I don't celebrate Christmas, but I realized that I've never written the holiday for Miss Peregrine and her kids, so I figured it was high time. This is my entry for the Writers Anonymous Holiday Challenge and the Caesar's Palace Winter Self-Care Challenge. Partially inspired by the children's book Winter is the Warmest Season, by Lauren Stringer.
Bits of ribbon and wrapping paper lay scattered across the carpet, along with a few pine needles that had fallen from the Christmas tree. A card from Abe in Florida sat on the mantle, showing Santa Claus stringing lights around a palm tree on a beach – Did you all know Santa summers in Florida? I bumped into him here, and it turns out, he's peculiar, too! – and the Christmas record spun on the record-player in the corner, currently on a choir singing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen."
Miss Peregrine and her children had woken up early and spent the morning unwrapping Christmas gifts from each other. Now, they were sprawled across the sofas and floor in the parlor, playing with new toys, flipping through new books, comparing presents, and winding down from all the excitement. Enoch had used his peculiarity to bring to life a set of nutcracker soldiers, and they were marching around the base of the tree, climbing up and down the little mountain of blocks that the twins had built.
"I think that's their favorite part of Christmas," Emma said, laughing a little, as she watched the twins watch the nutcrackers, "building things for those nutcrackers to climb over."
"This is my favorite part," Fiona said, stroking a branch of the Christmas tree with one hand, "growing the tree every year."
"It's a great tree, Fiona," Hugh complimented her, and she blushed with pride. "I think it's one of the best you've ever done." Fiona had grown the tree a few weeks ago, Bronwyn had carried it inside, and they'd all decorated it with paper chains and the shining ornaments that stayed in a box for the rest of the year, with Emma floating up to the ceiling to put the tinsel star on top. Miss Peregrine's children had gotten very good at putting on Christmas over the years. It felt so festive inside that they almost forgot that outside, it wasn't snowing, or even cold, but another warm, sunny September day.
Then Olive sighed, staring into the fire from where she sat on the sofa, and though the other children didn't notice, Miss Peregrine had very sharp senses when it came to her brood, and her ears, of course, picked up on it.
"Olive, whatever's the matter?" she asked.
"Oh, it's nothing, Miss P," Olive said softly. "I was just thinking about winter. I miss it, sometimes."
"What, winter?" Hugh scoffed. "Why would you miss being cold?"
"There's more to winter than just being cold."
"Like what?" Claire asked from the floor, where she and Bronwyn were playing with their new dolls. Claire had lived in September for so long that she couldn't remember any winters at all.
"Well, you see," Olive began, in her storytelling voice, "when it's cold outside, everybody does warm things to make up for it." Olive was good at telling stories, and soon, the younger children were all gathered around her, listening to her describe warm woolen mittens and long flannel pajamas, steaming bowls of soup and grilled cheese sandwiches toasted over the stove, family and friends snuggled close together. But the best thing about winter, Olive said, was all the fire. There were candles burning on windowsills, street-lamps glowing on corners, and fires blazing in hearths. Everyone simply loved a good fire in winter. Olive fell silent for a moment, remembering. That, she supposed, was why she'd always loved winter so much. Until she'd arrived at Miss Peregrine's house, winter was the only time when her peculiarity for fire felt like a gift, instead of a curse.
Winter sounded exotic to children who lived in an eternal September, and Claire closed her eyes, trying to imagine looking out at snowfall through a frosty windowpane. Suddenly, she had a very clever idea. She put on her best Please, Miss P? face and turned to her ymbryne. "Miss P," she asked, "couldn't you find a boy or girl with the peculiarity of controlling the weather, and bring them to live here?"
"Ooh, yes, could you, Miss P?" Millard asked. "Then we could have snow at Christmas, or whenever we wanted."
Miss Peregrine smiled – this wasn't an uncommon request from her brood – but said firmly, "Taking in another peculiar child is a big responsibility for me. I can't do it just because you want snow to play in." The children looked glum, and Miss Peregrine hesitated, weighing the possible danger, before she added, "But I suppose if you're really in the mood for cold weather, we could all step outside the loop for a little while."
This got their attention. They all gasped and grinned at each other and broke into excited cheers.
"A trip outside the loop! Hurrah!"
"I haven't been outside the loop for ages and ages."
"Really?" Enoch asked Miss Peregrine, looking not a little skeptical. Their ymbryne didn't often allow trips outside the loop.
"Really," she answered, lighting her pipe. "It's Christmas outside the loop, too, after all, and Christmas comes but once every twelve Septembers. We'll go this afternoon, but not for too long, mind."
Olive's face broke into a grin, more excited than anyone else as she gathered up the new knitting needles and skeins of yarn that she'd gotten for Christmas. "I'm going to knit us all matching hats!" she exclaimed, flailing her arms a bit.
Enoch groaned at this. "Olive, I don't—"
"With little matching pom-poms!"
Miss Peregrine said that they couldn't leave the loop unless they were dressed properly, so while Olive knitted, the rest of them rummaged deep into closets and trunks. They emerged with winter clothes that hadn't seen the light of day in years — coats and scarves and gloves that they awkwardly pulled on. A few of the children grew silent and somber as they did so, for it brought back memories of the last times that they had worn cold-weather clothes, before they had come to live in Miss Peregrine's house. Claire was the only one of her children who didn't have unhappy memories of her old life, and that was only because she'd been with Miss Peregrine since she was a baby.
"I... I think maybe I'd better not go," Fiona said nervously to Olive, her hands shaking as she tried to pull on a pair of gloves. "I never did like winter. Hardly any plants grow."
They were in Olive and Emma's room, where Olive was working on her hats, but as Fiona spoke, Miss Peregrine appeared in the doorway. She had some trick of knowing whenever she was needed, and now, she laid one hand over Fiona's until it stopped shaking.
"Fiona, you don't have to go if you don't want to," she said quietly, "but I promise, when you get back, your garden and all your plants will still be here, just as you left them." Fiona nodded, looking reassured.
"I guess you wouldn't like winter so much with your peculiarity," Olive said, turning one hat inside out to study the stitches. "But with mine..." She hesitated, then blurted out what she'd been thinking earlier. "Well, winter used to be the only time anyone wanted me around."
"We all want you here, Olive," Miss Peregrine said. "Everyone in this house does." She had said this before; in fact, she made sure that whenever a new peculiar child came into her care, it was one of the first things they heard from her. Some ymbrynes took in children with an air of reluctance, but Miss Peregrine always said, We're very glad to have you. For some of them, it was the first time they'd ever felt wanted.
"We do!" Fiona agreed, "and it's not just because of your peculiarity, either."
Olive knitted as fast as could, but even she couldn't finish matching hats for all her housemates in a few hours. She finished three — for Claire, Bronwyn, and Fiona ("because they're the youngest, so they have the smallest heads," she explained) — and stood back and exclaimed, "Oh, don't they look cute!" after they'd put them on. Emma even got out the camera and took a photograph to mail to Abe.
Their walk to the loop entrance was sweaty and uncomfortable, with all of them wearing heavy winter clothes in the late summer afternoon. In the meadow near their house, Fiona had grown topiary bushes shaped like snowmen, and the other children had decorated them just as they had seen real snowmen in picture-books, with coal eyes and carrot noses. Bronwyn shivered with excitement as they walked past them. Perhaps outside the loop, there would be enough snow to build real snowmen. When they reached the cave where the loop entrance was hidden, she was still excited, but a little scared, too.
The children stepped through the loop entrance a bit timidly — blinking and looking this way and that, for it was startling to go straight from September into winter. The weather outside their loop was very cold, and the sky above was gray and overcast. It was a dreary winter day, but to Miss Peregrine's children, it seemed strange and full of wonder. They slowly explored out further from the cave as their timidity melted away.
No snow was falling, but there was a thin layer on the ground, just enough to crush underfoot when they stepped on it. Claire gasped the first time she heard the crunching sound beneath her boots, and after each step, she twisted around to look at her footprints in the snow behind her. Their breaths came out in frosted little puffs. Hugh said that he felt like a smoke-breathing dragon, and Millard cried, "Look, you can even see my breath!" They took turns writing their names with twigs in a smooth patch of snow, and then they scooped up enough to throw some small snowballs at each other, ducking and shrieking with laughter.
"If only we could get some snow back home without it melting," Emma said, packing a snowball to throw at Horace, "then we could make it into candy, like Laura Ingalls did."
Miss Peregrine smiled they played, but she kept her gaze on the trees and boulders beyond the field, her sharp eyes peeled for the first sign of anything amiss. She held her pocketwatch in one hand, always aware of the dangers that would befall them if too many minutes ticked away outside their loop.
The cold air bit at their faces and made their cheeks glow pink, and when they began to turn from pink to red, Miss Peregrine announced that it was time to go home. The younger children gave a chorus of awww's, but they didn't protest or try to bargain for more time — they knew it was useless with their ymbryne. Besides, it was fun to run out of the cold, dark winter day back into the warm September sunshine.
"Hullo, loop!" Claire cheered, as she ran back out of the cave. "We're back again! Did you miss us? Miss P, can we do this again next Christmas?"
Bronwyn rubbed one hand over her mouth, frowned, and slipped closer to Miss Peregrine. "Miss P? Why do my lips feel all funny?"
"They're chapped from the cold," Miss Peregrine said. She took Bronwyn's hand in hers, a bit distracted as she counted heads to make sure all her children had returned to the loop safely. "We'll put some vaseline on them when we get home."
"Your lips always would get chapped in winter," Horace said, touching his mouth, too. "Would you know, I'd forgotten that."
"I always hated winter," Fiona said, "but I guess it's not all bad." She started to brush off some snow that had landed on her hat and her braids, but Olive rushed over and stopped her.
"Don't! Don't brush it off — here, I want to hold on to it, just for a little longer." Olive delicately brushed the snowflakes off Fiona into the thick leather gloves that she always wore. "It's the last of winter I'll see for a long time," she added sadly, "so I've got to make it count." Her hands that usually kindled flames so easily now cupped the snow as if it were the most precious thing in the world, until it melted and was gone.