Padma and Ron woke up extra early on Christmas morning to be sure they were first in line for breakfast and would thus get an early start hunting for easter eggs afterwards.
"I sure hope we each quickly find our 3 requisite eggs," Ron said to Padma as they made their way to the breakfast buffet, "if we get to the presents late all the good one's'l be took by the time we get there!"
Ron was very serious but Padma had no idea what was going on.. she normally celebrates christmas Hindu style; her and her family would ullulate wildly to brazen horns long into the night, and with the rising of the moon they would sacrifice the yearly Christmas goat so she was in way over her head with Christmas celebrations UK style, what with all the presents and Easter eggs and such... she decided to just play along.
Padma Patil saw, all about the plane, strange and garish decorations, bright flashing lights, dying plant life adorned with bits of shinning tinsil, a bizarre spuedo sacrifice to some jealous Abrahamic god... also she saw Plane Elves (AN: Those are House Elves that work on a plane! ... (MerryChristmas!)) dressed up like Christmas elves and reindeer and things of that sort. Christmas things.
Padma had missed her first Christmas on the plane together with Ron because that day had happened to fall on a Pavarti day; over two years ago Padma and Pavarti decided to fake Pavarti's death and then take turns hiding out/pretending to be a grieving,singular Padma so that they could finally have a normal life and stop constantly being mistaken for one another. But anyway., Padma wanted to embrace the barbaric and asinine customs of her foreverlove's Britain, but Pavarti had no interest in doing such a thing and preferred to hang out with Luna instead...
A passing Plane El, dressed as agiant snowball, so cute! despite the house-elf propensity toward grostequery of the countenance, pulls out 2 chairs for Ron and Padma. Her thoughts all aswhirl Padma settles into her chair while Ron heads off to "Rustle up some biscuits n' gravy," he said also something about a bean buritto for Padma... Padma Patil was quietly curious about Rons apparant insistent thought that she had a taste for Mexican cuisine.
But then she noticed Luna and Spiders sitting side by side, with Neville in tow. The way the two were carrying on made it apparant that they were most definately besties...
"How strange" Padma said to herself, "isn't Pavarti besties with Luna?"
That's when Padma began to worry if she should be jealous of Pavarti making time with her, Padma's, man in her stead instead of hanging out with her, Pavarti's, own friends, sorta. (Pavarti had started hanging out with Luna under the guise of being Padma Patil...) When Padma had agreed to fake Pavarti's death then each take turns living publicly as Padma on successive days she never realized how such an arangment might complicate things...
Padma does her best not to be nosy but can't help but overheard Spiders and Luna talking shit about Draco Malfoy, who was sitting further down the table.
"Oh Kraug, I know," Spiders was saying, "that Doghouse Malfoy kid is so lame and he smells like really bad like wtf dude take a shower or something smh"
Luna chuckled gleefully, "yeah, Doghouse Malfoy sucks massive cock, no wonder Pansy Parkinsons dumped him earlier!"
Padma perked up her ears, Pansy and Draco? Split up? On Christmas? she slit her already narrowed eyes and snuck a peak at Pansy who also sitting at the verysame table. (aside from Padma Luna and Spiders and Pansy and Draco Neville was also sitting at that table, Ron was still away, filling his plate..._
Pansy was sitting nonchalantly, reading a book about Mars. She preteneded not to notice anything was being said about, around or regarding in anyway, is until an unfortunate house elf in a revealing Mrs. Claus outfit ambled up to her with a steaming cup of espresso.
"Your espresso miss Parkins-" he began to say...
But he never got to finish! Pansy slammed the book closed and eyed the elf maliciously. "Give me the Espresso silently you wretched little thing! Can't you see I'm reading about the planet Mars!" The elf trembled pitifullly, then Pansy reached into her purse and extracted a glass phial with a yellow liquid inside... it was her piss! and she flung it on the terror-enraptured magical servant with a malicious laugh!
"Hey! Don't treat the house elves in such a poor fashion!" A shrill, oddly familiar voice chided, it came from a dark skinned girl with an equally familiar tangly mop of light brown hair...Harmonica! The 8th Hermione! ... but that is a story for another time...
Padma turned away in disgust. Her thoughts drifted back to Pavarti and Luna... specifically about how a yaer ago today, exactly, the revelation that Luna had been dabbling in the occult through Wicca, of all things!, had set everyone to burning her at the stake until some sort of time skip had nullified the whole thing and by then no one could be bothered to tie her up and douse her in oil and relight the pyre again...
maybe it's best Pavarti stopped hanging out with Luna Lovegood afterall, Padma figured, Wicca, she thought one last time, and shuddered.
Then Ron showed up and they both ate quickly. Nothing worth noting happened for the rest of breakfast.
"Oh boy! Here we go hunting Easter Eggs! I just love Christmas!" Ron shouted ebulliently as he bounded from the table. Padma hangs back, taking her time though. As previously discussed she is used to a more reserved and somber Hindi-Style christmas and doesn't know what to make of all the pushing and jostling going onabotu her. Everyone sure seems excited to find their 3 eggs and get to the present opening part of the day!
Padma had no idea what was going on. Though her meek pateince was rewarded, she was the first to find an egg. It was polka dotted blue and green and inside held a carefully snipped out piece of a bible page with Job 6:7 on it.
the things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat
it said.
Padma checked under the seats for more eggs and it worked! She found an egg with a tiny plastic cross in it and another very special egg with a bit of the Shroud of Turin in it!
"Well, now that that's all settled I can head on over to the Easter Egg Processing and Verification Station I guess," Padma said to no one in particular, Ron was still off running around and tackling people for eggs... Padma had been so used to always having someone to talk to, but with Pavarti pretending to be dead or her every other day she had sure begun to fee a triffle lonesome...
Ron met her in line for the Egg Processing and Verification, his cheeks redder than usual. He reminisced briefly about how the EEPaVS was Percy's favorite Christmas activity.
Once all 6 of their collective eggs had been verified they were finally ready to open presents!
Padma handed Ron the box containing the new boots she had bought for him and received several boxes from him in return. The first smallest box had a tightly folded up sombrero in it... the second medium sized box contained candles with the mother mary on them and within the third box was a Molcajete, a traditional Mexican mortar and pestle, Ron had bought for her so she could "grind up authentic Mexican spices or the bones of your ancestors or whatever,"... or so he said.
It was clear Ron was under the impression that Padma was a Mexican. But she has been deceiving him this whole time! Can I really call him out for his colossal ignorance when it is character defect I have made much use of to trick him into thinking my twin sister is dead or me every other day? she wondered...
"I love you Ronny-Bear," she decided to just let it slide.
Ron looked up at her and beamed, "and I love you too my little Mexican Jumping Bean!" He gave her eskimo kisses and the two left the present opening section of the plane and headed off hand in hand for the days final, and most important, rite...
Normally when people celebrate Christmas they do it on the ground and not up in the sky inside of a plane so the Christmas Cave had to be simulated by stacking a bunch of luggage together to mimic the actual shape and functionality of a cave.
As they waited in line to enter, and then inside urinate on a cross laid on the ground to symbolize the ability of God's Love to transcend death, Padma realized this really had been the best Christmas ever... even without the sacrificial goat.. She squeezed Ron's hand tightly as a gesture of fervent love,
"what's up babe?" he said, they were next in line and he was already unbuckling his belt.
"Nohtin' sugar," Padma said throatily, "Merry Christmas is all...