Decorations were hit or miss with Shadow nowadays.
When he was young, growing up on the ARK where decorations were limited and less prioritized, a bit of tinsel or a string of lights had been breathtaking and amazing, something to inspire hope and joy and the feeling that something special was happening.
On the planet, where decorations were plastered just about everywhere he looked, the effect was lost and the practice seemed much more obnoxious than festive.
Decorating, on the other hand, still held a certain degree of fun.
Shadow genuinely enjoyed spending one of his rare days off in Club Rouge, decorating it from top to bottom with lights and plants and ornaments, even with Rouge's perfectionism driving her to make him redo entire sections and move everything around. It was mindless, busy work, and there was something that hit different about decorating a place himself, as opposed to seeing the garish finished product in other places.
They made their way back up to their home, and Shadow regarded their own space, devoid of decorations, save for a box of tree ornaments and Rouge's menorah, which she had decided to keep out for just a little while longer. The two mobians took a rest on the couch, watching a few episodes of Shadow's newest favorite anime until Omega came back home with a tree in tow.
The tree went by their fireplace, and Shadow prepared himself for the final stretch in his decorating marathon. Rouge opened up the box of ornaments as he and Omega plugged together the lights on the tree and tested to make sure it all worked. Once it was ready, Rouge started playing a holiday movie for background noise as the ornaments came out of the box one by one.
There were the generic glass and plastic balls, and a few candy canes as well, but some ornaments had stories behind them, which Rouge would tell, sometimes with fervor and a grin on her face, other times with a nostalgic sadness and the understanding that this was yet another piece of her family she had inherited. As Shadow hung these more sentimental ornaments on the branches, he wondered if he could buy or make a special one of his own.
Rouge herself took the final piece, the star for the top of the tree, and flew up to place it. She stayed in the air, admiring their work from above, and remarked, "I know it always looks like Christmas exploded on everything this time of year, but there's just something special about a tree."
And in spite of everything, Shadow had to agree. At the very least, there was something special about their tree.
The three flopped down on the couch, with Omega observing the ending of the movie and remarking on its similarities with others in the genre, and Rouge eating some store-bought gingerbread cookies since none of them had the time nor the skill to bake any of their own, and Shadow looked again at their living room, devoid of decorations save for the tree and the menorah, both of which filled him with the warm feeling that he had once felt as a child on the space colony when December approached.
This is enough, he decided as he sunk back into the couch with his family and watched the credits roll. This is just the right amount.