"Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells Jingle all the way!"
Bones wanted to roll his eyes and tell Jim that he should stop singing...but he didn't know.
Today had been too good of a day for that.
He still refused to sing along.
They had gotten to Iowa for Christmas break late two nights before. It was cold, it was snowy, and Jim had woken them up at Six that morning. And why?
He wanted to make cookies.
"I'm making ones shaped like Santa." Bones had said. "And Baby Jesus and Christmas Trees and-"
"-and I'll make star shapes and angels. And Spock can make...I dunno. Something." Kirk shrugged. "My point is it's time for Christmas Cookies!"
A few hours later they had managed to make several dozen Christmas cookies with only minimal assistance by Winona Kirk. Jim and Bones were finally frosting the last few. Spock had decided to do the dishes in order to keep occupied as Jim and Bones had essentially told him to stop helping with the cookies after frosting and decorating well over half of them on his own.
And all the while Kirk had had the radio on playing holiday music and occaisionally singing along.
"So what are we gonna do with all of these?" Bones asked.
"This does seem like a lot of confections for the number of people in this household." Spock commented.
"Oh I think we could manage to eat them all." Jim said. "It would just probably be a bad choice. So, we'll probably give them away to the neighbors."
"...we're in the country. What neighbors?" Bones asked. "the closet 'neighbor' is half a mile away."
"And that's what cars are for!" Kirk said cheerily. "Come on let's get these boxed up."
"Hello! Merry Christmas!"
"Well! Jim Kirk!"
"Hey Mrs. Jones." Jim said. "We brought you cookies." he said, offering the middle aged lady at the door the tin of cookies.
"Oh thank you!" she said, taking the tin. "we'll enjoy these-how are things at the academy?"
"It's going great! These are actually my roommates. Bones."
"Hello ma'am."
"And Spock."
"Hello."
"Well." Mrs Jones looked Spock over. "You're a ways from home, aren't you?"
"That is true." Spock agreed.
"Well, we're all a part of the federation. Do you boys want to step in?" she offered.
"Thanks but we'd better get heading home for dinner."
"Alright, drive safe and tell your mother happy holidays from us!"
"Thanks I will!" Jim smile and waved goodbye before heading back out to the car with Spock and Bones.
"They all react the same way." Bones commented.
"It almost formulaic." Spock commented.
"What do you mean?" Kirk asked.
"knock on the door, 'Oh Jim Kirk!' blah blah blah, we give them cookies, they comment on Spock, try to cover up that they were startled by Spock, invite us in, we say no and leave. Merry Christmas!" Bones said. "wash rinse repeat."
"Hm. I suppose so." Kirk admitted. "But think about where you came from, Bones. Would it be any different?"
"...No." Bones said.
"Exactly. Besides I like it. It's familiar. And pretty soon there's not gonna be a lot of familiar for us." Kirk pointed out.
"You'll still be able to celebrate your respective holidays while serving off-planet." Spock said.
"Won't be the same." Bones said. "You're not gonna have neighbors bringing you Christmas cookies and the radios playing jingle bells."
Kirk chuckled.
"What?" Bones asked.
"I just was thinking about it: imagine trying to open up a subspace channel on Christmas but you can't because Starfleet is playing carols on all of them." Jim said with a wide smile as he steered the car around a corner towards home.
That earned him a laugh from Bones as he moved to turn on the radio, listening to 'Silent Night' for the rest of the ride home.
Spock stood out on the porch. It was late at night and he was watching the snow fall. Snow was something that fascinated him. He supposed it was because it was something abnormal to him-foreign in both figurative and literal senses of the word.
"How are you not freezing?" Jim stepped out onto the porch to join Spock.
"I have a hat, gloves, jacket and scarf.
"And all of your exposed face is green." Jim said.
"I will come in if I feel adversely effected by the cold. I will point out you aren't even wearing a coat."
"Eh. I have a sweater, I'm midwest enough that that's all I need." Jim shrugged and leaned back against the porch railing, looking to Spock. "So why are you out here?"
"I'm observing the snowfall." Spock said. "It's aesthetically pleasing. It provides a kind of...I suppose the word in English would be 'peace'."
"Like you get when you're meditating?" Jim asked.
"Similar." Spock assented.
"I get that." Kirk said. "I like how everything looks after snowstorms. It's so bright and white and smooth and clean." Kirk said. "And it's so quiet outside when it's snowing-like the whole world just froze and is watching the snow fall with us."
"More poetic than literal but I understand your meaning." Spock said, looking to Jim then back out the falling snow caught in the lights.
Kirk nodded and simply stayed outside with Spock in silence for a while longer until Bones poked his head out the door.
"Will you two come in before you get hypothermia and die?!" He said.
"We're not gonna get Hypothermia from watching a little snowfall, Bones" Jim said with an eyeroll.
"-I am a medical student and someday I might be your doctor so don't you even start on telling me what you can and cannot get, Jim Kirk! Now come inside there's hot chocolate for you and me and some kinda peppermint drink your mom showed me how to make to warm Spock up." Bones said, gesturing for his roommates to come inside.
Kirk laughed but headed inside, followed by Spock who paused just briefly to look out at the snow again before going inside and turning the porch-light off as he did so to leave the snow to fall to dark and peaceful silence.