Part Two: The Silly Variant

"Holmes! It is snowing!"

It was Christmas Eve. I had spent the more significant part of the morning in town, wrestling my way through the throngs of busy shoppers, to purchase various last-minute essentials for our holiday at 221B. I had a large bag filled with bright wrapping papers, string, ribbons, card and tissue. It was quite as much a novelty to me as my dear friend, Sherlock Holmes, for this – the winter of 1881 – would be our very first Christmas together. Our Halloween had been eventful, to put it mildly. I had higher hopes for the forthcoming celebrations.

I stood now looking out from our bay window, my purchases thrust to one side, my coat still buttoned to the top, my gloves still there upon my hands. For the very second I had come in through our front door, the sky had opened up to snowflakes.

"Holmes! Do come here!"

Holmes was sprawling full-length upon the sofa. He had been there all the morning. He raised his head now, just an inch, to peer at me across the room.

"No," said he. "Whatever makes you think that I would be interested in the trajectory of a snowflake?"

I persisted in beckoning my friend.

"It is the beauty of it, rather than the science," I said, "and it has just started to snow for the first time this year! Do come and take a look with me, my dear fellow."

Holmes lifted himself onto one elbow.

"Are you going to steal my sofa?" he asked, petulantly. "Just when I've got it all nice and warm and comfortable?"

"I have no intention of stealing your sofa," I said. "All the same, if you imagine for one second that I will be allowing you to remain there all afternoon, then you have another thought coming. We must decorate, and wrap our gifts, Holmes."

My friend exhaled in exasperation. "Watson, will you please stop waving your finger at me as though you are conducting an orchestra of lunatics. Very well, I shall come and take a look at your most fascinating snowflake." He rolled away from the sofa and shuffled towards the window, yawning, irritable. He set his hands upon the sill and squinted up into the sky.

"Ugh," said Sherlock Holmes.

I blinked. "'Ugh'?" I turned to look out from the window once again. I could see nothing to Ugh about.

Holmes huffed a great steam of breath upon the window pane. His index finger daubed busily through the condensation left behind. "U...G...H..." he intoned. He placed a full-stop at the end, as an afterthought.

I shook my head. "You are such a child," I said. "Stop writing on the windows. It will leave marks."

"I have looked at the snow, and now I am cold again," he said, accusingly. "And I do not want to wrap gifts or put up streamers. I want to eat roasted chestnuts and smoke my pipe and have a nap."

He headed back towards the sofa, preparing to fling himself upon it. I dived in and secured the end cushion for myself.

"You do not enjoy Christmas," I observed. It hardly seemed worthwhile to set it as a question.

"No," said Holmes. "It is a hundred times worse than Halloween." He looked at me suspiciously, then. "I do not wish to hear any Christmas stories," he said, carefully.

"I do not have any," I said, reassuringly. I saw him relax. "What is it that you do not like about the season?" I persisted.

Holmes sighed, and took in a deep breath, counting each example off upon his fingers. "The greed, the gluttony, the people, the weather, the shopping, the ho-ho-ho-ing, the incessant Merry-Christmas-ing, the abominable lack of casework at this time of year, and, and..." here he paused to consider, "... and the pudding."

"You do not like Christmas because of the pudding?"

"That is one reason, but it is hardly the least of it."

I stared at the rug. "You do not have to eat pudding if you do not like it?" I ventured.

He threw up his hands. "Why are you fixating upon the wretched pudding?" he demanded. "Were you not listening to all the other reasons that I gave to you?"

"Yes, Holmes, I was, but for the most part they are avoidable, excepting the lack of casework."

He nodded. "Which, of course, is the most critical," he said. "Everyone is so full of goodwill and goose that nothing at all remotely interesting happens at this time of the year. No murders, no intrigues, no nothing." He bit his lip. "Damnation, a double negative. No anything," he amended.

I pointed to my bag of purchases, still upon the chair by the window.

"Much of our shopping is in that bag. What other people may prefer to do is their own concern; why worry yourself about them? If the weather is inclement, stay indoors. That way you will also avoid the greetings and all the rest which I suppose you find so superficial."

Holmes drew his knees up to his chin, and looked at me sideways. "You are somewhat over-simplifying," he said. "As is your wont," he added, churlishly.

"Christmas is whatever you choose to make it," I said, ignoring him. "And you are choosing to make it a misery. I am determined that this year you will enjoy yourself."

Holmes groaned dismally and flung his head forward. "Anything but that," he moaned, muffled, from between his kneecaps.

But now I had the bit between my teeth, and I was resolute. I knew only the smallest detail of my friend's childhood, and all but nothing of his family – or if, indeed, he actually had any surviving relatives. Holmes's secrecy on this front was perplexing to me, still I respected his right to silence. I wondered what might have happened in his youth for him to have formed such a steadfast horror of the holidays. I felt it dug deeper than the list relayed to me under interrogation.

I leapt up from the sofa and capered across to the window, grasping my bag, and, moving aside to the small dining table, turned the contents out upon it. I beckoned to my friend.

"You are doing that thing again with your finger," he complained, coming to join me all the same.

"Look," I said, spreading the things out before us both. "We have everything we need here. I assume that you have bought a gift for Mrs. Hudson, at the very least?"

Holmes nodded, with a grimace. "A bottle of bath salts," he said, with an effort. "A pink bottle," he added, as though to emphasise the emotional turmoil that buying such an item had placed upon him.

"Very nice," I said. "What else?"

He blinked slowly. "That is all," he said.

"You bought just one gift?"

He shrugged, pointing vaguely in the direction of his bedroom.

"Ah, well then. I shall give you these two wrapping sheets here, and this string, and this ribbon, and you can wrap them up here at the table."

Holmes looked at me, dumbstruck. "How?" he wailed. "I have never wrapped a present before! What do I do with the ribbon? Where do the bits go?"

He ran across to his writing desk, drew open a side compartment and pulled out the pink bottle of bath salts. He returned to me, waving the gift.

"It is a bottle!" he whined.

I began to laugh. "Yes, I can see that," I said.

He pushed it at me. "You do it," he said.

"Oh, no no." I pushed it back to him. "I am not doing your work for you. I have my own gifts to wrap, Holmes."

Sitting down heavily at the table, my friend picked disconsolately at the papers and ribbons. He took out his pocket-knife and gazed at it glumly before setting it down beside the string. He looked up at me, pleadingly. I shook my head. His shoulders slumped. As amusing as this was, I realised the longer I dallied then the longer it would take for him to begin work on his bottle. I made instead for our lumber-room, in search of the box of old decorations that our landlady had promised we might use for our sitting-room if we desired. As I busied myself with the garlands and bows, festooning our walls and surfaces with the reds, whites and greens, I did not think to look across to check the progress of my friend. When some twenty minutes had passed and I had decorated to my satisfaction, I stepped back finally to admire my handiwork. Only then did I look to Holmes, whose back was towards me, hunched over as a vulture at its prey.

"It is done," I informed the vulture, brightly. "See how lovely it all looks, Holmes!"

He swung around to me. His eyes were crazed. He grabbed blindly at the object on the table before him.

"I have wrapped the bottle!" he gabbled. He pushed it into my hands for assessment. I looked down. The wrapping was bunched madly at where I presumed the base to be. What looked like a dozen rounds of string were tied around the middle. Further up towards the neck I supposed my friend had run out of all ideas as to quite what he should do with it. Two unhappy strips of bright paper were tightly bound across the top, secured by yet more string. A jagged length of red satin ribbon dangled down as though garrotted.

"What do you think?" he asked, anxious.

"It is most... conscientious, Holmes," I replied. "Did you use all of the string?"

Holmes picked up a short strand. "Not quite all," he said. His face was flushed. "That was horrid," he said.

"You did very well," I assured him. "How about the others, in your room?"

He shook his head violently. "I will take those down for Mrs. Hudson to wrap," he said, firmly. He snatched up two further sheets of wrapping paper and ribbon and charged for his bedroom, a few seconds after which I heard him exit out onto the landing and clatter down the stairs. I took the opportunity to unlock my own desk cabinet, then, and bring out the gifts I had bought for my friend, to wrap them as swiftly as I might in his absence. They did not take so very long, being small boxed items. I was finishing off a green ribbon on the last when Holmes huffed back into the sitting-room, empty handed and triumphant.

"Mrs. Hudson was a little cross with me," he said. "I do not think that she likes wrapping, either. Oh!" The last was exclaimed as he stepped towards the table with its small pile of bundled gifts still upon it. He prodded at them.

I slapped his hand away. "No poking," I said. "I am going to put them over here until tomorrow morning." I picked them up and carried them to the small side table by the fireplace, where the prettiest of our decorations lay around.

"They are for me?" he asked, hesitantly. I nodded. My friend became quiet and thoughtful. "This is all a little new to me," he said, eventually.

I furrowed my brow. "Receiving gifts is new to you?" A small pang of sadness touched my heart.

"You may not be familiar with the Watson way of celebrating Christmas, then," I said, my resolve suddenly setting firm.

Holmes shook his head, puzzled.

"We have rituals," I elaborated, grandly.

"Rituals?"

"Yes," I said, my brain whirring madly with its own invention. "And seeing as how I am regrettably the last in the family line, we simply must carry them on and adhere to them. For the honour of the Watsons, Holmes."

He nodded, respectful, but apprehensive. "What do these... rituals entail?" he asked.

"A treasure hunt, for gifts. With clues," I said.

Holmes perked. "Clues," he repeated, appearing to savour the word. "Clues!" he said again, delighted now.

"Yes, clues," I smiled. "We can each hide one of our gifts to each other somewhere here in 221B, and write a series of clues for the other to follow, that they might find it."

Holmes nodded vigorously.

"The second," I said, looking out of the window again, "is snow angels."

"Watson, now you are being silly," said my friend. "There are no such things as angels."

"There will be," I informed him, mysteriously. "A little later, perhaps. Let us write our treasure hunts now."

I issued my friend with five rectangles of paper, and instructed him to write out five clues, that the first might lead to the second, and on to the third, and so on, until the final grand reveal of the gift in its unfathomable hiding place. He set to work, scribbling, chuckling to himself, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration. I wrote up my own, too. Of course, this had never been a family ritual of my own; I had invented it on the spot, to amuse and entertain my extraordinary flatmate. Presently, Holmes shuffled his papers together and folded his arms.

"Done," he said. "When do we play?"

"Tomorrow morning," I said. I saw him bristle in anticipation. "And now, I think, we might venture downstairs. Bring your coat, there's a good fellow."

We stepped down into the hall, and out through the rattling old back door into Mrs. Hudson's small open courtyard, where the snow by now was falling heavily. The ground was thickly covered, even after so short a space of time, and Holmes and I pulled our coats around us, shivering.

"Why have you dragged me out here?" he asked. "It is icy cold."

"We are going to make snow angels," I said. "Lay down upon your back in the snow."

Holmes looked at me as though I were a madman. "What?" he asked.

I pointed at the ground. "Lay down," I repeated. "Trust me," I added.

"But -" said Holmes. He looked down at the snow. His bottom lip thrust out. He looked again to me. Sighing, he sat down upon the deepest drift, and unfurled himself. He peered at me from out of the corner of one eye. "Now what?"

"Now sweep your arms up and down through the snow."

Holmes flapped his arms obediently.

"Now stand up – carefully, Holmes! – and see your imprint."

"I made an angel." His voice was filled with wonder. Then: "I'm going to make another one."

Two minutes later, Mrs. Hudson's back yard was strewn with ten charmingly prostrate six foot snow angels.

"And then, of course, there is the obligatory Watson snowball fight to the death," I said, stooping down to gather a large fistful.

If Mrs. Hudson observed our frolic from her kitchen window, then she did not ever make a mention of it. The dear lady must have wondered, all the same, as to the carnage that was left behind: the snow-splattered wall; the small snowman with twigs for his arms and pebbles for eyes; the one peripheral angel that had somehow survived throughout all of our capering.

As Holmes and I sat by our sitting-room fire a while later, with a box of cinder toffee and a brandy apiece, thawing our bones and drying out our damp clothes, we could only smile foolishly at one another like children. Enthusiasm can be infectious and exhilarating; when well directed then it has its own unique ability to fill a heart with joy, to chase away small doubts and fears, those greyer-edged emotions that tug at us all to a greater or lesser extent. We can but only hope to shake them off; to make a little headway, a little further every time.

"Do you know, I think that I rather enjoy your peculiar family rituals, Watson," said Holmes, sipping on his drink.

"I rather thought you might," I replied. "And I am certain that you will enjoy tomorrow's even better. It involves goose feathers, strong twine and two upturned buckets. A very Merry Christmas, my dear fellow!"