Now, I know what you're thinking. The Twelve Days of Christmas? Why, I'm the most whimsical elf in all of fairy land! This is truly a brilliant idea! Surely no one has ever thought of this before. I am a god among men. Who will sacrifice a goat in my honor? Not only I am Jesus Christ, the Christmas spirit…thing…ish himself, but I am also the sun to those who worship the solstice, the magic oil for the Jewish, and the magical bunny who helped Siddhartha achieve enlightenment and become Buddha. Hell, I'm Santa and Jack Frost as well.
Stop.
Oh, for the love of all that is decent in the world, have mercy and stop.
I know it seems like a good idea at the time. This happens. For instance, before I decided to walk out on the seemingly sturdy bent over reeds on the stream this summer so I could get a better reading, walking that far over the chilly stream seemed brilliant. Then I fell in, and the idea appeared amazingly stupid. We all make mistakes.
Stop making these fics. They are an endless abomination upon the world. Stop it now.
The day I'm posting this is the sixteenth. At least, it ought to be. I am trying to break these clichés, you know, and why would I ever post a Christmas story right on Christmas? I'm at least a week ahead. It's not that I don't like Christmas. Christmas is my birthday, after all. It's the one day I get presents all year, really, the only big one at least. But the biggest one that irks me about this is aside from this one creepy Christmas special where Santa showed up, the characters have never really said they're Christian.
Not that I have anything against Santa or Christians, mind you. Well, perhaps something against Santa. I've just never, ever been okay with people in strange costumes asking for clubs, anime conventions excluded. Disney, theme parks, Chuck E. Cheese, and mall Santas. It's always freaked me out. As for Christians, I don't really care. Hey, worship whatever you want. As long as you're a nice person, I don't care what you believe, honestly.
But religion has always been something of a fascination to me. I don't think I ever quite believed in anything as a child, because my family wasn't incredibly religious and I had a very overactive imagination. I assumed everything was a story. Really, I don't quite remember having a perception of movies and books being based off real things until I was about eight or so. To this day, I love researching religions. I love the stories, the messages, and seeing how people can look at a single text and get hundreds and hundreds of different meanings out of it. I mean, really, look at all those denominations!
So, around Christmas, we get this crazy phenomenon where it's, well, Christmas. All of a sudden every character is Christian, but not really. Yeah, people will mention Santa, but they never really bring up Jesus or the indeterminate number of wise men or the strange house/stable conundrum and that whole shindig about them not really being wise men but Magi and all the fun trouble that gets up to. They just start rambling about the spirit of Christmas, which from what I can surmise from reading these fanfics and watching bad movies on Lifetime and ABC is about someone screwing up very, very badly and being forgiven because it's Christmas. And Santa is real.
So I've never quite understood why we've never had something like this:
"Misty, want to come over to my place for Christmas?"
She glared up at him and mumbled around a mouthful of cookie, "Solstice."
He rolled his eyes, staring at the microwave as it twirled his hot chocolate mug around. "You know what I mean."
"Don't," she said stubbornly, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. "You know it's practically blasphemy."
The closet thing we have is, my favorite, the obligatory Jew. I'd like someone to explain to me why there's an obligatory Jew. It happens in pretty much everything. Hey, it even happened in one of my favorite shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But it's not like they really celebrate Hanukah. I mean, you might get a menorah, or some really bad joke about getting a dradle. And, holy cow, dradle isn't even considered a word. There's a red squiggly line. Wow. I don't see why everyone has this misconception. Have they never been to a Jewish household? I go every year and get delicious latkes and apple sauce and sour cream and we exchange awesome presents. Not to mention dradles being very cool, and also can be absolutely gorgeous collectables.
So where's the other minority holidays? I want to see this:
She pouted, arms crossed. "I'm celebrating the winter solstice, not your stupid blasphemous holiday and all its stupid commercialism. You know, in the Bible, you're not even supposed to bring a stupid tree inside your house to decorate. It says in the book and everything. It says it's what us pagans do."
Or, even better, where's my made up holidays?
"So, what?" he teased over the microwave beeping. He popped it open and reached out, then hissed and yanked his hand away as it scalded his skin. There was a loud clattering from the kitchen as he searched through the kitchen for some kind of potholder. "How do we celebrate the solstice in the House of Moltres? Do we sacrifice things to a big old fire? Is it a chicken?"
"Older members drink an aphrodisiac and have sex with their significant other."
"Really?"
"It's the house of passion. We also do the things we enjoy doing most."
And why is it never Ash or Misty? I've seen Brock or Tracey be the obligatory minority, but never any of the main girls or Ash. Nor Gary or Drew for that matter. Not only that, but it seems like they're depressed they don't get to celebrate Christmas. They're all, "damn. I hate my religion." I mean, don't they have conversions in this world? In this world are you killed if you try to convert? Considering what a minority they seem to be, I suppose I can imagine why.
But what's more, the time has finally rolled around where the makers of Pokémon have finally said, "Just make God. Really. We're running out of things to have power over." So they made God. They call it a god. It has super amazing awesome powers, and nobody seems to care about this…why? You've got people surrounded by rare, incredible creatures. Where is my fear and worship of the unknown? Granted, we're the only species we have to go on, but these little buggers are human, right? I think it's safe to base it off of that. We go from worship of the sun, then we go to polygamy, and then we play My God's Greater Than Your God until we have, like, eighty different religions who are screaming, "Not only is my God the strongest, but he's also the only real one! Suck it!"
Hell, you can even have fun and make it a little cliché. Watch:
He finally came back, sipping gently at the steaming liquid. "So, what'll you be doing?"
"Fishing, reading, watching chick flicks." She sighed, a faint blush flashing across her cheeks. "Or confessing my love to someone."
"No way."
"My sisters have been trying to get me to do it for years. It's supposed to be all romantic and blessed and wonderful and you have a long happy, awesome relationship. Still, it's weird to do. Just come out and confess to whoever because of a holiday." She laughed a little, pulling her knees up to her chest on the couch and eyeing the happy people have wacky holiday hijinks on the current public access channel. "It won't change anything."
Voila! Confessing your love scenario, right there. Who doesn't like a good, embarrassing confession, hmm?
To go even farther with all of this, where is my mocking? That's right, where is that little banter between people where they're like, "Ha ha, your god is fat" and "Ha ha, talking snake"? It happens. Don't pretend it doesn't. Just watch a little bit, and it's easy to see. Pretty much everyone finds each other's religion silly, don't they? I mean, you'd believe their religion if you didn't see some kind of flaw in it. So where's that making fun of beliefs? Where's that teasing about customs? I would die without that! I love that! It's good to laugh at ourselves!
"That sounds like doubt."
"Shut up!" she snapped, but her eyes flicking up over her knees were dancing.
"Why, Misty, is that blasphemy I hear?" he taunted. He carefully set down his hot chocolate, then tackled her, pinning her down to the couch. She didn't resist very much, but that was probably because she had spent the night eating Christmas cookies until she was close to exploding. "Are you saying that the blessed Moltres won't bring you a boyfriend if you follow its commands?"
"Are you making fun of my religion?" she accused.
He sighed and shook his head. "Mist, I have to. You believe the fire chicken is magic. You worship a delicious entrée."
"First of all no, we don't worship an entrée." She giggled up at him. "We don't think she's magic. It's spiritual, you dolt. Second, what about what you worship mister…what are you?"
"Human," he quipped.
"No, what do you worship?"
Oh, and by the way! As long as I'm throwing everything out there. Where, exactly, is this?
"I don't."
You can't see me but I'm looking at you expectantly. You are aware that those of us who have no real religion, religions that don't have holidays in winter, atheists and agnostics don't disappear around the holidays? They exist, you know. Though, I guess those of you that celebrate Christmas wouldn't know. Us and the Jews that aren't obligatory go and have a parade in the streets. It's fantastic, really. Don't let anyone know I told you, though. It's a secret.
"Ooh, nothing?" She clucked her tongue disapprovingly. "That's blasphemy, boyo."
"Is it?" he teased. "I'll drag you down with me. Just wait. The twenty fifth rolls around and there'll be a partridge in a pear tree."
"You better not. I'm a good little pagan and I'm not participating."
"Day two? Two calling birds and another partridge in a pear tree."
"I will cast an evil, wicked witch spell on you with the power the almighty Moltres has bestowed upon me."
"Day three? French hens. Three of them. Not to mention the birds and the tree again. And just wait until day five."
"I'll drag you into mine," she retorted.
"I'll have to drink an aphrodisiac?"
She blushed. "No. You know what I mean."
"What's that?" he asked.
And, finally, and ever so importantly:
She smiled. "The solstice is on Christmas this year."
He smiled back. "Yeah?"
"I could spend it with you." She shrugged shyly under him, glancing away. "If you want."
"I thought you said no aphrodisiac."
"I did, but I'd like to spend it with someone I really care about. We can train pokémon together, watch cheesey movies, all that stuff we love."
He rolled back off of her, sitting on the arm of the couch with a pretend serious nod. "That sounds cheaper than my tree idea."
"Mmm," she agreed, sitting up as well. "You haven't even paid me back for my bike yet, I doubt you could afford, you know, stuff."
"Are…are you sure you don't want to share that hot chocolate?"
"You only have one left." She laughed. "What, are you possessed by the Christmas spirit?"
"Nah," he said, shaking his head. "I'm just doing what I enjoy doing most."
Regardless of your religious beliefs, we're human in the end. So don't make them act romantic because it's Christmas, because it's their holiday. If they're going to be nice, have them do it because they're genuinely nice, because they genuinely care. You don't need Christmas to have this warm, tingly, beautiful feeling. You get it from someone being a good person. Adding a holiday to it is completely unnecessary.
Christmas is not magic. People get just as hurt, in fact, more so, than they do any other day. What it does do, however, is it makes us really notice the good things that people do. It makes us stop and think about the kind of people we are, and the type we want to be. It's not about expressing goodwill towards men. You should be doing that anyway. Christmas is your break, your time to sit back and notice it, to realize how absolutely amazing this world can be, and all the people in it.
I hope you all enjoy the time you spend with your family and friends.
I hope you love the presents you get and give, the wonderfully cheesey holiday movies, and your holiday feast.
Mostly, I just wish you all the happiness you can get!