Iroh's First Christmas

Once upon a time, in a little Fire Nation war ship, there was a retired general named Iroh. Now Iroh was an old man, his beard gray, his belly was plump, and he wore the dark red armor of the Fire Nation. While drinking some new exotic peppermint spice tea, the old man realized he wasn't quiet where he thought he was.

"You're on in five minutes," a grumpy short man in odd green attire scolded the confused old man. "And take off that cheesy body armor, nobody's going to be shooting Santa."

"Excuse me?" Iroh said. "Five minutes until what, exactly?"

The green-clad man sighed in frustration. Did they send another one with Alzheimer's? he thought to himself meanly. "Santa, you're on in four minutes. You know the drill, sat there, listen to kids prattle on, have your picture taken with them. Same old, same old."

"I am Iroh, not Santa," Iroh gently corrected.

The grumpy man dressed as an elf rolled his eyes, wondering how many more hours of volunteer work he had left. He began to wonder if he had made the wrong choice in choosing community service over jail time.

"Of course you're not Santa," the disgruntled elf said sharply. "But the children want to believe you are. You can make believe you're Santa for the children can't you?"

"Well, I suppose," Iroh said thoughtfully. Children are okay. Agni knows Zuko was much easier to handle as a child.

"Okay," the elf said, holding up a red and white suit. "Now get out of that body armor, get into this Santa suit and get out there! You have three minutes!"

"Fine fine," Iroh agreed. "Help me out of this armor then."

"Geez," the elf grumbled. "How did you get into this to begin with? Mrs Claus must sure be in great shape to help lift this crap."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Zuko was in a bad mood. He walked into his uncle's chamber, expecting to find the gray-haired old sage, but instead finding a white bearded fat guy who smelled of whiskey.

"Where is my uncle?" Zuko demanded angrily.

"Hohoho," the drunk old man said. "What do you want for Christmas, little boy?"

"Your head on my a platter," the angry prince growled. "Where is my uncle?"

"My, my," the old-timer chortled. "If you talk like that to Santa Claus you won't get anything but coal in your stocking."

"Leave my socks alone," Zuko snapped. The old man must be daft.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"I want a pony," a little girl dressed in pink began, trying to talk as fast as humanly possible. "An' a princess dress, an' a butterfly hair-bands, an' a pink convertible for my dollie."

"Oh my," Iroh commented. "Good luck with all that, it is an awful lot."

"But," the little girl said, her face scrunching up as if she were about to burst into tears. "I was a GOOD girl this year!"

"Oh, you were?" the gray-haired asked gently.

"Yes," the girl said bravely. "I gave you lots of cookies an' milk last year. I wanna do the same this year."

"Hmmm," Iroh pondered. "Maybe it might be better if this year, you give me tea, not milk."

"Ohhh," the girl said wide-eyed. "Okay. If I leave tea, you promise?"

"Sure," Iroh smiled. "Have a good Chris-mas."

A young boy ran up to Iroh, and immediately began chattering away about the latest "action figures." Whatever those were. Iroh, bored with the idle chatter, couldn't help but notice the mother of the very young man.

The woman's long dark hair reminded him of a woman bounty hunter he had once encountered. On a whim he spoke up and said, "Excuse me ma'am, your son seems to miss you, you may join him on my lap if you desire."

The mother of the little boy raised her eyebrow, it was bad enough her child was encouraged to sit on an old man's lap, she would not stand for the old man making passes at her. She grabbed her child and left post haste.