The Manic Adventure Of Sam, Zee, and Jackie
Chapter 18: Holidays Explained (Christmas And Halloween)
The company had been staying at Beorn's place for two days at this point and the girls have been asked to tell the dwarves about some traditions of their people. Of course, the one thing that had the girl's talking nonstop was Christmas, their favorite holiday.
They told the dwarves stories of Santa Claus and his reindeer, the elves seemed to be the dwarves' favorite part as the description of the jolly people would actually be insulting to the elves in Middle-Earth. Short with rosy cheeks, always building toys for children, wearing pointy shoes with little bells, and not exactly in the spotlight like Santa, the elves here would totally be furious to hear this.
"These elves," Thorin smiled, trying to not laugh, "why do they work for this Santa?"
"Dunno." Sam shrugged, it never occurred to her that the elves would be upset for being in the background. "Just how things worked out I guess."
"There are songs written just for Christmas!" Jackie told the rest of the dwarves innocently, "Lots of popular ones get reused every year too."
"Like the song Baby, It's Cold Outside!" Zee grinned as she listed some songs off the top of her head, "The Twelve Days of Christmas and Sleigh Ride!"
"What was that first song you mentioned?" Bofur asked, "It sounded strange."
"Baby, It's Cold Outside?" Zee repeated, "It's a duet between a guy and a girl. The girl is trying to go home but the guy tries to convince her to stay with him. In the end she stays."
"Will you sing it?" Kili asked, the song sounded intriguing to him and who knows, he might learn something from it.
"Oh no, no no!" Zee shook her head, "But, Sam can!"
Sam gasped in shock and glared at her friend, "No, I cannot!" Why was Zee out to break Sam's comfort zone, the younger girl knew how shy Sam was. Singing was not something she did all the time and the main reason was that she firmly believed that she could not sing.
"Yes, you can." Zee rolled her head toward Sam, "Sam, you will sing."
Sam shook her head, "You can't make me!" She crossed her arms and huffed.
Telling Zee that she couldn't make Sam sing was a mistake, Zee always had something to blackmail Sam with. Leaning toward Sam, Zee whispered, "I'll tell them about your burning food incident."
Sam's eyes widened, damn this evil girl. "Fine, I'll sing..." Suddenly, Sam felt like she was going to be sick but she didn't worry about it too much. After all, she felt the exact same way when she first sang for Zee back when they still lived in their world.
"And while you're at it," Zee grinned at Sam, "you should sing Let It Snow, Sleigh Ride, The Twelve Days Of Christmas, and maybe-"
Jackie cover Zee's mouth and said, "You're asking a lot of Sam already, don't push it."
Zee pushed Jackie off and sighed, "Fine, go about your way Sam."
Sam gave Zee a dirty look, the tone Zee used was one she knew very well. It was the tone used to guilt people and Sam refused to fall victim to it. One thing Sam didn't like about Zee was that Zee was always trying to test Sam, showing the same amount of stubbornness as Sam and sometimes exceeding it.
"I believe you have a fine voice." The dwarves, Bilbo, Gandalf, and Beorn had been complimenting Sam after her singing session had ended. They tried encouraging her that her voice was fine but they eventually got a hint when her face turned tomato red. She didn't talk much after that, her throat was a bit sore so she didn't plan on pushing it and just leaned against Fili's shoulder.
"So tell us of this present giving you mentioned." Thorin asked from his spot against the wall, "You made reference to giving gifts to family and friends."
"Oh yeah!" Zee nodded, "That's something kind of expected to happen, you go buy or make gifts for the people you care about."
"You can't tell them what it is until December twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth." Jackie continued, "December twenty-fourth is Christmas Eve and some people open some presents that day, saving the rest for Christmas day on the twenty-fifth."
"What kind of gifts do you give?" Balin asked curiously.
"Depends on the person you're buying or making them for." Jackie shrugged, "Little kids obviously want toys, people of our age group prefer things like jewelry, styled clothes, and whatnot."
"What are styled clothes?" Bombur asked, munching on a honey cake, "Sounds peculiar."
"We sell clothes that are branded by a name, sort of like how jewelry coming from dwarves is branded as dwarvish make." Zee explained, she figured that would be the best explanation she could give without confusing the dwarves. "Either way, to keep anyone from knowing what you got them you have to wrap them in decorated paper."
"Decorated paper?" Ori asked, "What do you mean by that?"
"It's special paper that has little designs on it, sometimes they have pictures too." Zee thought about what else she could tell them about Christmas. "We also have a thing for a mistletoe."
"A mistletoe?" Fili cocked his head to the left, "What about it?"
"Well, it's tradition that if you should find yourself under a mistletoe with someone, namely someone you love, you have to kiss them." Jackie told him, "It's also a running joke for boys or girls to chase people with them to get a kiss, it's just a joke though."
"Sounds rather interesting to me." Gloin laughed, "I may have to try that with my wife one day!"
Sam looked up at Fili, "We're are so not trying that crap."
Fili chuckled, "Alright Âzyungâl, I get the message." It was started to sound so normal to hear him talk like the girls. "So, what other holidays do you girls celebrate?"
"Halloween!" Sam smiled a bit, "It's my second favorite holiday."
"And why is that?" Kili asked, chewing on a straw of hay, "What is it?"
"It's a holiday where you get to dress up in costumes and go around asking for candy." Zee said dreamily, how she loved getting free candy just like Sam and Jackie, "Dressing up is the best part because you're dressing up as a character rather than wearing everyday clothes."
"Who have you dressed up as?" Ori asked, "Would we know of these characters?"
The girls fought against blushing, they surely were not going to tell the dwarves how they were going to dress up as Gandalf, Legolas, and Bilbo that Halloween. You know, before they wound up here.
"Well, I really like this one story called Phantom of The Opera," Sam said softly to not strain her voice, "I was the Phantom once, I didn't like the other characters."
"I was a character called Red Riding Hood once." Zee laughed a bit, she wasn't going to mention how Sam forced her into the outfit and bloodied her up. She didn't want to go into the detail of the fake wounds and blood, they might scare the poor dwarves.
"I've never really dressed up for Halloween, that was more of these two." Jackie stated, "Either way, it's actually pretty fun."
"Why would you want to dress up as someone else?" Dori asked, he didn't understand that part. "What's the point of that?"
"It's fun." Zee shrugged, "I mean, why would you want to wear the same boring clothes everyday? At least once a year you can have a change."
"So what date is Halloween?" Ori asked, he was writing everything down in his journal for future references. Not the any other dwarves might find the information useful but he liked having a record of the girls. After all, Sam was going to be queen. Hopefully.
"October thirty-first." The three girls stated in unison.
The dwarves started talking about these strange holidays, Kili admitted that he liked the sound of Halloween more. To prove that, he stole Gandalf's hat and staff and began mimicking the wizard. Actually, he would totally be accurate if he had Gandalf's pipe.
Dori admitted to enjoying Christmas as he could imagine giving Ori presents, Nori could managed on his own for all Dori cared. After all, Nori stole most of what is known as his possessions. Thorin even admitted that if the dwarves celebrated Christmas he would give Nori a swift kick in the ass.
The debate of whether Christmas or Halloween was a better continued for a good hour before Beorn presented dinner. Beorn himself took part in the debate, choosing Christmas as he felt it was a more joyful holiday than Halloween. Gandalf, while smoking his pipe, took to both holidays as he felt they, in their own rights, were appealing.
"What could you say would be a great holiday for dwarves?" Gloin asked the girls, all the dwarves had been thinking of adapting for themselves. "Christmas or Halloween?"
Sam thought about that, she figured that Christmas would be the best bet but she could see also see them doing Halloween. Okay, maybe they wouldn't do Halloween correctly but it would be funny for her to watch.
Zee also felt that Halloween would be a chaos for the dwarves but Christmas also would have been a bit of a mess too.
"I think they both would be okay," Jackie said as she thought the idea over, "but I think if you were gonna try them we would have to supervise you just so you don't manage to hurt yourself."
Gandalf, Beorn, and Bilbo fought against laughing while the dwarves questioned what they meant by the response.
"Well jeez!" Zee coughed in a small, effortless attempt to cover her own laughter, "With all the decorating and whatnot involved, there's absolutely no way we can trust you guys by yourselves!"
"Besides," Sam added, grinning innocently at Fili, "you guys get into stupid fights so easily so I can totally see you guys turning decorations into weapons."
"Or causing a fire." Jackie shrugged, not caring about how the dwarves took their honesty.
"And maybe making each other sick with attempts to bake cookies." Zee laughed a bit before she realized she had started a bit of a war. The dwarves believed that they could survive the holidays but no one else could say the same.
So our little gift for our readers. Just this last weekend My family and my friend went to Disneyland and last Tuesday night My mom and I saw the last Hobbit. I cried, I started sobbing from the beginning but I got really sad at an obvious part. Figure it out because even though everyone knows the ending, I don't want to spoil the movie's events. For those who did watch the movie, you'll get it.
Also, to an anonymous reviewer, Zee is extremely flattered that you find her to be your favorite. I'll be honest, I laughed when I saw the review and so did Jackie.