Author's Note: Hmm. It's three days to Christmas. This is a Christmas challenge fic issued by my friend, spiral, and probably the last Buffy fic I'll ever write. Anyway, GUESS WHAT? I love reviews!!! Thank you.





Breaking Tradition

By like a falling star





Traditionally speaking, Christmas Day would start off with a bang. The heroine [i.e. Buffy] would be rudely woken up by her teen-angst-ridden sister [i.e. Dawn] via threats of intense bodily harm [i.e. switching her shampoo with purple food dye]. That would be followed by the heroine groggily prying open her eyes and seeing snow drifting outside her window between shafts of sunlight and realizing that 'hey! It's Christmas Day! I should wake up now so that I can spend all day prancing about in the snow between scorching my throat with hot chocolate and singing Christmas carols off-tune. Whee!'



Said sister would then scream 'Merry Christmas!' and the two would squeal hysterically at the profound discovery and thunder down the stairs to the colourfully-decorated Christmas tree where they would find and ravage their brightly-wrapped presents. This would of course then be followed with a series of hugs and "Thank you, you're so sweet!"s and the baking of a couple of mince pies and so on and so forth.



Ha.



Hahahahaha.



Firstly, Buffy Ann Summers wasn't your typical blonde-hair, blue-eyed, Christmas-relishing bimbo. No, she had blonde hair and grey eyes. Not blue.





And secondly, it did not snow in Sunnydale. Not ever. Sunnydale was as sunny as its name. More. So, there was no 'snow drifting outside her window between shafts of sunlight', whatever that meant.



The thing was, technically, Christmas Day did start off with a bang. Just not in the way it was expected.



BANG!!!



"Ow! #%$&@!" Buffy let out a stream of curses and bent down to rub the sore spot where her foot had hit the chair. "Stupid chair! What are you doing here? You shouldn't be here! Shoo!" She gave the chair a shove.



Dawn came into the kitchen, rolling her eyes. "Were you and Mr. Chair here having a nice, deep conversation? Well, excuse me for interrupting, but you're hogging the muffins." She took the box of muffins out of Buffy's hand and set it on the counter. "Pick one."



It was a no-brainer. Buffy grinned and plucked out a chocolate-chip muffin. "Merry Christmas to you, too." She told Dawn sarcastically, before sinking her teeth into the muffin. Mmm.



"Happy Christmas," Dawn greeted automatically.



"Merry Christmas!" Buffy sang again.



Dawn raised her eyebrows. "All fun and perky today, aren't we? Gonna break out the Santa suit and triple tummy?"



"I meant Merry Christmas, not Happy Christmas." Buffy said. "Who says 'Happy Christmas' anyway? Have you been watching Barney?"



"Barney? No!" Dawn sounded indignant. "He's, like, all big. and purple. Anyway, what's the difference? 'Merry' and 'happy' mean the same thing anyway."



"They don't!" Buffy wrinkled her nose, trying to remember if she'd learnt anything in English class. "Merry means all. merry-like and wow, and happy means all."



"Happy-like and wow?" Dawn guessed. "Great description, Buffy."



"Merry Christmas." Buffy said stubbornly.



"Happy Christmas." Corrected Dawn. "By the way, your present is on the couch."



Buffy was out of the room faster than. well, faster than Xander was on the trail of food.



Dawn breathed a sigh of relief. Saved by the present.





*