Day 4: Holiday Preparation "America, we're in a recession." England sighed as he sipped his tea. All morning, America had been bouncing off the walls, so excited and desperate to waste money on useless items. "More reason to celebrate! It's been a tough year for everyone, and if we spend more money then we'll stimulate the economy and more money will be flowing and there won't be a recession and everyone wins!" England turned the page of his book. Flip. "And we can go to the mall and get all these free samples and sit on Santa's lap and take a picture with him and sing Christmas carols! And we can buy Christmas gifts too and avoid the last minute shopping rush! Look at how much you've rubbed off on me. Pleeease can we go?" America flashed the best pouty puppy dog eyes he could summon. Flip. America grabbed a catalogue off the coffee table and waved it in front of England's face. He violently stabbed at an electric pencil holder that was remote controlled and lit up. "Look at what a good deal this is! It's so cool how can you not want this?" The truth was, Alfred did know why Arthur wasn't impressed by any new (useless) technology that came out. He was so old, he had simply ceased to be surprised by anything anymore. Once his empire collapsed, England had settled for a simpler lifestyle with no traces of his former lavish preferences. "Seriously old man, you have to go shopping with me! Everything is on sale and we can spend the rest of the day decorating!" Flip. "Come on! Stop being such an old man! How can you not be excited for Christmas! You guys practically invented the Christmas tree why aren't you getting off the couch!?" Finally, Arthur looked up from his book. He responded drily, "Germany came up with the Christmas tree. He brought it over as part of a political exchange. America, you're in a recession. You have a forest of Christmas trees sitting in your attic and rooms solely dedicated to the storage of decorations." "Yeah, but they're old. It's different. I can't just reuse my tree from 1984 that would be lame! Prussia will never let me forget." "So don't invite him." "Turkey will think I'm too poor and try to convince Greece to convince Prussia to convince Germany to invade my vital regions!" England massaged his temples and sighed. "Stop being such a colony. You know that Germany will do no such thing. He's not stupid enough to get us into another war. Greece is also too lazy to convince anyone of anything other than giving him more money. And if Turkey is such an issue, don't invite him either. He doesn't even celebrate Christmas." America pouted. "You just suck the fun out of everything. I don't know why I still hang out with you." He looked so dejected that even Nantucket was drooping. Guilt tugged at England's heartstrings. England slipped his bookmark between his pages and set the book aside. He pulled America down so they were sitting side by side. "America," England cautiously started, "why we spend a quiet Christmas together without all the other nations? Anytime you have more than three nations in the same place at once is a war zone and we have enough of that during world meetings. Besides, you hate cleaning up and you never get worthwhile gifts. Not to mention the thousands of dollars of property damage you end up with. And we never really get to spend Christmas together." America was silent. "Half the countries don't celebrate Christmas either, so why not just have a quiet holiday like Japan? We can go shop for a Christmas tree in your attic and decorate it ourselves? You always loved putting up your own decorations when you were a colony, so why hire humans to do it? We'll have a quiet night in. Just the two of us and Canada. You won't have to chase everyone around and your neighbours won't report you for being disruptive. How does that sound?" America smiled.
"Perfect."