Gabby couldn't wait for Life Day this year because this time she would be celebrating with family from both of her parents' sides of the family. Her maternal grandparents always made the best blossom bread for Life Day, and this was also Omega's first Life Day with her new family and the babies' very first Life Day ever. It was going to be a wonderful holiday; she could feel it!
While many Jedi were staying at the Temple to celebrate the holidays together, some were traveling to other areas. One of them was Obi-Wan Kenobi.
With Satine being almost six months pregnant now, she and Obi-Wan found themselves swarmed with a mountain of Life Day presents for their new baby, and Satine's baby shower wasn't for another month. They were both so excited to meet their new baby. Peppermint was excited for her rider and his wife.
She was excited for Life Day this year too because this year, her sisters would be joining her and the Kenobies for the holiday.
Peppermint placed some little bags of her famous peppermint bark in the stockings the kids set out for Santa to stuff on Life Day Eve. She couldn't wait to share her family's traditions with Obi-Wan's family.
"Are you almost done packing, Peppermint?" asked Obi-Wan.
"Just about done." Peppermint said.
"Merry Life Day, Uncle Obi-Wan. Merry Life Day, Peppermint." Gabby said, giving them two red envelopes with their names on them.
"Merry Life Day, Gabby." said Obi-Wan. "I see you haven't lost your love of making cards."
"Thanks, Gabby." said Peppermint, opening hers, finding a card with a little pop-up tree in it. "Wow. Pop-up cards."
"Thought I'd try something new this year." Gabby said. "You guys ready to celebrate Life Day this year?"
"You bet. Sugar Cane and Firework are gonna love seeing Mandalore and the palace." Peppermint said.
Meanwhile, Ki-Adi was getting his things packed. Every year for Life Day, or Heartmas as it was called in Equinaro, the royal family had a special gathering at the palace, and every member of the family was in attendance. Comedia, being the royal jokester, was no exception.
However, Ki-Adi noticed his equine daughter had not even started packing her bags.
"Comedia, finish getting ready." said the Cerea. "We have to go soon."
"Don't wanna." Comedia whined, pouting like a five-year-old who'd been caught sneaking a cookie from the jar before dinner.
"Comedia, it's the holiday, and your family will be expecting you."
Ki-Adi started to put Comedia's things in the bag for her, but Comedia started taking things out as he picked up other things to put in. Comedia was insistent on staying at the Temple to celebrate Life Day just with her rider. But her rider wouldn't hear it.
"Comedia! Stop playing around."
Ki-Adi placed more of Comedia's things into the suitcase, and Comedia dumped the entire thing on the floor!
"Comedia Adira Evermare!" Ki-Adi scolded.
"I'm not going, and you can't make me!" Comedia exclaimed angrily. And she rand and squeezed under her rider's bed, where she dug into a stash of gummy bears.
Gabby froze when she walked in on this. Ki-Adi just sighed and facepalmed.
"Hi, Uncle Ki-Adi." Gabby said, placing two cards and an apple wrapped with a ribbon on the table. "Is Comedia okay?"
"She could be better."
"Can I do anything to help?"
"Perhaps. She doesn't seem to want to listen to me."
Gabby went to the bed and crawled underneath.
"Hi, Comedia." Gabby said gently. "I came to wish you a Merry Life Day."
"Thanks. But I don't think it will be."
"Why not?"
Comedia told Gabby about the holiday event that went on with the royal family. They had this big tradition of hosting a ball exclusively for the royal family and every member showed up. And there was music, a feast, and a gift exchange.
"That sounds like fun, though."
Comedia snorted. "You haven't met my clan of the family. They wouldn't know fun if it hit them in the face."
Gabby had heard that Comedia's family treated her like an outcast, but she didn't know it was so bad to the point where she didn't even want to see them for the holidays. She'd met snobby folks before, but none of them were the family of any of her close friends.
"Comedia, I don't know your family, but I'm sure they wanna see you."
"The only part you got correct is that you don't know my family." said Comedia. "Literally from the moment I was born they were disappointed in me."
Comedia pulled out the family photo she'd shown her rider before.
"See this?"
"Yeah. You were such a cute filly."
"Thanks, but look. What do you notice in this picture?"
Gabby took a good look at the picture. Comedia's parents' manes were either golden or emerald green, and Emeraldi's mane was all emerald green, and Comedia was the only one in the picture with curly hair in two colors.
"Are you saying they're disappointed in you because of your hair?"
"Partially. It's because I was born a silly-corn. And they tried to hide it from me for years."
You may have heard of musicorns, candy-corns, and even alicorns, but silly-corns were a very special kind of unicorn. They were notoriously known for their humorous nature, as well as having very colorful manes. The day Comedia was born, her parents thought there had been a mix-up. But the doctors assured them that she was theirs, and when she started to show magic, they confirmed she was a silly-corn.
The last thing the Evermares wanted was a daughter who would jeapordize their elite status by playing jokes and clowning around. So, over the years, they tried to push down the silly stuff by blocking any source of silliness from Comedia's life. When she was four, they showed her a scary clown movie so she wouldn't approach any actual silly ones at birthday parties or the circus. She wasn't allowed to watch classic cartoons, nobody was allowed to tell jokes or even laugh around her unless it was just a chuckle. They tried to pass their posh, serious ways down to her. But, Comedia ended up finding things that made her laugh anyway.
And when she came home one day wearing a propeller beanie instead of her tiara, her parents said straight to her face that they were so disappointed in her.
"Wait, so they decided to tell you they were disappointed just because you came home wearing a funny hat?" said Gabby. "I think it's cute."
"Exactly!" Comedia said. "And even as they tried to make me be like them, they always compared me to Emeraldi right in front of me, and then they tried to give me away."
"But Queen Reigna knew you were going to be given to a rider."
"She doesn't know how my family really treated me, though." Comedia said. "She and my father were close as foals, and my father doesn't let her know that he favors one child over the other because he's fifth in line for the throne."
In order for the royal family where heirs were concerned, Fantasia was first. Next was her sister Dream Heart, then Forsythia, then their cousin Winter. That placed Gentry fifth in line. And Emeraldi in sixth, Comedia in seventh.
"Have you ever thought of telling her about this?" Gabby asked.
"How many times have you ever seen grownups actually listen to kids claiming an adult is doing something bad to them?"
Gabby was silent.
"Exactly." Comedia nodded. "Jokes are the only thing anyone expects from me, and that's all my family will ever see me as! So, by staying away, I'm giving them their Life Day present."
"But not all your family is like that." Gabby said. "Queen Reigna obviously loves you. When you were matched with Uncle Ki-Adi, she made sure he would know everything he needed to know to take care of you. And he obviously cares about you."
"So why doesn't he just honor my wishes to stay away from my biological family?"
"Because I believe this is the best time of year for you to confront the problem." Ki-Adi said, coming closer to under the bed. "The holidays are about remembering to appreciate family, our loved ones, and be together. Surely your family must understand that."
"All they see Heartmas as is a time of year to upstage everyone else at gift giving, and for Emeraldi to serenade everyone with a caroling solo."
"How do you know they haven't changed?"
"Snakes can shed their skin all they like, but they're still snakes underneath."
Ki-Adi picked up Comedia's panda bear and held it to her like she was a little kid.
"I think Benny Bear would disagree with that." He said.
"You know I'm not Gabby's age, right?" said Comedia, unamused.
"Hey, Comedia. Just go see your family for a little bit." Gabby said. "If you're still uncomfortable after that, I'm sure your rider won't make you stay if you don't want to."
Reluctantly, Comedia came out from the bed, picked up her teddy, and got packing. But, she was still in no hurry to get to the rest of her family.
Ahsoka was in for a ride this Life Day. Fiesta heard from Sunheart and Citrus that Master Plo was planning to pop the question to Shaak Tii for Life Day.
The two Jedi masters were often questioned a lot of things about their relationship since they officially got together. One of the most common questions was how do they show affection to each other? They can hug, but how could they kiss if Master Plo had to wear his mask all the time? And would they or could they even try to birth a child of their own? But, neither of them seemed worried. They made it work, and they had Ahsoka, Fiesta, Sunheart, and Citrus. A very unique family.
At this time, the very unique family was decorating their Life Day tree with gold balls, purple ribbons, little lights, and they were stringing popcorn to put on the tree. Except... they'd been stringing for an hour and only had about ten inches of popcorn on the string.
"That's strange," said Sunheart. "I thought we had more popcorn than this."
That was when they heard someone munching something and spotted Citrus gobbling up popcorn from the bowl. The only treat he loved almost as much as he loved oranges was popcorn.
"Citrus, stop eating all the popcorn!" Shaak scolded.
"Aw, but it's so good." Citrus said, trying to take another bite, only for the bowl to be swept away in an orange aura of magic.
"Citrus, you can have mas palomitas later." Fiesta said. "This palomitas is for the tree."
"Happy Life Day, everyone." said Gabby, walking in with cards for everyone and a couple apples for the horses and an orange for Citrus.
"Happy Life Day, Gabby." Ahsoka said, hugging the little girl. "Are you excited for Life Day this year?"
"You bet. We already sent our letters to Santa. And I'm so excited to be celebrating with all my grandparents this year. Omega's excited too for her first Life Day with a real family."
"You sure have a lot of cards," said Plo, noticing Gabby's basket.
"You know how I am with crafts." Gabby said. "Once I start, I can't stop. Got a few more to deliver."
Gabby headed out to finish delivering her cards to some other Jedi in the Temple.
"Thank you so much, Gabby." smiled Mace, ruffling Gabby's hair.
"Happy Life Day, Uncle Mace and Strawberry." Gabby said, about to leave.
"Before you go," said Strawberry, picking up a little box. "We made these for your family. Hope you'll enjoy them."
Gabby took a peek inside to find little cookies shaped like Santa, reindeer, candy canes, bells, and elves. They smelled delicious.
"Thank you. They look and smell yummy."
"Just don't hog them all for yourself." Mace said. "You don't wanna end up on the naughty list."
"Of course not. Plus, I'd probably get a tummy ache." Gabby giggled.
"Gabby, are you almost ready to go?" Anakin called from down the hall.
"I'm coming, Daddy!" Gabby called.
So many different ways everyone was planning to celebrate the holidays. Visiting family, having feasts, seeing all the lights around town, making holiday quilts, or just gathering by the fireplace and cuddling up with family and friends, even a beloved pet.