memory, though he'd not seen such a thing; and a laugh as cold as the cutting wind stabbed his heart like an icicle.

"No…" Edmund choked, falling to his knees as a terrible scream of triumph from the past filled the air. "I…no…"

"Here," said Aslan, his golden voice triumphant, melancholy, terrible, "here the Witch had her victory—and her defeat. A life for a life—or so she thought. But the Deep Magic, which has been a part of Narnia since my Father and I created it, was stronger than she. A willing victim for a traitor—a sacrifice in exchange for a wrong, indeed, for all wrongs."

Edmund put his face in his hands and sobbed. "No…" He looked up, shoulders still shaking, and asked, "Aslan…why?"

"WHY?" he wanted to scream, through the snow and coldness (to which he suddenly paid no mind) to that great golden face full of justice and forgiveness and rightness. "Why would YOU die to save ME?"

The words echoed in his mind even though he could not get them through the lump in his throat. He couldn't comprehend this feeling—this horrible realization that this, the bloody KING of EVERYTHING, who had created this place and everything in it and made him a king, this Lion had loved him enough to DIE in the place of his own pitiful self.

But even as he thought these things, tears running freely down his cheeks, Aslan smiled and breathed the words, burned the words, into his mind so that they would never be moved.

"Because, my Son. I love you, and you are mine."

And suddenly he was back at Cair Paravel, standing alone under the shelter of the ballroom roof with a shattered glass of wine at his feet. He glanced down at what looked like blood staining the snow, and then felt an immense joy and love flood his every being.

And as he ran forward in the night to join the dancers under the snow in their wild frolic, Edmund felt not fear.

To Edmund, Christmas is a time of forgiveness—of sacrifice and redemption and love. And if now he shivers at the snow, it is not the scream of a witch that echoes in his mind, but the strong roar of a lion shaking the earth beneath his very feet—and the shiver is one of delight.

---

IV.

She cries every time 'I heard the Bells' plays on the wireless, because it makes her long for 'Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men'. For now, what peace does she have? How can peace exist when the empty house echoes with memories of Christmases Past? When each bunch of carolers that pass makes her want to run out into the cold of the night and not return at all?

For Susan, Christmas is a time of tradition—of smiling politely at those who have come to visit and listening to the unwelcome carolers without beginning to sob. For the first few Christmases, she stays with Alberta, or her grandparents. The first year that she remains at home, she finds herself sitting up late and staring at the tree in a room lit only by a glowing candle. And remembering.

Like the others, she remembers the Christmases during the war, when she scolded Lucy for ripping the paper that she should've saved to recycle. She remembers dancing with Peter across the house, and with the others—cold fingers in hers and bright red cheeks in faces lit up with smiles.

She remembers the smell of her mother's favorite candle that burned in the window every night for the entire month of December. She remembers acting out the Christmas story around the fire with the others—Peter, then Dad, after he'd returned, reading from the book of Luke.

And then, she remembers other Christmases—Christmases that she'd sworn to forget—Christmases in Another Place, filled with deep drifts of snow and mad, moonlit horse rides across the silver hills. Christmases in which there was dancing and feasting and laughter and joy throughout the land.

She remembers twirling in ivory skirts through glittering snow and joining the fauns' wild dancing. She remembers the way the black of her hair contrasted with the white when they would make snow angels in the courtyard, and the way her and the others' cheeks would be flushed when they came in after a snowball fight. She remembers how easy it was to throw dignity to the wind when the snow was falling and all was right with the world.

And all was right with the world. She remembers those days with fondness and loathing combined—a sort of bitter sweetness that lingers as she watches a candle burn to a stump on Christmas Eve.

For Christmas is when she remembers the most—remembers the good times and the bad, the hard and easy, the tears and laughter. She remembers the smile on Lucy's face and a broken wand, Peter's hand in hers and a golden sea of mane.

God is not dead nor does he sleep.

The lyrics play over and over and over again in her mind.

Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward men.

She watches Lucy laugh and Edmund grin as they unwrap presents. She is soaring above, looking down on the little house that was once so full of love, and now lies empty and cold. Her body remains there, too, for she is sleeping—yet her spirit soars with the snow-clouds that hover above. She sees the dim light in the window—a flickering candle—and thinks of other Christmases, long past—even longer past than she knew.

A star shining brighter than any other star she's ever seen is there when she awakes. A star that she's seen before—in Narnia, was it? Or perhaps she's only dreamed of the star. But somehow Susan knows that she must follow to where it will lead.

Wrapping herself in a long black cloak, she leaves the house and stumbles down the weary streets that lie silent in the darkness. The snow is falling—it lands in her hair and on her eyelashes, and for once she doesn't worry about her hair or feel like crying because of the memories. She keeps her eyes on the star.

At last she finds the place whence the star has led—a lonely vale in the middle of the city park. There are no lights—it is near midnight, and all is silent in the white place around her. And then—there is a shape in the whiteness, dark against the snow. Susan utters a cry and falls to her knees at the side of the manger, mindless of the snow beneath her knees.

"My God," she sobs, touching the porcelain face of the child lying in the straw reverently. "My God."

It's all she can say, but it's enough. Because in that moment, Susan remembers why Christmas. She remembers why the laughter and smiles, and even the painful memories now. And as she is kneeling there in the snow and hears the sound of bells jingling overhead, something occurs to her, something that, the next morning, makes the newly fallen snow outside her window reflect the feeling in her heart.

Because for Susan, Christmas is not merely tradition or tinsel, or presents or Father Christmas. It's not lipstick and parties and glued on smiles and dodging the memories anymore.

For Susan, Christmas is renewal…and hope.

Finis