"How come we shop for Christmas? Doesn' Santa Cause do dat?" Dudley asked while Petunia was slowly looking for a parking place in the crowded lot. Shopping centers in Surrey proper were always busier than the smaller ones nearer home. She frowned slightly, vaguely annoyed both children had picked up the American name for Father Christmas this year, a consequence of watching one too many Hollywood-produced Christmas movies no doubt.

"Silly, Santa on'y bing some of the presents. An' coal if we're bad. 'Member Uncle Sev brought the football set hisself?" Harry sounded quite pleased with his logic.

"Yeah..." Dudley said thoughtfully.

"Unless," Harry continued, now markedly more excited, "unless Uncle Sev is Santa!"

Petunia grinned and tried not to laugh.

"You're silly! Santa's old. An' has a white beard. He's Father Christmas, like gran-father, not like uncle," Dudley said almost contemptuously. Petunia thought his expressivity was rather impressive for a three-and-a-half-year-old.

"He cuh be in disguise," Harry reasoned. "They sell Santa beards an' hats at Tesco."

With such irrefutable logic, Dudley was convinced. "I s'pose... Mum, is Uncle Sev Santa?"

Petunia chuckled. "I'm afraid not. You were right the first time, Harry. Father Christmas gets some of your presents, but the rest of them come from family. And Father Christmas is really very busy just getting gifts for all the children in the world, so usually presents for adults are just from family and friends. In fact, we're getting some presents for Uncle Sev and Aunt Marge today."

"Oh, wow!"

"We get present too today?"

"No, dear, I couldn't bring you two Christmas shopping for yourselves, could I, or it wouldn't be a surprise."

"Oh, yeah."

"Buh it isn't surpise because we made lisss for Santa..."

"Just so. Those lists weren't for me, they were for Father Christmas. He may or may not decide to give you what's on your list, depending on whether you've been naughty or nice. Everything from your family, though, that's up to them, not your list."

"Ohh..."

She pulled into a parking place. "Though I might have let Marge and Sev know what was on the lists, just in case."

The two boys thought this over quietly as Petunia got out of the car and extracted them from the back seat. With one on either side, she strode into the art and craft shop, the first stop on her agenda. There was the usual conundrum just inside the door. "Alright, boys, I can't keep holding onto both of you and the shopping basket." Both of them squeezed her hands tighter, each determined to win the honor of continuing to hold onto her. Petunia made the decision for them before they could start arguing about it. "Dudley, you stay there. Harry, you're going to have to take Dudley's hand."

"Awww..."

"That means you get to help me pick things up and put them in the basket with your free hand." Harry immediately perked up as Dudley glowered. "And we'll switch at the next store."

..."Okay," they both grudgingly agreed.

They shuffled around, and Petunia took up a shopping basket in her left hand. "Alright. Candles first, for Marge and for Mrs. Hanson."

"Can get one for Ms. Figg too?" Harry asked.

Petunia debated internally for a moment before nodding. By the sounds of things, Harry had had a great time yesterday playing with the kittens in Arabella's house while Petunia and Vernon took Dudley up to his grandparents in London. The whole arrangement had worked out well. Harry and Arabella were now firm friends. Dudley had a great time being the undisputed center of attention for a whole day. Win-win. Of course, Petunia was only recently acquainted with Arabella, was still rather miffed with her, and wouldn't therefore normally be exchanging gifts... but like the sudden incorporation of Severus last year, friendship with her was rather necessary. And she thought candles, incenses, and other air fresheners made excellent gifts for people with too many animals in the house, so long as the vessel was sturdy enough to not be a tipping and thus fire hazard. It was the very reason she always gave Marge candles as well. "We can. And you two can help me pick it out."

"Yay!"

Richer by three candles (vanilla for Marge, cinnamon for Arabella, and peach-scented for Rachel), a box of Christmas crackers, and several packets of glitter Petunia reluctantly agreed the boys could try, they next headed to a book store. And then the liquor store for brandy and wine. And then the artisanal cheese shop to pick up Vernon's order. And finally the butcher shop to pick up the Christmas roast. A man in a burgundy trench coat and an old-fashioned top hat joined them in the line at the butcher shop and kept widening his eyes and grinning toothily at the children. Both boys watched him and giggled the entire time they were waiting at the counter. She couldn't decide if it was sinister or if he was really just trying to make silly faces for their amusement. Regardless, she bundled them out of there as quickly as possible and watched over her shoulder and in the rear view mirror to make sure the man didn't come out of the shop and follow them down the road. He did not.

And so Christmas shopping was done for another year. Upon their return home, she set both the boys to making Christmas cards while she put the roast away, wrapped these last few presents, and attended to the Christmas pudding. Her mother had always "fed" the pudding a measure of brandy once a week leading up to Christmas to keep it from drying out, and so Petunia did the same. She had never been cursed with a dry pudding as a result.

That done, she decided it was really time to finish decorating the Christmas tree. Vernon had taken the boys to pick up the tree on Saturday, as was only proper being the start of the third week of Advent, but they had only gotten around to draping the lights that evening. All the ornaments were still safely in their boxes, as Dudley had been too irritable on Sunday to risk the antique glass. Today was a good day though.

"Dudley, Harry, would you like to help me decorate the tree?" she called.

"I'm not done wi' my cards," Dudley immediately complained.

"That's alright. Let's decorate now, and you can finish up while I make dinner. That way the tree is all pretty by the time Daddy gets home." Vernon wasn't particularly enthralled with the decorating process in any case, and he would be particularly uninterested after taking the bus to and from work today so that Petunia would have the car for her errands. "We really need to get it done soon - remember Auntie Marge is coming on Wednesday this year."

"Okay," they both chorused then and traipsed into the parlor a moment later.

"Thank you, now who wants to water the tree before we get started?"

"Me!" Harry cried and ran back to the kitchen.

"Do you need help?" Petunia called after him. Both boys could reach the sink with the aid of a little stool, but trees sucked up rather a lot of water, and the watering can was heavy when it was full.

"No," Harry answered. She decided to let him try to carry it by himself. It was only water, after all, and the container was metal. She opened ornament boxes with Dudley until Harry returned, staggering slightly with his arms wrapped around the watering can.

"Here, I'll hold that while you crawl under the tree, and then I can hand it to you."

Harry gratefully let her take the watering can. He crouched down by the tree and tentatively reached out a hand under the lowest branches. "It's pokey," he muttered. He touched the needles again, winced, then determinedly pushed forwards anyway. Obligingly, the branches bent out of his way. That was a convenient bit of accidental magic, Petunia had to admit. She rather disliked getting poked by Christmas trees as well. Once he reached the stand, Petunia passed the can to him, and a minute later he backed out from under the tree, holding up the empty can triumphantly.

"Thank you, Harry, good job," Petunia said approvingly. She pinched a blob of sap off the ends of his hair with her handkerchief before he had the chance to rub it into his scalp and cause worse tangling than usual. She then blotted the cloth with the last few drips from the watering can to wipe his hands as well. She definitely didn't want sticky fingers all over the ornaments. They were hard to clean. "Alright, what color shall we start with?"

"Red!" Harry said emphatically.

"Gold!" Dudley said.

"We'll do both."

One by one, Petunia handed the largest and sturdiest of the ornaments off for each boy to hang around the tree. They could only reach about half-way up, though. She did not particularly want her mother's best ornaments to break, so she handled those herself to place them nearer the top of the tree, although she allowed Dudley and Harry to offer suggestions regarding optimal placement of each. Once all the ornaments were up, she opened up a box of candy canes to complete the assemblage. By the mid-afternoon, they had quite a splendid tree indeed.

"We should save the star for Uncle Vernon," Harry said when Petunia opened its box.

"Yeah, Daddy should put up the star," Dudley enthused.

"What a lovely idea," Petunia agreed and set the thing down again. "Alright. Let's go have some tea and biscuits, shall we? And then it's naptime. You can finish your cards after nap-naps."

"Yes!"

It was a lovely, ordinary, traditional day, Petunia thought contentedly while pouring out her tea. She resolved to write to Severus later. There was not much to say, but that was rather the point. There did not need to be anything extraordinary for it to be worth sharing, if it made the poor man happier for awhile. He had yet to take her up on her offer of an impromptu visit.

As it happened, when Petunia sat down with Severus' journal late that evening, she wrote something quite specific after all. Remind me never to purchase glitter for them ever again. That was an unmitigated disaster. -P

Author's note: some undiluted fluff for you. :) Thank you for the reviews, will continue to update Fridays and Sundays.