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Chapter Text

It is cold.

Like, really freakin cold.

Overnight, snow dumped itself everywhere. Outside his window, Mike heard the trucks come around at all hours of the night, their headlights beaming across his room as they drove last, providing a little more light than the video game on his phone he was playing in bed til 2 am. He should have gone to bed earlier, but he assumed that the constant trucking meant that there was no remote possibility of school for at least tomorrow. So he can play for however the hell long he wants.

But that wasn't the case. His alarm blares at the same time of 6:00 am. If school was canceled or delayed, his mother would have come in and shut it off for him before going back to bed herself for another four hours.

When he stumbles out of bed that morning into the living/dining room, Norman and Doris look their normal teacher selves, so that just confirmed that there would, in fact, be school that day.

"Sorry, Mikey," Doris says weakly, as she butters and jams one side of her English muffin as he sits down between them and grabs the Fruity Pebbles to dump in the bowl.

He eats breakfast with them before Norman and Doris get in the car to drive to the high school for work as normal. He has half an hour to mentally prepare himself for going to school when he really, really, really doesn't want to. He dresses himself in his winter uniform of dark jeans and a tee shirt layered over a long sleeved one. The weather man on the TV tells him that it is almost 13 degrees outside from the living room and so Mike pulls out two pairs of socks and stuffs his feet into his boots. He suits up in his jacket, his hat that covered his ear and gloves before pulling up his backpack.

He's ready as he will ever get.

When he steps out into the frozen wasteland that is this town right now, he is not prepared for the blistering wind that rushes by and chills him even more. He waits outside for the bus, jogging into place even if it's dorky but is also incredibly cold.

He sighs with relief when the bus pulls up at the stop sign and scoops him up from the unbearable coldness. He aims to get the seat behind the heat so his forty five minute drive in this ice box on wheels is not so fricking miserable but already some smirking jerk has taken it so he sits down in the seat behind him.

Mike curls himself closer into his jacket and plugs in his iPod , staring off to the snow-covered suburbs while listening to his rock playlist.

When they pull up into town, on the corner of Linden and Fir Street to pick up the kids who live in the apartments and townhouses lining the streets there, Mike watches his fellow inmates waddle up the bus stairs and down the aisle, hindered by thick coats and snow covered boats. They are all snuggled up in scarves and hats and mittens and all look so disappointed that they have to haul their asses to school this morning.

Except for the last kid, who, Mike notes, waddles without wearing a coat.

(And he's not.)

That's what floor Mikes. Gus Gloop, on the coldest day of the year, is coming up the aisle behind kids resembling Kenny from South Park, has his red jacket wide open, showing off the turtleneck and knitted sweater vest that is his winter uniform. But other than that, the guy is wearing nothing else winter appropriate. Thick, wooly socks yes, but nothing else.Mike's eyes pan down so see that Gus decided to wear his Birkenstocks (gross) and capris. Frickin capris.

Gus' blond hair is powered with snow, his cheeks look ruddy, his nose looks like a cherry or some other poetic way to say he looks cold. But his cavalier nature is bothersome. Like he doesn't give a damn it's like eight degrees out.

He just plops himself down in the set across from Mike and gives something of a wave with his glove-less hand. He then pulls out his lunch box and takes out a granola bar.

Mike takes out his earbuds and Gus looks over at him because when Mike takes out his earbuds it means he wants to talk."What's the matter, Michael? What's with the face?"

"This face," Mike snorts, "is from the fact you're dress like you're going on a cruise in the dead of winter. What's with the shorts?"

"The . . . shorts?" Gus has a mouthful of granola when he says that but swallows and looks down at his pants. "Oh! Yes, I was warm."

"Warm? In the tundra?" Mike repeats incredulously.

"Yes. The sweater was too much for me to meet to wear long pants today." He shrugs. "I don't get cold very easily."

"So I noticed" Mike snorts and it's from then on he's convinced his friend is literally a polar bear.

Chapter Text

There is something unexpectedly shared between Violet and Augustus, as she learns in the middle of November. The campus is abuzz with talk about Thanksgiving break. Though it isn't long, people are evidently going home and enjoying the break.

But Violet doesn't have anywhere to go. Well, she does. But she doesn't want to go home. What's the point of flying all the way to Georgia to sit with people from the real estate firm for a dinner that isn't homemade but catered? Thanksgiving dinner was more about presentation than anything with her mother, so why go home?

And Gus, if not in the same boat, is floating nearby. What's the point of flying over nine hours to the middle of the Alps for a holiday that's nowhere near long enough to enjoy? Besides, he has to save money for next month when Christmas is actually worth it.

So. They both didn’t have anywhere to go this Thanksgiving and they're the only two people who don't have plans. Mike is flying to Denver (for some reason, even though it's farther away than Georgia?) and Charlie is taking the train home and Veruca is going to some resort or something to go skiing for her family. Yeah.

So that means they have to stick around campus for the week and wait till their friends come back.

Violet was honestly planning to just do whatever while they were gone. Catch up on her reading. Go to the gym longer. Maybe sleep in? Maybe?

She broached Gus with what his plans are for the week while they're at Starbucks, working on making flashcards for Violet's Introduction to Marketing class. He finished his sip of venti hot chocolate before he answered her.

"I was going to ask you that as well. Do you have anything planned for Thanksgiving Day?"

"Like, as, in dinner?"

"Dinner, yes."

"Um . . ." Violet sipped her cappuccino. "Probably take out of some kind, to be honest. Probably Chinese."

"Do you want to have dinner with me?"

She snorted and looked at him quizzically. "Like, as in a date?"

"No! Nothing like that!" Gus was defense and it was kind of hilarious to watch him retract the thought he was attracted to Violet. Like this was third grade and not college. "I just wanted to make Thanksgiving dinner for myself this year. I've never had a true Thanksgiving dinner before."

She looked at him, with that same quizzically, almost pitying look, and agreed.

You can't be an asshole to someone you share a boat with.

On Thanksgiving day, she woke up at nine o'clock and it felt so. Fricking. Good. Her roommates were all away so she had the common area all to herself. She went to grab some coffee from the Starbucks (which she could not believe was still open if it was so empty today) and then she went to the gym ( and nobody was there either.)

Gus told her that around two was a good time to head to his apartment on campus. He told her to bring a dessert as well, and maybe a side dish if that was alright with her? So Violet picked up a loaf of Italian bread and pumpkin pie at the grocery store the night before and she carried them with her through the (mildly snowy) landscape of campus to the apartment building at the end of the long line of lecture halls.

Gus lived on the second floor in a studio and Violet could smell onions and braising meat and something chocolaty? from the stairs. She went to the door 5b and knocked.

Sure enough, Augustus opened the door, flour, and egg on his ruddy cheeks, an apron with a dark outline of a pig and the words Gloop Metzgerei on the front but was also stained with blood. (It was dried blood, but blood none the less.) But the smell washed over her and god, it smelled like real, actual Thanksgiving other than some college-kids thrown together event for two.

"Dinner's almost ready," he assured her when he took the pie and bread from her hands. "Do you mind setting the table?"

The table in question was a small card table that has a desk chair and a borrowed fold out chair from the school and a cheap, plastic tablecloth. But there was real eating ware. It was all plastic and mismatched. But it was real. She looks around the small kitchenette Gus has filled with boiling pots and pans and crockpots.

"I don't want to purchase anything that would be unnecessary to go home to Germany with," he explained as he puts something into a Tupperware bowl from the frying pan as Violet sets two glasses opposite each other.

She said that that's practical and she realizes, after forgetting, that Gus isn't here forever and she's not here forever. Gus is here only for a term, to study abroad, to finish his degree, then go home.

"I don't get a chance to cook as much as I want to," he confessed, setting the Tupperware onto the table. It was sweet potatoes. "I just do not have time and it is much easier to earth cafeteria food. If I cooked every day it would be worth it - to have real plates rather than ones I bought at a thrift store. I borrowed a lot of this cooking stuff from other people who cook more than I get to."

Violet - for god knows what demon possessed her hand - took a lump of sweet potatoes off the top and puts it to her lips.

Jesus Christ, it's good.

"Is this the first time you've made sweet potatoes?" She asked, wanting to take more. "I didn't think it was a staple of Bavaria."

He laughed. "They are not. I watch the Food Network a lot and that is where I learned. I tried to do everything like on the show, but I made turkey breasts instead of a whole bird. I would be eating turkey forever and I am not a huge fan of poultry."

"That's okay," she takes another bowl he filled (this time with mash potatoes) and set it down on the table. Not like she likes turkey very much either.

Soon dinner was set and done and Violet looked at the impressive spread. It was a real Thanksgiving dinner - turkey, stuffing, sweet and mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce. Only not nearly as big. Just enough for two.

And it was incredible. All of it. Holy mother of god, it was so good. It took her back to a time that didn't even exist for her. A time, a home, filled with warmth and richness and not artificiality. Just genuine goodness.

And the whole thing is just surprisingly perfect? Sure, they're in a crappy student apartment and the plates don't match and they are both technically stranded but this is real.

And when Violet falls asleep on Gus's futon as they watch Christmas movies on his tiny TV, lulled by that rumored turkey-induced haze, her stomach full, she, for the longest time during the holidays, has a real smile.

Chapter Text

Doris held a strand of Christmas lights in one hand and stared at the strange boy sitting on the couch - unconcerned by the festivity around him, concerned only with the image on the tv and beating his high scores. This year, when the family was decorating for the holidays, she asked for him to lend a helping hand. He said no, for the first time ever, and went back to his video game.

No. To Christmas.

She started to untangle the lights herself.

She could remember five Christmases ago. She had a different son then.

She had loved their snow days, when she and Norman and Mikey were all off as a family. They'd sleep late, only to be awoken by a squirmy four -year- old who crawled between his parents. Then they all fell asleep again till Doris decided to tumble out of bed and make pancakes.

Mikey had laughed and frolicked in the snow as she watched him have fun, enjoying the Denver cold, kicking the powder up with his boots, his cheeks so adorable and pink with the cold that she just had to scoop him up and kiss him.

He had bounced on his heels when she made them both coffee since he couldn't drink hot chocolate - the coffee was decaf and pretty much drowned in milk and sweetener so it wasn't even coffee at all anymore - and he'd feel like he was a big boy drinking such an adult drink. They'd curl up on the couch and watched cartoons on TV with their mugs and laughed at Tom and Jerry's feuds.

Mikey had sprinted through an uprooted forest and look for the biggest and best tree. "This one!" He'd exclaim and jumped up and down like he had won the lottery. They'd pay the Boy Scouts and strapped the tree to the car and proudly paraded it through the town streets back to their house, where it was welcomed and adorned with ornaments of trains and Star Trek spaceships and Wizard of Oz figurines.

He had hidden himself in the box of tinsel and wait for Doris to scour the house to find him. He had shaken the boxes under the tree, trying to guess what they were. (He had even peeled the wrapping on a few.) He had dictated what he wanted her to write in his letter to Santa Claus.

And on Christmas morning, he had jumped from his bedroom and dashed down the hall, banging on her bedroom door to inform her that it was, in fact, Christmas morning and that Santa had come to visit.

Santa didn’t visit here anymore. He was dead and gone.

And was it a sad thing that Doris was more upset than Mike was about it?

Chapter Text

"You're a sadist."

Violet scowled down at her drink. "I am not. It's not my fault Gus doesn't have a coordinated bone in his body." She sipped her hot chocolate, avoiding looking at her friend in the eye as they stopped for a hot drink, and avoiding looking at the hot mess that was Augustus Gloop on ice skates.

She had invited her group of friends for a Friday before Christmas party at the skating rink in the middle of the town. Only Violet knew how to skate well, thanks to her several years in competitive ice skating. Mike had rollerbladed as a kid, so what was different other than the surface? Veruca had skated young too, and her skills were coming back to her.

Charlie and Gus flat out didn't know how to skate. But at least Charlie was a quick learner and was soon zipping around the rink like he had done it for years.

But Gus. Gus, who was in the upper 280 range for weight, was an absolute train wreck. He had gotten on the ice and almost instantly, his fat legs failed him and he went flopping onto the ice. And so far, Violet had witnessed him fall onto stomach/butt no less than two dozen times in forty five minutes. That equated to once every two minutes.

She tried to help him once but he was such a lost cause. Charlie and Veruca were making more efforts to aid him in his lost-causeness but they weren't particularly valiant because the guy was still flat on his ass. Pink cheeked (embarrassed and cold but probably more embarrassed) and his brows knitted together in determination, he was trying to awkwardly get himself up by using Charlie and Veruca's hands and the wooden barrack around the rink.

At least he was determined.

It seemed like he finally get himself up. Stand on his own two feet. Actually skate. But what do you know, two second later he reacquainted himself himself face first with the ice.

Violet tried to help it, but she just ended up snorting into her hot chocolate. She prayed Mike wouldn't notice that she still found this then slightest bit funny.

He did.

"You know, in his language there's a word for this. Schadenfreude. Pleasure from the suffering of others. And Gus is clearly suffering, Vi. "

"I know," she said, admitting, maybe, that this was not all that funny after all. "But he's never come up and said he hates this, and he never wants to do this again. You asked him if he was okay and he said yes, so there."

"I do have to give him credit. I would have bet that Gloop would have quit a good twenty minutes ago." Mike shrugged. "But you're always putting him into stuff you know he's gonna hate." He takes a sip of his coffee that lacked the gingerbread/peppermint/eggnog flavoring the cheerful barista asked if he wanted. “Remember last summer when we went to that waterpark? And you made him go on that slide and he pretty much freaked the entire time?”

She did. But the loser was sitting in the lazy river the whole. Damn. Day. He spent good money to do absolutely nothing, so why not get him onto ONE ride?

Violet scoffed and took another sip of her hot chocolate. Mike had a point.

She took another sip then handed it to Mike. “Fine. Just hold this. I’ll be back.”

And so she got back onto the ice and skated to where Gus was clamouring to the side of the rink. He looked pitifully at her, his doughy face stuck under his ridiculous trapper hat and squashed between a thick seed stitch scarf.

“You suck at this.”

He looked away and wobbled a bit more. So pitiful. Maybe he was wounded from all of this. It looked like it wasn’t going to take much longer till he was completely broken.

Violet held out her gloved hands and sighed.

“Gimme your hands, Gus. I’m gonna teach you how to skate.”

He looked at her quizzically, processing the fact that he literally could not get off the ice without her help.

“Okay.”

And that is how Violet ended up pulling him along for the rest of the night, repeating the mantra, “left, right, left, right,” to him. But even with Gus’ intense level of suckage, they somehow have a really good time regardless as pop Christmas music blares and Violet’s hot chocolate grows frozen.

Chapter Text

Binge-watching movies was her idea.

Building a fort out of all the pillows and sheets in the house and drinking hot chocolate was his.

Charlie and Violet are officially snowed in for the day. Their Saturday. When they were supposed to do errands and be productive and stuff. But nope. It’s a blizzard outside and Violet basically thought that the weather was purposefully flipping the bird at her and he plans to go to Costco and stock up on things.

And she couldn’t go back to sleep, even though Charlie could. When she told Charlie about the weather, he rolled over and tugged the blankets and went back to sleep with a dumb little grin on his face. She, instead, got out of bed, took a shower, made a breakfast of a protein smoothie (even though, what the hell is the point since she can’t get to the gym today anyway?) and some cereal, and flipped through some holiday catalogs.

The house was completely decorated. The laundry was finished last night. Her email inbox was spick and span. So what could she do?

For a while, she tried to clean the apartment but it wasn’t even messy, to begin with - she and Charlie were generally really neat people and it was only when the three slobs they called their friends came over when the apartment even dwindled to mess-like levels.

After she swabbed and dusted nonexistent dirt, dust, and grime, scowling at the still frickin’ falling snow outside, she gave up.  So she reorganized the bookshelf in the living room alphabetically and by subject.

Once she completed putting every last copy of their cookbooks into their rightful, A-to-Z place, she started to work with the DVDs. While contemplating if she should separate Disney movies into live action and animated categories, Charlie came in, freshly showered, wearing new pajamas, and asked if she wanted breakfast.

“Already ate,” she said, putting down the copy of Treasure Planet after Hercules .

“I was gonna make french toast,” Charlie offered.

She melted because, really, Charlie was an amazing cook and French toast was his morning specialty and she can’t resist, although she vows to work a little harder when she goes to the gym again. Whenever that is because it doesn’t even look like they’re attempting to clean off the roads right now.

So after they have breakfast (or second breakfast for Violet, she guessed), they were in this awkward moment of “What do we do now?” Violet decided to go back to her sorting of DVDs and Charlie decided to help sort through them.

But it turned out that he wasn’t much help when it came to actually sorting and organizing. He was actually more invested in digging through their collection and exclaiming, "I forgot we had this!" and "I really loved this movie."

Truly, they weren't movie people because Violet was usually really busy with everything and they didn't have any time to sit down and watch much television other than the news. So, why not make today a day to watch some of their favorites?

They decided to watch Footloose (the DVD was actually Augustus', not theirs, from a movie night long ago)on the couch, cuddled up in the crocheted afghan and flannel pajamas and fluffy socks (his idea, not hers although she went along with it) and Charlie snuggled close to her.

It was when she went to the bathroom for all of two minutes after Footloose finished and Home Alone was being popped into the DVD player, that Charlie dragged out the big, fluffy comforter from the bedroom, all the pillows, the sheets, the spare blankets from the linen cupboard, into the living room and was trying to take the chairs from the kitchen.

"What are you doing?" She asked, hands on her blue plaid covered hips.

“Building a fort!” He laughed, innocent, child-like. It was something she usually found annoying (but also really cute). “Do you wanna help?”

“You really didn’t give me a choice, Charlie,” she noted, seeing how he was starting construction without her.

They revert back to childhood it seemed like they never truly had as they carefully drape sheets and blankets and place pillows here and there and create a tight, tent-like fort in which to hide in on this bleak, wintery morning. They laugh, they smile, they kiss as they work together on this ridiculous thing.

They curl up together when they finish, after Charlie decided to put the icing on the cake for this snow-in and make them both hot chocolate in snowman mugs.

As they watched a series of Christmas movies to get the in the mood for the holidays, Violet found herself not minding that she’s not getting anything done. In fact, as Charlie kissed her on the cheek with whipped cream on his lips, she thought let it snow, let it snow, let it snow .

Chapter Text

Saint Nikolaus Day was on a Wednesday this year and the German classes had their little party that day. Herr Miller was always up for a "cultural celebration" (it really was a just a little bit of learning with food that eventually morphed into a study hall) and this year he invited Frau Harvey’s lower level classes to join them into one larger kinda party thing?

So that meant that Charlie ( German II) was in the same classroom as Mike ( German IV). And, coincidentally, period two was also the same time Gus (Native Speaker) had study hall in the cafeteria. Well, since he claimed he had finished all of his work otherwise, and he was apparently letting rehearsing for the Christmas concert go (cello solo or not be damned, Mike guessed), he wandered over to Herr Miller’s room. (Probably because there were snacks.)

And Herr Miller loved talking to Augustus, even if Augustus didn’t really talk back. He’d just go on a long, rant because finally there was someone who was fluent and a real, live German. And Augustus, though looking a little more relaxed conversing in his first language, was also kind of short with his answers.

Prime example: This Saint Nikolaus Tag, when they were still in that weird educational portion of the day (with a slide show and everything), Herr Miller was talking about what the traditions and customs and whatever were of in Germany, particularly in Bavaria. And since Gus was a Bavarian, every slide he’d turn to Gus sitting in the back, who was munching away on the chocolate chips somebody brought in and sipping down Cranapple juice next to Charlie and Mike, and ask for validation if this was really, truly, what went on during Saint Nikolaus Tag .

“Ja,” Gus would say.

This went on the entire slideshow, Herr Miller trying to extract a story or something from Augustus, but to little avail. Then, eventually, he shut up and let everyone do whatever the hell they want for the rest of the period.

And so it eventually turns into groups of friends hanging out and talking and sitting on top of desks while chugging mineral water. (And gagging.)

Gus, and Chuck, and Mike are all in their own little triangle in the back of the room by Herr Miller’s desk (the teacher chatting to Frau Harvey.)

Mike looks up from his phone at the continuous looping photostream of Saint Nikolaus Tag related images and scoffs at the sight of three (three!) creepy greeting cards of Krampus - the Alpine, devilish helper to Saint Nikolaus who collected the naughty children of the village into a basket. (Sometimes he ate them.)

And he looks at Augustus Gloop, beheading a gingerbread man over a snowflake-printed napkin. This kid can’t even take watching the first few minutes of any horror movie without wanting to go into another room or shield his eyes with a pillow. How the hell did he have a childhood with Krampus?

“Gus,” he asks, clicking off his phone.

“Yes?” A muffled-by-gingerbread response.

“Did you have a Krampusnacht in your village?” It sounds like a question Herr Miller would have asked.

“Oh, yeah.”

Mike snorts. Same old, same old.

“And?”

Gus looks up from his gingerbread. “And what?”

Charlie looks at Mike and asks the same stupid question with his eyes like he doesn’t get what Mike is implying by his question.

Mike rolls his eyes. “You weren’t scared? Of like a dozen guys dressed as him coming towards you when you were six?”

“No?”

“You weren’t?” Charlie gets it. He’s been there, he’s seen Augustus get terrified when there’s a freaky sound, even in broad daylight, and he’s seen him shield his eyes during what was going to happen next in Psycho . “He seems pretty scary.”

“He’s a part of my childhood. I knew most of the guys who played Krampus every year,” Augustus says. “They were customers and family friends. What was there to be afraid of?”

And that is when Mike shakes his head and tells Gus that he’s really weird because he still can’t believe him sometimes.

(And sure enough, the next time he’s in the Gloop’s apartment, there, among the pictures of Gus as a baby in a bunch of different knitted hats and sweaters, Gus holding his Schuletuete on the first day of school, Gus with his mother/father/dogs/pigs, there is one with Gus next to a crouching Krampus, smile on his face, candy cane in hand.)

Chapter Text

“They say snowflakes taste like sugar if you catch them with your tongue.”

And she tries to do just that as she walks. Looking like an idiot but not caring.

He scoffs. “That’s just some dumb wives tale. It just tastes like water.”

She huffs. “You’re no fun. Let me enjoy the snow for once. Atlanta never gets anything.”

She has her arms cross her body because A - she is actually freezing in this Denver weather although she’s simultaneously loving the cold because it actually feels like December - and B - she’s not appreciating Mike’s attitude.

They just are on a walk through the park because she has to go back home soon after a nice (though kind of crazy) week at the Teavee household and when she'll get off her plane, it’ll be like sixty and rainy. Not this - lush, clumping, perfect snow as pretty as a Christmas card. She might as well enjoy it.

“It’s nothing special, Vi,” he says, rolling his eyes.

“To you ,” she reminds him, grabbing his ungloved hand because he claims the cold doesn’t bother him anyone (which is why he’s so annoyed with her excitement about snow.) It’s like an icicle.

He doesn’t pull away. A lot happened over this week (starting from some back and forth Skype conversations over Thanksgiving) and now they’re a thing? A long-distance thing but a thing none the less. And no snow isn’t going to be the only thing Violet’ll miss about Denver, Colorado.

“It’s literally just frozen rain. Water evaporates and precipitates, only in a slightly colder way.  Nothing special.”

She groans. Even she’s not this literal all the time.

And she’s not sure why she has such a childlike wonder with snow. It’s not the first time she’s ever, ever seen it. But it’s been a long time. A very long time because the last time she remembers snow she was wearing a Dora the Explorer snowsuit and her father was still around.

It’s her turn to scoff at what the other’s said. “Why can’t you be fun?”

He snorts. “You want fun?”

And before she can respond he pulls her with the other icicle hand and he brushed the bottom of her cold (slightly chapped) lip before kissing her fully.

The snow may be blowing around them and it may be only fifteen degrees but as she envelopes the taller boy into her arms, heat flies between them and she swears she starts to melt.

And she swears he tastes just like sugar.

Chapter Text

“I can’t believe it’s come to this, guys,” Violet sighed. She rolled up her sleeves so her tee shirt became a tank top.

"It hasn't," Mike reminded her. He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms in that typical Mike Teavee-fashion.

"This is completely ridiculous," she said, grabbing one of her legs and stretching. She was super flexible and liked to brag about it as much as she could by showing off crazy yoga poses she could twist herself into and sitting in them while they were all trying to enjoy the fricking movie on TV.

"Then why are you doing it?" Mike called out.

She switched legs, freakishly stretching the other. "Because you dared me."

"We didn't dare you to do anything, idiot," Mike huffed, and looked to the three other less-idiot people standing in a line with him. "Did you dare her?"He asked the others.

"I just wanted another mug of hot chocolate," Gus lamented.

Veruca was in the trademark Mike Teavee pose, only with the added flair of shifting her weight onto one foot. She sighed and a puff of cold tumbled into the air. She was like a pink dragon, wrapped up in her fur coat and peach-colored sweater.

Charlie shrugged his lumberjack plaid coat closer to himself. "Isn't she cold?" He asked to the rest, and his voice was the only warm thing about this whole . . .situation?

"I'm fired up for this!" Violet cried out as she trudges out further into the snow-covered front yard, ruining the purity of the freshly fallen stuff. She shouted, "Let's do this thing!"

Mike groaned because it was now evident that this was really happening and they'd have to stand out in this blizzard for another ten minutes so Violet can get her kicks and do about a hundred push-ups in the snow.

Chapter Text

New York had a plethora of touristy things to do during the holidays. People came to the city for these touristy things. Ice skating at Rockefeller Plaza. Watching this year’s Christmas Broadway musical. Going to see the Rockettes perform the perfect kickline.

And you know, Violet didn’t expect to be doing any of that while actually living in New York City.

Especially not the most touristy - the sleigh ride in Central Park.

But Charlie’s here for the holidays and he doesn’t have to put up with all the tourists every day of the year because he is one, technically. And because of this, he wants to do all of the touristy things.

So basically, on the Friday after Charlie arrived at her apartment with a battered suitcase and brown paper packages tied up with string,(my god, it was like he was Maria von Trapp without the guitar), they recreate most of the date scene in Elf . Looking at Christmas trees. Drinking crappy coffee. Going ice skating.

But then when they get to the Plaza, Charlie tells Violet how much he wanted to ride through Central Park in one of those horse-drawn carriages.

And since they’re something , she forks over fifty dollars (a crazy amount of money, really) and she and Charlie hop onto a carriage.

"Are you cold?" Charlie asks almost immediately as they plop into the velvety seat inside. They had been walking all over Manhattan all day, strolling the high scale stores that they really, really couldn't afford the luxury to think about owning something from the store, taking in the city in all of its wintry, twenty-degrees glory. Even the cheap coffee they had didn't warm them up. So Violet was frozen.

"No," she hisses though as she sees Charlie trying to tug something off the other seat. There is a fur-lined blanket on the seat in front of them but she doesn't want it. It's been on too many laps. It's probably never been washed.

"Oh." Charlie shrugs and pushes the blanket back. And so they sit in contented silence for a while as they drive through the places where Violet jogs on a normal Saturday. In her eyes, the only thing that made the fifty bucks she dropped worth it was seeing Charlie's face light up like a child - just like that same face and smile made the hoards of people at Rockefeller worth it.

But it's cold. The thing about not moving and driving by in an open-air carriage is that it gets even colder. And try as she might, she can't hide that from Charlie for very long because soon he looks at her and sees that she's trying to get warm by rubbing her hands together. Because the chill is seeping into the stitches of her gloves.  Stupid Southern blood - she can never get used to the true cold.

Charlie reaches for one and encases it with both of his.

"Here," he says.

She feels that cursed Southern blood rushes to her cheeks even though by now the cold is going through her coat and her teeth are chattering like the Grinch about to tell a lie.

"Are you sure you don't want the blanket?"

She nods. "It's gross."

He sighs because he clearly doesn't share the same idea that the blanket is as filthy as she's made it out to be. So instead he wraps his arms around her. Trying to keep her warm. Like a penguin.

And they share that same goofy smile as they pull through the snowy brush of Central Park at Christmas time.

Chapter Text

You would think, with such an extensive sweater collection, that Augustus wouldn’t notice that anything was missing among the mass of green and red knits in his drawer.

But he did notice when one of his favorites went mysteriously missing. It was a shame, really, because it was one of his favorites. Red with white and green argyle wrapping around the neck and shoulders. Unbelievably warm.  The perfect size for him. A pattern his mother had repeatedly been using since he was a child.

(He could have sworn he put it on the chair in the bedroom after he wore it last. It wasn’t there.)

He looked high and low around his apartment but to no avail. There was no sweater to be found anywhere - not in his laundry basket, not misplaced in a drawer. He sent an SOS out to Charlie and Violet and Mike if he had possibly left it over at their places. All replied relatively quickly, with “No, sorry Gus (frowny face emoticon).”

Disheartened, he grabbed a different sweater - green fair isle with blue and gold detailing - and tugged it on to go pick up Veruca from her nine o’clock ballet class. They did this every Saturday after she finished teaching in the morning and before she had to go back to teach the kids in the afternoon - he’d pick her up, they’d go out for a good lunch in the city, she’d grab a coffee, and he’d drop her back off, reenergized to teach another two hour class with a dysfunctional group of five to seven-year-olds how to pirouette.

When he drove up to the dance academy he saw, in the snowy haze of moms dressed warmly and daughters snuggled with coats over their tutus, Veruca appear in an unbelievably baggy sweater over her leotard. His (not so baggy on him) sweater.

Huh. So that was where it went.

Veruca opened the passenger side door and dropped her duffle onto the floor before scooting into the seat and kissing him on the cheek. She was clearly a little frazzled (noted by the amount of hair out of place in what would normally be a perfect ballerina bun) but she was smiling.

“Did you have a good class?” Augustus asked as he drove out of his parking spot and into town.

“Mmm,” Veruca mumbled as she opened the mirror and unwrapped her bun. Brown curls fell to her shoulders.

“Is that a new sweater?” He asked her, side-eying her as they pull up to a stoplight.

She side-eyed him back. Smirked. “I stole it. I hope you don’t mind.”

He didn't, actually.

Chapter Text

Christmas didn't use to tax Robert as much as it did now - financially and emotionally. He didn't have to work so hard to see his little Veruca smile - genuinely, truly smile - at what she got under the tree. His checkbook wasn't always torn to shreds during the holiday season. He wasn't always seeing Grinch green.

And the sad thing honestly was that there wasn't a real, happy, less expensive Christmas since Veruca was the same age as Cindy Lou Who.

Little Veruca didn't fully comprehend Christmas other than it was supposed to be a happy time of year. That there would be lots of people in the manor, the big, vast hallways turned into forests of evergreen and holly berries and all were gilded gold with statues of merry cherubs partaking in the holiday season. She'd wear dresses of green velvet and bows of red silk as she ran through the halls to see every tree. There would be a wonderful dinner of all sorts of things the saved for holidays - a massive turkey, figgy pudding, cranberry, peppermint pigs. The long, mahogany dining table resounded with a multitude of pops as the guest opened Christmas crackers.

And under the tree, the next morning was a big, long, rectangular box for Veruca. She opened it up with help from her father and squealed with delight when a beautiful and extremely life-like doll was revealed. She had tightly wounded brown ringlets (just like Veruca's) and wide, grey-speckled eyes. She was dressed in a simple light pink frock, petticoats layered perfectly underneath the dress, apron over top.

Veruca had named the doll Emmeline (or, at that time, just Em). Emmeline went everywhere Veruca went. She loved that doll more than anything. She was always seen clutching the doll. She always had to have her snuggled close to her when she went to bed at night.

But next Christmas? Veruca wanted a pony.

Emmeline went on a few rides with but by then she was so dirty and old that Veruca wanted a new doll. A better doll.A doll with a complete wardrobe, like in The Little Princess. She wanted a dollhouse so big that it towered over her. She wanted ballet shoes and a private tutor for dance and her own studio and new dresses and a new fur coat and . . .

She wanted. She wanted. She wanted. More and more and more.

Was it any surprise that every Christmas, Robert's heart and love for the season began to shrink three sizes?

Chapter Text

If you looked at Linden Street, up and down the brown brick storefronts and townhouses, you would note that not a single light was turned on at this time of night. The store owners had gone home. The homeowners had gone to bed. Through the entire street, the snow lightly drifted through the air, tumbling down onto wreath-covered lamps (a weak source of lighting, if that).

Yes, there were no lights on.

Except for the one in the apartment above the butcher shop.

Guided by the only light on the entire street, two young cooks worked well into the night. The air was pungent with the smell of baking macaroons/Pfeffernusse/good old fashioned chocolate chip. Melted chocolate bubbled and simmered on the stove top. Flour and spices dirtied the counter (and the cheeks and the aprons and lips of Charlie and Augustus.)

Plastic wrappers for candy cans overfilled the trash bin as they had been shucked like summer corn. Wax-paper and cookie dough covered baking trays lay waiting to be ducked into the oven, a never-ending assembly line of Christmas cookies.

They should have started this earlier. Not at 11:15 at night.

Well, actually, they had intentions to do this much earlier. But by the time Charlie knocked on the door next to the closed butcher shop to be admitted to the personal sphere of the Gloop family, dinner was already on the table. And of course, the food was amazing and so filling and Charlie was so full by the time they had coffee after the meal, that there was nothing further from his mind than making more food . So they plopped onto the couch and wouldn’t you know it, Elf was on TV and it was Gus’ favorite. Or at least, one of them. So they watched with sleepy eyes the movie and forgot why Charlie even came over in the first place.

It wasn’t until Mrs. Gloop emerged at the end credits wearing her nightgown to kiss her son goodnight that Charlie remembered the cookies.

“It’s too late now,” he said with a sigh as The Santa Clause came on after Elf wrapped up. They might as well go to sleep and do it later.

“Nonsense,” Augustus said, getting out from under the knitted blanket his mother had pulled over him when he dozed off in the middle of the film (also the same time Mrs. Gloop handed Charlie a mug of hot chocolate.) “We can do it now.”

And so they’re here. Making all sorts of sweets well into the night.

Chapter Text

“When we have kids,” Doris had mused to Norman when they were first married, “I want them to have traditional Christmases. With snow. And a big dinner.  And a real Christmas tree.”

He knew she didn’t really have Christmases straight out of the book growing up. When she was little, there was tension. When she was older, her stepdad was Jewish. Christmas became a weird Hannukah-Christmas fusion. When she got even older, there was tension. Every Christmas was just not quite right to her?

But it was when they were spending their first Christmas as a married couple, in his parent’s house in New Mexico, the temperature a chilly sixty-three degrees, the cacti decorated with lights, that she painted the picture of what she wanted their family to have every year.  It glowed of the ideals of Rockwell. It was a pretty picture.

Two years later, they had Mike, who by the time Christmas rolled around, was six months old and therefore, was responsive enough to scream when Doris plopped him into mall-Santa’s lap. And therefore, responsive enough to enjoy Christmas.

(There was no point in trying to talk sense into her. She had been so miserable for months, with the pit she fell into after Mike was born. Zoloft and Christmas spirit were a combination that she needed. Who cared if she thought that a barely 6-month old baby wanted the perfectly trimmed tree for Christmas?)

But years wore on and the more Mike grew up (and less afraid of mall-Santa he became), the more Doris wanted the holidays to be flawless. And it wasn’t always for the better because she stressed and fretted and got so worked up about the whole thing when, to Norman and Mike at least, it wasn’t a big deal.

And then there was one fateful Christmas where nothing seemed to go right. The tree was ugly and overpriced and she hated it. The cookies burned when she was distracted with a phone call from her brother. The weather was rainy and gross and felt more like March than December. The one game Mike wanted was sold out and she couldn’t find it.

She stormed off to the shower, frustrated, and disappeared in the hot water and fog for an entire hour.

But it was okay. Norman had wanted to show Mike National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation forever and now he was finally at an age where he could appreciate it. They sat together while Norman let his wife cry it out.

Finally, Doris emerged, beet-red and glossy-eyed in her bathrobe to the living room.

She sat down next to Norman without a word and sighed. And laughed. And slowly, as Clark’s tree burned and his dinner deflated, she realized that any holiday she had, regardless of how bad it seemed, could not compare to the Griswold family Christmas.

Because at least the SWAT team was never called.

Chapter Text

Everyone usually has that one song - that one creepy song - that haunts them during the holiday season. "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer." "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas." "Dominick, The Italian Christmas Donkey." Kitschy, commercial, goofy, whatever the case may be, they seemed to be forever ingrained in people's minds for the entire holiday season. And for some, they actually enjoyed those Christmas carol oddities,

But there was one song almost universally revered as disturbing.  

It was considered a classic, but it hadn't aged well. And quite frankly, Mike pushed it out of his mind until Gus actually brought up the song at lunch period, three weeks before Christmas. Before he tucked into his usual bagged feast, he pulled out something from his backpack to examine.

"Have you heard "Baby, It's Cold Outside?" He asked, holding up a small booklet of sheet music."We're doing an arrangement of it for band.'

"Everyone in the English speaking world knows that song, Gus," Mike scoffed.

Gus shrugged and flipped through the sheet. He hummed through the pitches and muttered the lyrics for a minute, but the entire time, his brow furrowed in perplexity.

"She clearly wants to leave," he said after a minute, stating the obvious. "Why doesn't he just give up?"

Mike snorted into his baloney sandwich, "You're asking an immortal question."  

After proclaiming the song as "Uncomfortable", Gus tucked the piece away and pulled out his thermos of homemade soup. And that was that.

But, goddammit, it left Mike humming, "Oh but it's cold outside," the whole damn day.

Chapter Text

Veruca Salt closed her eyes and focused perfecting the deep plié as she stretched twenty minutes before curtain. As much as she liked looking at the expensive bouquet of roses her father had already sent up, it was distracting and she needed to focus. Her hair was still in curlers, her makeup freshly applied, her shoes just perfectly broke in. She was almost ready.

She held her breath as she sunk down to her knees and exhaled as she rose, trying hard to keep her excitement from bubbling over and cause her to jump around the dressing room like she was six years old just stepping into ballet shoes for the first time.

When she was a child, Daddy took her to see The Nutcracker in London with a world-renowned ensemble of dancers. They had their own private box and he had bought her a gilded set of opera glasses. The entire show, she sat on the edge of her seat, peering into her glasses with wide eyes as she watched the ballerinas on stage jump and leap and pirouette and have the starry lights of the set reflect back in their own eyes.

This. This is what she wanted to do. She wanted to be the beautiful Clara swept away in this world of fantasy. To take the entire audience into that exact world.

So, of course, she begged for days to have Daddy get her a private instructor when they got home. She wanted to be a ballerina. She wanted it more than anything. She wanted it more than she wanted that pony or that canopy bed or that Victorian -styled dollhouse.

And Daddy obeyed and had her attend lessons with the other girls who dreamt of dancing over the moon in a studio as well as be instructed on how to tendu three times a week with a French instructor in the comfort of the dance studio he carved out for her from a spare bedroom.

But Daddy couldn't buy the part of Clara. Veruca had to work hard at it. Years of being cast as a fairy, or a doll, or worse, a horrible mouse as a young child carved the way to be where she was now.

Now she was dressed in a nightshirt (a far less glamorous costume than she was accustomed to) and in twenty minutes, she'd be Clara. She'd dance up, up towards the oversized moon in the fly space, and be the ballerina that, perhaps, another girl would see and want to be just like her.

Chapter Text

The two youngest members of the Bucket clan stand and admire their handiwork. For the past two hours, they had worked on preparing their little house for the upcoming holidays (with, of course, the feedback of four bed-bound elderly). As Emily Bucket looked around the one-room of their little shack, she smiled faintly at the unconventional decor of their home. The magazines that Emily stumbled upon - old issues from the laundry mat in which she worked - all had pretty clear-cut visions of what Christmas was supposed to look like, and the Bucket residence did not have the money or the resources to even remotely look like any of those pictures.

But. With a little creativity, they were able to at least have their own take on being festive. Most of their decorations were found at the dump and most of them did not initially start their life as Christmas decorations. Broken Light bulbs, shattered flowerpots, outdated calendars. But Charlie’s mind always came up with ways to repurpose what they found. Out of the light bulbs and flowerpots, a Nativity set to set on the table amid the thrown-away trimmings of Christmas trees. From the calendars, rows and rows and rows of interlocked chains draped all over the little hut, poinsettias of red and green and print, Christmas hats for the family dinner.

It made Emily proud. After all, Charlie had learned it from someone.

She kisses her boy on the top of his head. “Now I think it’s time for this Elf team to go to bed.”

Charlie follows his bedtime routine of brushing his teeth and scrubbing his face as Emily set to making sure her parents and inlaws are cozy in their squashed little bed. She adds another piece of wood -  a broken two-by-four she found - to the fire and waits for Charlie to lay on their mattress on the floor. When he’s bundled up and ready for bed, she kisses him goodnight, tells him how proud she is of him.

But she does not go to work to get herself ready for bed.

Instead, she tells him that she’s going out to try and find some more wood in the dump surrounding their house. She tugs on her worn-out boots and her threadbare coat and wraps the scarf her mother knit for her around her neck and heads outs.

It’s not wood, however, she’s trying to find.

Through this garbage, she’s trying to find gold. Something that she can give Charlie for Christmas.

When her husband was around and the family had a little more money, they were able to buy small things for Charlie. Not any of the big, fancy toys that sat bright and new in shop windows, but things that made Charlie smile and things that he would play with for hours. But with Mr Bucket gone and a larger strain on the family finances, there wasn’t much she could afford in way of toys.

But as she steps out in cold night, guided by the streetlamps, she has a mission to go on.

She cannot let Charlie think Santa has totally forgotten him.

Chapter Text

It’s hard to avoid the glitter of Christmas consumerism in New York City. From November on, the store's fronts put on their holiday best as inside, the employees put on a brave face and try to not let the incessant runs of “Jingle Bell Rock” break their maintained retail sanity. The first year Violet spent living in the city, it seemed magical and she had to spend an entire day, eyes filled with an almost child-like wonder. LA never went this bananas for the holiday. Well, it did. But it never felt quite right when she was wearing shorts and licking at a frozen yogurt. Bundled up in a woolen coat and sipping a hot chocolate was the best way to spend holiday shopping.

Of course, the romanticism of New York at Christmas faded away after being shoved in line for the Macy’s check out one too many times and facing the rude tourists who filled the subways. The next year, she waited until she was in the outlet malls of her hometown to do some serious holiday shopping. The year after that, Amazon Prime was her BFF.

But this year, Veruca wants to go shopping.

And Violet cannot turn the Russian ballerina down. Like, literally turn her down. As when it’s Veruca making a request, it sometimes has the habit of coming across more as a demand.

Violet mused that she needed to finish up on her holiday shopping for the year; she had Mike’s name for the group’s Secret Santa and she still wasn’t entirely sure what to get him. Veruca asked if Violet had plans on Saturday. Violet said no. Veruca, with a short nod, proclaimed, “Then it is settled. We will go shopping this Saturday. I will pick you up in a car, so we do not have to take the awful subway.”

Well…. Violet also cannot say no to Veruca paying for a car to drive them across Brooklyn and into Manhattan rather than handle public transportation on a weekend in mid-December. The SUV that Veruca usually rents for her excursions beyond work is much better than being pressed against the subway doors during rush hour. As traffic inches across the Brooklyn Bridge, Violet can stretch her legs out and enjoy the almost 6-dollar a bottle of water Veruca provides her with. Much better than relying on the inconsistent schedules and clinging to a sticky pole, trying not to bump into a woman with a stroller.

But that is when the calm ends. When they arrive on 5th Avenue, Veruca is focused, her long ballet-toned legs taking long strides. Violet does her best to keep up and when they arrive at Rockefeller, she considers this her workout for the day, trying to keep with with the determined Russian.

This Russian has a list too and knows exactly what she’s getting.

“First stop is Godiva,” she announces when Violet has caught up, nice enough to prop open the door to the confectionary shop.

The store is bustling, but Veruca makes a beeline for the counter. From the note on her phone - all in Cyrillic so as good as a secret code to Violet - and asks for something called the “Gold Collection Ultimate Appreciation Gift Set.” What it is, Violet finds out, is six gilded boxes of chocolate. Very expensive chocolate. She doesn’t see how much its priced when she gets distracted by one of the chocolatiers drizzling caramel on top of freshly dipped strawberries, but Veruca swipes her card anyway.

“Is your dad a big chocolate guy?” Violet asks as they shuffle out of Godiva and back out onto the street.

“It is not for my father,” Veruca answers.

“Oh?” Violet laughs. “You seein’ a guy who is?”

“No,” Veruca says. “But it is for someone.” She presses the button when they get to the crosswalk and shoves her hands into her fur coat.

Violet doesn’t press because it’s clear Veruca’s keeping it pretty under wraps. However, during the day she drags Violet to every ultra expensive store on the avenue. She tuts and hums at things, and doesn’t blink at insane prices whereas Violet has to stifle a gasp when she glances at a pair of boots that costs as most as much as a month’s rent. But on top of that, there is clearly nothing Mike would appreciate in any of the places Veruca has an interest in.

(It’s looking more and more like a Game Stop gift card is in his future.)

She does, however, find a tie that she’s sure her dad will appreciate and shells out the money for his Christmas gift, making a mental note to get to the post office ASAP so that it arrives in Los Angeles close enough to Christmas.

They walk nearly ten blocks, buzzing into at least a half-dozen stores, before Veruca says that she wants to have lunch at the Plaza, in the underground food court. They sit and eat pho from the dumpling and noodle place, Veruca’s full shopping bags spread around her feet.
The receipt is poking out of the bag from the Godiva store. Those six boxes of chocolate? Three hundred dollars.

“Seriously,” Veruca looks up and pops open her can of lemon Pellegrino. “Who’d you buy three hundred dollars of chocolate for?”

Veruca doesn’t glance up from pouring her own sparkling water into a separate plastic cup. “I cannot tell you. It is secret.”

And then it dawned on Violet.

“Oh god, you have Augustus’ name for Secret Santa, don’t you?” Violet’s laugh is caught in her throat.

Veruca puts the mineral water down. “You have just ruined the express purpose of this game,
глупый американский,” she huffs.

“But, you know, there’s usually like a thirty-dollar limit on this kinda thing?” Violet tells her, eyebrow raised. “You have Gus set for like the next ten years of Christmas gifts.”

“Then why did you not tell me these things?” Veruca demands.

Violet shrugged. “I thought you knew?”

Veruca huffs again and slides her arms out of her fur coat, letting it fall down to drape itself over the chair. “I just bought it like I would buy something for papachika. We do not have price limit for Christmas. I don’t think chocolate is returnable ….”

And that is how, after a long day of shopping for chocolates, several times, a new pair of Gucci boots, some MAC lipsticks, and several other items and one gift card redeemable at any GameStop for thirty dollars, Veruca and Violet return to Veruca’s apartment overlooking the New York skyline. Exhausted, the two lay on the couch and watch some weird Russian holiday movie that Violet swears is the same exact plot as Mamma Mia, and of course, sharing one of the boxes of dark chocolate truffles.

What Augustus doesn’t know, won’t hurt him.

Chapter Text

Of all her usual plans for Christmastime, none of them was to end up in the snowy Bavarian Alps for the holidays.

They all had been talking for some time now, those who had been on the tour through the candy factory. All of them mostly grown up, they still needed someone to talk to about this experience. It had been hard. No matter what they had said to close friends and confidantes, they did not believe. The only ones who could understand what Veruca had been through were the other Ticket Winners.

But especially Augustus.

She doesn't know what attracts her to the German, why she can talk to him the easiest. She does not think it stems only from being the only Europeans out of the four. Of course, the time differences between them are not as severe as Michael and Violet’s. She is only two hours ahead of him, and not eleven. He is always willing to answer her texts at a reasonable hour and accept her request to Skype. She does not feel bad for trying to communicate with him.

And when she does it always feels…. Nice? Veruca is a very frustrated young woman with a lot to say, but Augustus is so unlike her. He is so slow to anger. He is patient. He always has a warm smile.

Of course, his laugh, it is obnoxious. But it is one of the best sounds Veruca might have ever heard.

He extends an invitation for her to come to Germany to visit him. Just after the 25th (his Christmas) and just before the start of the New Year (her Christmas). And something in her, it makes her that cannot say no to him.

So she and Papa fly to Munich because that is as far as their private jet can get them. From there, Veruca has to take the train up through the mountains to the snowy village tucked into the valley of the Austrian-German border. She kisses her father goodbye before she boards her private compartment.

It’s only a two-hour journey and Veruca truthfully spends most of it with her cheek pressed against the chilly window, dozing on and off as the train rumbles through the foothills into the Alps.

The Mittenwald station is at the edge of the little town and is the last stop before the line reaches Austria. Veruca snaps awake as the train pulls to a stop and a man over the loudspeaker announces in German that they’re reached their final destination. Or, at least,  that’s what Veruca believed he said. She does not speak German.

Whatever he precisely said doesn't matter, anyway, because she still readjusts her fur coat and grabs her suitcase and walks down the steps of the train onto the concrete slab of the station. A flurry of Germans and tourists alike scramble by, but Veruca is quick to recognize the one German she’s looking for.

Augustus Gloops is not quite as wide as he is high like he was when they first met as children, but the man is still stout. His bulky sweater and all his winter clothing, at least, give off this appearance. He is not easy to lose sight of.

She reaffirms her grip on the suitcase and walks towards him.

“ Hallo! ” he says brightly. He at once reaches for Veruca’s suitcases and doesn’t seem to budge under their heavy weight.  He asks, “How was your train ride?”

“Fine,” she answers.

“Careful; there is ice,” he warns as leads her down the stairwell and into the modest parking lot. She nearly trips on the second to last step but Augustus is there. “You see?” He says as he helps her down the perilous last step. “We just had a big storm here and we have not gotten to clear everything.”

They make small chit-chat on the very short car ride from the station to the Gloop house. Although conversation had been so easy when they were in their own little worlds, separated by computer screens. Now she is in his sphere, seeing the things he sees on a daily basis. It’s especially strange seeing his home beyond the glimpses she gets in the background of what his Skype camera provides her.  

In a way, it’s just as she imagined it would; a small cottage-like building, all white with wood trim. Enormous flower boxes hang under every window and she’d imagine it’d be quite the sight in summer. And from the chimney, smoke curls and billows into the dreary sky.

Once upon a time, Veruca would have scoffed at such simplicity. This scene of small, comfortable living would have been an expression of downright poverty in her eyes. But now, as Augustus grabbed her bags and she followed his lead around the house and into the backyard, she found it charming. So different from her gilded life back in Russia, but it still captured her imagination. It was if she was entering some sort of fairytale book. Augustus’ home, on the inside, is just as quaint. Floral wallpaper and wooden furniture, there are muddy boots by the door and a kettle warming on the stove and something warming in the oven.

Augustus’ mother is more homely when not dolled up for the camera and a tour of a chocolate factory. Her hair is still neatly plaited around her head, but the lack of severe makeup reveals more of her age and the dusting of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. But she is just as cheery as Veruca remembered her, wiping her flour-dusted hands on her apron and rushing to embrace her guest.

It is a type of hospitality that Verruca is not accustomed to. When she goes on vacation, she is treated like a queen, handed complimentary glasses of champagne, sleeping in sheets of fine silk. Here, she has coffee and something called pfeffernusse on not quite matching plates and is tucked under covers from when there was a divide between East and West in Germany and her country was still called the USSR. She first feels out of place with her expensive furs and Versace blue jeans, but the Gloops do not seem to take notice of her extensive wardrobe.

(Mrs Gloop, however, does take notice of her cashmere sweater, and proceeds to ask a lot of questions about what Veruca likes colorwise and what will be the warmest in Russia. She returns later that day with multiple balls of pale pink yarn and takes to starting something for Veruca, although it will not be finished before the weekend is over and will need to be mailed to her.)

She is surprised how much she enjoys the simplicity of this little stay. She sleeps late, she watches as the two Germans prepare lavish meals - what they do best.

But mostly, she and Augustus talk.

They talk about the town. They talk about their Christmas traditions. They talk about the factory. Both of their English skills have improved since they were children, but years separated from the factory, they also have the vocabulary to discuss how the feel about this event that they brought them together, that tore their lives apart in one way or another.

But even with this doom and gloom of what was and what is, they still have a pleasant time. They go to the Christmas market and drink mulled wine and she admires the handmade gifts on display in the stalls that line the streets.

And as she almost trips on the ice and Augustus grabs her hand. She smiles as him and pulls herself back up.

Chapter Text

Mrs Gloop looked down at the crime scene before her and her two men eating breakfast like nothing was wrong.

Now, she was not one to hold nearly anything against anyone. But that wasn't to say she was disappointed in her husband and her son. She has believed they were stronger than this. That all of them could have withstood the pressure.

Not so.

"I don't know if I have time to fix this," she sighed, shaking her head." Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I don't know if I can spend all day on this."

"It was just going to be eaten anyway, Schatzi," Mr. Gloop reminded her, shrugging as he buttered and jammed another roll.

"Yes but it was for the Christmas party tomorrow," she reminded him.

An entire day was spent on this gingerbread house. An entire day baking, covered in flour and egg. An entire day whipping up the homemade icing. An entire day of meticulous construction and fabrication and making the gingerbread family to stand outside their beautiful house.

And for what?

"It was good while it lasted, Mama," Augustus offered weakly, forking himself another slice of ham,

For her entire family to consume, bit by secretly taken bit, over a span of three days, the entire gingerbread house.

And the sad thing was, this happened every year.

Chapter Text

There were sometimes when Mike resented Hanukkah.

Not like it hadn’t been great when he was a little kid; eight straight nights of presents and all the chocolate coins he could eat if he didn’t fight with his cousins or the other kids at the synagogue. But he was a kid back then and it was different now. He hadn't seen his cousins in years and was most was handed gift cards from his mom (not that he reminded that because he could do whatever the heck he wanted with it.)

He resented the holiday for his mother constantly trying to make it like it used to be. She always promised, “This year, it’ll be different.” And of course, it wasn’t.

The Festival of Lights in the Teavee Household went as thus:

Day One: The day before, Ethel spends all evening cleaning the house even though they never have company. She rushes home from work to get home exactly before sundown. The Menorah sits waiting in the proper window, the curtains are in a just-so way. She forces him to remove his snapback and put on a yamulkes and Mike tries to put up a fight about how his hair looks stupid with the little cap.  The hannukaih is not powered by flame - since neither of them can be trusted to keep an eye on open fire all evening - but rather electricity and it's more about screwing in a lightbulb every night. He ends up wearing the yamulke as Ethel’s rusty Hebrew attempts to say the prayers. She then makes latkes and applesauce and it’s, Mike must admit, her best meal all year. He then receives his first Hanukkah gift - it’s something kinda cheap and not very Mike but Ethel probably put something the latkes or something to make him just accept his fate.

Day Two and they’re still participating in the whole Jewish thing. Yamaka is still on, latkes are still made, Ethel still winces at her own Hebrew. The gift doesn’t suck that much, but it still is kinda lame.

Day Three and Four are the last two true days of conventional Hanukkah celebration. If the Sabbath falls on one of these three days, they would usually take the half-hour trek to the synagogue in Boise as Idaho isn’t exactly the epicenter of Judaism and there’s no real super local temple. (But, it’s not like they haven’t been there in a while since Mike is not exactly . . . on good terms with the rabbi.)

Day Five’s collapse is sometimes a result of the festival at the synagogue - if they did or did not good, it usually has the same effect. Of course, three days of celebrating this holiday can start to take its emotional toll on his mom. After praying and latkes, Ethel breaks into the Kosher wine and talks wildly about how much she misses her family on the east coast and why the hell did she move her life all the way out to Idaho. And then she berates herself for marrying that no-good goy and now she’s stuck in Potatoland. Sometimes, she rambles about her great plans to move them back to Illinois, but it usually crescendos in her passing out on the couch.

Day Six gets worse. She gets pretty moody about how Mike doesn’t care about tradition and some crap like that. It’s the one time of the year she gets super serious and Mike tells her to lay off it and then she sobs and drowns her sorrow in vodka and cranberry cocktails. Mike usually holes himself up in his room after their fight. The candles don’t get lit on this night. The true miracle of Judaism is microwavable latkes, as Mike as decided, and he makes some to prove that he kinda cares but not enough to make them himself. He drowns the Frankensteined potato creations into ketchup, just the way he likes it.

Day Seven and Ethel’s late from school. She has a migraine from her hangover and dealing with unruly, ready-for-winter-break high schoolers. Mike doesn’t see much of her except for when she trudges in the door, fumbles around for a massive ibuprofen and a glass of water, then she lumbers back to her room for a nap. Mike warms up the rest of the latkes ‘cause they’re pretty easy, but he also adds some Gorton's fish sticks to the mix and has one, big ketchup-covered feast in front of the tv.

Day Eight is actually Mike’s favorite day. It’s when he gets the rest of the gifts he didn’t get on the previous two days and they’re usually a lot better than the junky stuff he goes earlier. Ethel looks exhausted to really do much than light the candles. They order pizza and she lets him watch whatever movie he wants without her usual “this isn’t appropriate Michael” objection.

In the end, he had to give his family props. Only could the Teavees make so much drama for an eight-day holiday. It was easy to spoil Christmas and Thanksgiving, but Hanukkah? It took a whole new skill-set.

Chapter Text

Their little village was always alive for the holidays. The Christmas market flooded the streets, greenery and lights were draped over the window boxes of every house, and the air was fragrant with gingerbread and mulled wine as the snow from Karwendel’s peaks drifted into the valley.

It had always been Elsie’s favorite time of the year. Since she was a little girl, she counted down the days until her family could bring in their own Christmas tree. She spent hours in the kitchen helping her mother make confections and prepare for the large traditional dinner. She waited anxiously through Mass to go home and find gifts from Christkind, sitting pretty and perfect and begging to be opened.

She was an adult now, and although there were some things about the holiday that wasn’t quite as magical as it had been when she was a child, she quickly realized the best part about being a mother: creating that magic for her own child.

The first Christmas Augustus could comprehend why there was suddenly all these gifts for him from an angel after sitting through church always stuck with her. He had squealed with delight and could hardly wait to tug on the glistening golden bows and pull apart the wrapping paper. He spent hours playing with his new toys until hours later, when she found him passed out on the rug in front of the fireplace, in the middle of his Lincoln Logs creation, snuggling his new teddy bear.

That had been nearly thirteen winters ago, and still, Elsie was trying to outdo the Christmases that had come before. Starting, of course, with reminding him on the 6th of December, to leave one of his shoes out for Saint Nikolaus.

It took him a moment to respond but he said, “Of course.”

She tried, of course, to keep the anticipation building over the weeks. They built gingerbread houses and decked their halls and their dachshunds got new festive sweaters. However, this time of year had always been the busiest for the butcher shop. Hams were ordered by the dozen and it took long hours to keep up with the demand. This year, for some reason, felt even crazier than the rest and she might have forgotten a few things.

Although it was Christmas Eve and the shop was closed and it as supposed a relaxing day, there was a moment of panic when she realized that she didn’t have all of Augustus’ presents wrapped. Her revelation about the unpreparedness of  “Christkindl” this year came right in the middle of the candlelight Mass, so it wasn’t like she could go home and finish.

When they arrived home, she said, with dismay at the tree lacking presents underneath it, “It looks like Christkind hasn’t been here yet!”

Augustus replied as he took off his coat, “I’m sure he’ll be by soon, Mama.”

She waited for Augustus to get into his pajamas and plant himself in front of the television before she frantically went upstairs, shutting the door, and unearthed the Christmas gifts from underneath her bed. She had to work quick on the five or so gifts she had yet to wrap. Her bed turned into her workshop, spread out with the traditional Christkind wrapping paper - a silver and gold star-print that she had bought in bulk when  Augustus was only three of four to distinguish between her presents and the presents sent by the Christmas figurehead.

Augustus’ voice came from the doorway. Elsie tensed up. She was almost ready to throw a blanket or something over the gifts in case he so happened to open the door.  

“Mama, I have a question. You’re recording Midnight Mass and this baking special at the same time, but A Christmas Carol is coming on around that time. Can I delete the baking special from the DVR schedule?”

“Umm….that would be good, liebchen. ” She answered with care. A quick sigh of relief, waiting until she heard his footsteps down the stairs, back into the living room where he belonged.

Instead, Klaus the dachshund had pushed his way through the slightly-ajar door. But in the door frame, stood Augustus.

And he saw the gifts and golden wrapping paper.

He looked at her. She looked at him. Pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain.

He looked down at the pile of still-to-be-wrapped presents.

He gasped, the same delight he had that first Christmas. “Did you really get me that new set of Cuisinart pans?”

She looked at the large box sitting to her left, the enormous box of Cuisinart cookware. It was useless to try and convince Augustus otherwise, saying as she fussed with the wrapping papers and the sisters, “Christkind left your presents unwrapped in my bedroom this year. How odd...!”

“You’re not a very good liar, Mama,” Augustus said with a chuckle.

And when Elsie looked up from the Cuisinart set and the new Moleskine journal and the new backpack, she could no longer see the almost-3-year-old boy who just had his fantastical childhood ideals shattered. She just saw an almost-man who was smirking at something silly his mother had been keeping up for years.

The fact that her son was no longer the wide-eyed, Cherubic baby from Christmas past and Christmas present had him shaving regularly and towering over her scared der Teufel out of her.

“I guess I’m not,” she sighed again.

Augustus’s smile softened as he asked, “Would Christkindl like to join me in watching A Christmas Carol ? I was going to make hot chocolate too.”

Elsie’s smile was of defeat, but how could she say no? “Christkindl would like that very much but requests you refrain from calling her Christkindl anymore.”

“Yes, Mama.”

And so the Gloops snuggled on the couch, tucked into afghans, the dogs at their feet, homemade hot chocolate in hand and an old favorite flashing across the darkened living room. The movie is loud and rambunctious, but eventually, Augustus passed out across her knee.

When she realized her son was asleep, Elsie turned down the sounds of Scrooge’s journey to find joy in the holiday season. As she brushed his hair aside, she reflected on how their conversation, her revelation of how grown-up he was, could have easily taken her to Ebenezer’s level. But as the church bells of St. Peter and Paul rung, proclaiming the end of midnight Mass, she didn’t feel as saddened as she thought she would be.

This Christmas was still just as special.