"Out of all of the holidays, it's actually Christmas that's most universally celebrated on Earth," Hunk explained. "Which is pretty funny considering technically it's a religious holiday for a fairly region-based religion. But when Christianity spread so did its major holiday, and when the um. Crusades or whatever were over and people went back to a lot of their old religions they kept celebrating Christmas as a holiday anyway just for, you know. Fun. Like, 'the rest of your religion and culture sucks but we're keeping Santa Claus.'"
Allura's eyebrows drew down in confusion, and Hunk instantly realized his mistake before she even had to ask, "'Sandy Claws?'"
"Santa," Hunk chuckled awkwardly, "It's a name. A sort of mythological figure that we all tell kids about, saying he lives at the North Pole where it's too cold for humans to live."
That should be a concept all planets had and he shouldn't need to explain, right? It was like… Axis stuff. She didn't look confused, so he must be safe.
"And that one night a year, he flies around the whole planet on a magic sleigh pulled by a herd of hooved animals that don't normally fly and slips into the house of every child to leave presents for them under a tree we set up in the middle of the house. He gets in through the chimney, which is a vent houses used to have so you could light a fire inside and let the smoke outside, and has to stop time to get to everyone in one night, and you're supposed to leave out milk and cookies for him to eat as a thank you for his hard work."
This, Hunk realized, sounded absolutely insane out loud, didn't it? Wow. Humans were actually pretty weird when he really stopped to think about it.
"And um, he knows which houses have kids and which don't because he's supposed to be some kind of omnipotent entity and knows all about the kids of earth and who's been naughty and who's been good because he only gives the good kids presents and the bad kids get coal. Or kidnapped by a Krampus demon, depending on where you live."
Allura's jaw was hanging open in baffled alarm, which Hunk could frankly understand.
"So you invented demigod who breaks into the houses of children with rocks and then tell lies to your children about him to manipulate them into good behavior?"
Yes. Yes exactly, in fact.
"Well," Hunk defended, "it's really ,more for fun than the… manipulation part. Kids love Santa."
"I see," Allura said dubiously, "And this is the most widely celebrated tradition on your entire planet."
Oh shit, how the hell had Hunk managed to ruin Christmas? Christmas was supposed to be impossible to ruin! He wasn't doing this right, damn it.
"No, it's… It's not really about Santa. He just represents the spirit of the season. Christmas is really about the tradition where, young or old, everyone gives gifts to each other on that day. We just use Santa as an excuse to give kids extra presents, from mom and dad and one from 'Santa.' Since, you know, otherwise we usually just do one present each for everyone we know because... That's a lot of presents, you give presents to anyone you're close with, including friends and coworkers you talk to often enough, basically."
She blinked, shoulders relaxing.
"Oh, that makes more sense. The lie is… for fun, then. Of course this Krismass might perpetuate so that one day a year, one receives physical affirmation of their relationship status with a person."
That… was closer? Nope, still failing at Christmas.
"Yes and no. For kids it's all about getting presents, yeah, but the thing that makes Christmas really great is giving them. There's this… satisfaction you get when you know you got someone the perfect gift, when you're just as excited to see the person you love open the gift you got for them because you wanna see how happy it made them, you know? THAT'S what Christmas is actually about. We need to remember that feeling when we get too cynical, so Christmas is about remembering that human beings are capable of caring about more than just themselves. It's about being close to each other. The presents aren't about the physical item, it's a way to show that you're thinking of them and you care about them. We use it as a day to remember to be kind to others and give to people we don't even know, just because they're more in need than we are." Holy shit did Hunk finally nail this? He felt like he nailed this. "But that concept is kind of hard to put into words so we use the omniscient gift wizard."
"I… I know that feeling," Allura said slowly, sounding awed enough for Hunk to feel like he'd probably succeeded in explaining Christmas. "Of course we give presents to each other on Altea too but it's nothing ceremonial. To imagine, an entire holiday created around just that feeling, that simple joy of giving… It's truly beautiful."
Something warm and happy bloomed in Hunk's chest like a baked potato, and he grinned at her.
"Yup, and that's why Christmas is my favorite holiday. Also tons and tons of cookies."
Allura laughed, light and easy, and way too pretty.
"Well of course, it's all about the sweets, isn't it?"
"Oho, you want sweets," Hunk laughed, "then you gotta talk Halloween. This one's Lance's favorite holiday."
"Oh, then this should be quite interesting." Allura's arched eyebrows told their own story.
"Oh man, if you think Christmas is weird, you're gonna LOVE this," Hunk agreed jovially, trying to think of how to start with this one.
"Okay, so Halloween is the day we all dress up in costumes and play pranks on each other. Little kids go door to door around the neighborhood dressed up like cartoon characters, animals, and monsters, like ghosts and stuff, and every house gives them a little bit of candy, and if they don't have any candy, the kids will throw eggs at their house. A good day to pull pranks and try to scare each other."
Long elegant fingers steepled together, and Allura had a look of intense concentration.
"The pranks I believe I can understand, but… Costumes?"
"Uh," Now that he had gotten this far, Hunk realized he in fact, had no explanation for the costumes. Did anyone actually remember what that was about? "Well the story everybody knows is that the holiday used to be a harvest festival, and legend says that people would wear masks as disguises to hide themselves from the evil spirits because it's the most supernatural night of the year. But the thing is, we know that part isn't true and in the old days no one wore costumes and it's only a recent thing, but no one seems to remember or carre why? It's… Humans just like playing dress-up," he shrugged. "But really, the costumes are the best part! The adults dress up in costumes too, and go to parties and sometimes have costume contests to see who's costume is the best or coolest, and there's a lot of drinking and making out like most parties except it's like, a yearly holiday."
"So, it's a festival of revelry?"
Hunks face twisted, and he knew he'd lost her again, but also he wasn't sure how to explain the basic concept of haunted houses.
"Yes and no? I missed the biggest point again. The kids go door to door and the adults go to parties but not everyone bothers going out - most of us just watch horror movies at home. That's kind of what the pranks are about, the spirit of scaring the crap out of each other and ourselves. We even have haunted houses and hayrides where we set up a bunch of scary stuff and go through just for the adrenaline rush. The costumes are usually of monsters, too. It's celebrating, yeah, but it's more like… celebrating our fear?"
Allura frowned, looking confused but interested.
"A festival to celebrate fear... where you send your children to strange houses for food?"
"It's not a perfect system."
Hunk coughed. Crap, he'd never been forced to deeply analyze holidays like this before, maybe he should have tried sticking to TV shows.
"I think it's because like, we evolved past the point where we need to really be afraid of anything, so we have to go out of our way to do it to ourselves." In a culture like Altea which was supposed to have nearly constantly been at war… might not be a relatable issue. "So we have Halloween and horror movies to scare ourselves."
"I'm just having a little trouble connecting being afraid with 'fun' is all," she said dubiously, fluffing a lock of silver hair over her shoulder absently. "You're celebrating… your conquest over that which would have formerly eaten you?"
"More like the opposite," Hunk tried. "We're reminding ourselves that we're not better than it, that there are still things we have to be afraid of even with our suburbs and houses and hospitals."
Allura made a silent 'o' with her lips, eyes bright with understanding.
"So humans use holidays as a reminder to not to forget about feelings that a self-absorbed world of commerce might lose like gratitude?"
He wanted to deny that with the assertion that no, humans just like excuses to party, until he remembered Thanksgiving was a thing and figured she might be onto something.
"I guess so," he agreed dubiously, "but the thing with Halloween is: half the fun is scaring other people. There's a certain amount of schadenfreude involved; that's why, aside from thrillers, we also watch slasher flicks where we just watch people get violently eviscerated for two hours." He paused, realizing once again how bad that sounded. "Well that might have more to do with our suppressed murderous hunting instincts and less schadenfreude."
"'Shadenfroida?'" Allura questioned, which made sense considering even English didn't have a word for it.
"It's like um. That sick little pleasure one gets out of seeing others suffer, I guess?"
"Oh!" Allura leaned forward, grinning. "I understand that concept!" She declared eagerly. "We have something like that too, your Halloween is like the Festival of Haarsvark!" With a nostalgic smile, she went on to swoon: "All the children in town gather together in the yurba fields, and they select one to be the onos monster. It's the onos monster's job to try and run and hide while all the other children chase him down and pelt him with rocks. Oh, how we all laughed and laughed…"
"Uhhhm, yes, that sounds... " like Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, "...about the same idea, yeah." Like he had any place to judge considering his explanation of Christmas. "I mean, sounds like schadenfreude to me anyway."
"Well, it seems like our cultures have more in common than it looks at a glance," Allura decided cheerfully. And then her face fell, frowning contemplatively as she added, "Of course, it would be nice if what we had in common wasn't a shared amusement in the suffering of others."
"Well, it's not like that's the only thing we have alike, right?" Hunk smiled, bumping his shoulder against Allura's softly. "And besides, because we do both have schadenfreude, that means we can all enjoy it together whenever Lance makes a fool out of himself trying to impress Keith."
Allura laughed, soft and light and adorable. "Thank goodness for that; if we didn't laugh it would just have gotten sad after the first time."
