It was quite early on the first of December. The month of Christmas and it started on a Monday. Well, other holidays were happening as well but Christmas always seemed to dominate above all of the others. It was a little bit sad that the other holidays got overshadowed but that's just how things work out sometimes.

Sanji was humming to himself as he stepped out of his car and began his walk to work. It seemed to be an especially cold winter this year, very snowy as well. The first snow had been before Thanksgiving, which wasn't what usually happened.

There was a fine powder of snow covering the sidewalk, that wouldn't last long. It would soon be trampled away by busy feet. He stuffed his gloved hands into his pockets in an effort to try to preserve some heat but felt that it wasn't really helping. Even though it was still dark outside the city was alive with cars and people walking to work.

Sanji considered lighting himself a cigarette but that would require him to take his hands out of his pockets, so he decided against it. Gathering his coat around himself, the blond made his way out of the parking garage. He hated parking garages, they made him nervous. He wasn't sure if it was all the empty rows of cars, or the echoing concrete, or that they just had an aura about them but he just didn't like them. They also had this weird post apocalyptic feel about them. He did hate them but he had to use one because he did not live in the city, he actually lived about forty minutes away from the city, outside some quiet little town on the edge of nowhere.

He was walking past shops now, they all had green and red decorations in their displays. Shops always seemed to put out decorations and advertisements way too early for Sanji's taste. He needed to actually be in December before he could get into it. And he really did love Christmas, it was his favorite holiday. Not because he was religious or anything, because he wasn't, he just liked it.

But as he made his way past the shops he was stuck by that conflicted feeling when he thought about how Christmas was really just a way for businesses to make a lot of money. All holidays were like that, really, but Christmas especially. It was some ancient religious holiday that had morphed itself into commercialized mess. With little toys made in countries where people had little in the way of safe working conditions or enough pay to get by. Along with the child labor practices. Of course all of thing made Sanji feel rather sad, but somehow he still really liked Christmas for some reason.

Ah, the pleasure of living in an first world, industrialized nation. It was really astounding to think of how different conditions were in some countries. It gave him that guilty feeling one gets when thinking about how selfish they are. If Sanji could figure out a way to feed every person in the entire world he would do it, even if he had to turn himself into a cooking robot. Sanji thought he would be an awesome robot, not having emotions would suck though... Or rather it wouldn't because he wouldn't be able to tell if it sucked or not because he wouldn't feel anything. What would that even feel like? Nothing, probably.

Sanji let out a content sigh as the Baratie came into sight. It looked a little odd next to all the other drab buildings in the little shopping center, but that's what made it catch people's eyes. He went in the back door to find that Zeff and a majority of the staff were already there.

What Sanji really liked about Christmas was spending Christmas Day with the people he was close to. When he was little that meant the Baratie staff. They had a big Christmas dinner every year. There was yelling, swearing, fighting, and Sanji loved every miserable second of it. At least he did looking back on it. It made him feel nostalgic thinking about all those hopeless idiots, but at the time it was the worst thing ever. Once he threatened to jump out a window if Zeff made him go downstairs and sit with everyone. That hadn't been related to hating everyone so much as the fact that the day before he had stayed up too late and in his drowsy state had somehow managed to smash his face on a doorknob, although hating everyone was still a contributing factor. The doorknob incident had left a large bruise on the his left cheek running up to his eye and his hair wouldn't cover all of it so he knew everyone would tease him about it. And they did after Zeff broke down the door and dragged him downstairs.

He did not usually go to this party anymore. Now he spent Christmas Eve with his boyfriend.. (Ugh, was weird to call him by that word or another term) or his friends and spent Christmas Day with his everyone. It was becoming a new tradition, one that he also loved. Luffy, Nami, Ussop, Brook, Robin, Franky, Chopper, and Zoro had become his new family and he was glad to make new traditions with them.

He and Zoro had been together nearly eight years. That is a long time to be together and they would consider getting married if, you know, it were legal. The state had an annoying amount of bans on gay marriage. No marriage, no civil unions, if you wanted a kid one parent could adopt it but they could not have joint responsibility for it.

It was stupid, and the conservative Governor who had run for reelection in November felt no need to change anything. Sanji was sick of seeing ads of his stupid face, he was an incumbent so it wasn't like he was in any danger of losing the vote. Sanji wasn't even sure who he was running against but he had hoped this guy would lose just as a punishment for putting his face on things Sanji happened to look at. He was of course sadly disappointed.

Really the only thing allowed was notification to the partner on the death certificate, which was depressing and only happened because of some big case the year before. And they didn't recognize out of state marriage either so what was the point in getting married?

Sanji withheld a groan, it would be nice to be married. They already owned a house together so it's not like there would be much if a change. Their little house on the edge of a little hick town was a nice place. Far enough away that they didn't have to look at the effects of a small gene pool and a lack of education. They obviously lived near their friends, in the same little neighborhood actually. It was a nice, quiet place until they all got together. Then it was loud and messy, just the way it was supposed to be.

Sanji smiled to himself as he started preparing for his work day. He was glad it was December again.

XxxX

A/N: I don't know how I feel about this thing and I don't know how you will feel about it either but it was fun to write. I basically just wrote a bunch of brain vomit out and it sort of happened. They aren't all Christmas related per say but they follow the line of everyday December/winter habits. Yeah...

Edit: In response to a rather scathing review saying I don't know my history (a remark leading me to spend the rest of the day obsessively watching documentaries because I'm a freak) I feel that I must say some things. Christmas was originally a series of religious pegan festivals which were gathered up and turned into a big festival by the Romans. This festival was called Saturnalia, which was like a week of lawlessness that horrified the early Christian church. To compete with Saturnalia the birth of Jesus was declared to be the 25th, the last day of the holiday. This is where the name Christmas comes from meaning Christ mass or the celebration of Christ. From there Christmas gathered traditions, becoming the modernized holiday we know today. I feel I have to be a bitch and say that any way you look at Christmas began as a religious holiday and the actual holiday of "Christmas" came about as the Christian celebration of the birth of their savior. So a bunch of festivals became a big festival which became a Christian holiday which became a commercialized mess.

Sorry, if I didn't get that out of my system I might have hurt myself. If anyone else can find any inaccuracies it would be much appreciated because now I'm paranoid and my confidence is at minus three billion : )

Thanks.