The Atlantis year is a few months longer than the Earth one, and the third Earth-calendar Christmas falls in the middle of the hot summer. They hold the party mid-day and leave all the doors open to the air outside. John spends the morning shuttling willing Athosians in from the mainland for the festivities, and the control room this Christmas is filled with noise and people and the smell of ocean salt.
Teyla has taken an active interest in human holidays and rituals over the course of the year, and John enjoys teaching her. After three years of knowing him, she has gotten better at following his explanations about Earth culture, even when he forgets to footnote foreign concepts like after-Christmas sales and the importance of flying reindeer.
Because the event is so well attended or because they had all managed to get home to Earth by a one-time miracle of technology earlier in the year, the holiday cheer feels genuinely cheerful this time around.
"Candy canes are the best part of Christmas," John says to a pack of interested Athosians, and he notices how Wex's eyes widened in excitement. The kids -- growing up disturbingly quickly, but still kids -- learned about this magical thing called candy when they had still lived in Atlantis proper.
"And mistletoe," Ford chimes in, casting what would have been a painfully obvious glance at Teyla if Teyla wasn't being equally painfully oblivious.
"Is that a kind of candy, too?" she asks.
John leaves Ford to explain that one and drifts to the other side of the control room where Elizabeth is busy proving that she can recite the entirety of 'Twas The Night Before Christmas from memory.
"'... and to all a good night.' See?"
"Well, it's not like we can check to see if she got it right," McKay points out, but he claps along with everyone else as Elizabeth takes a dramatized bow.
With everyone making the rounds to talk to Athosians they haven't seen since the planting season a month or two earlier, it isn't long before he has Elizabeth to himself.
"Impressive," he says. "Is that what they teach you in graduate school?"
She grins, wiping her hands on the skirt of her Athosian-style sundress. "My mother loves that one. Whichever one of us could say it through without mistakes got to open a present early on Christmas Eve." Her smile widens. "I always won."
He's smiling, too. "I'll bet."
"So, what were you telling the Athosians about?" She leads him over toward the punch bowl and ladles the drink into both their glasses. The moonshine is a lot better this year -- a fruity wine his team traded for a few months earlier and managed to hide away until this party.
"Stockings. Christmas trees. Candy canes. Ford's explaining mistletoe to them right now."
Her eyes twinkle with a deviousness he loves in her. She doesn't show it often, but he suspects there's always something wicked going on in her head. "I'm sure Teyla will appreciate that."
"Too bad we didn't bring any along. Essential mission supplies."
"Grodin cut some out of paper," she points to the Stargate, a few meters away. "It's not the same."
There are indeed a few paper leaves strung to the top of the giant stone ring. He has no idea how Grodin managed to get that decoration up there without killing himself.
"Close enough," he says, and steals a kiss.
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