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Matt had always had a love-hate relationship with Christmas. He wasn’t a total Grinch or Scrooge, but he was no Buddy the Elf. His opinions of Christmas traditions could be divided into two groups: Love it or Hate it.
He loved the lights. Walking through the city after dark (and it got dark so early these days) seeing twinkly lights in all the trees. Every year he would sit in his favourite park and contemplate whether he liked the single colour or mixed colour strings of lights. His home always had plenty of lights on it. He never went overboard. It was a tasteful amount.
He hated tacky decorations. The inflatable snowmen, the creepy-ass elf-on-a-shelf, the giant candy canes lining the shopping district to downtown. And don’t get him started on the absolute abomination of Jeremy’s: A sound-activated singing Christmas tree that you didn’t realize had a face until you dropped our keys and the whole thing lit up with horrifying green eyes and shouted Deck the Halls at you. Right now the thing was perched on top of a bookcase at the Fake’s base at just the right height where its creepy little eyes were just visible under the evergreen eyelids. Fuck that thing.
He loved the food: cookies, gingerbread, fruit cake, chocolates, the promise of a huge turkey dinner with stuffing, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce. For Matt is was a season of eating. He loved walking past bakeries and cafes and smelling cinnamon, cloves, oranges and other festive smells.
He hated the music. Sure, a nice carol being sung by a choir was nice enough at specific times and places. But he had worked in the food service industry long enough that the never ending music blasting from the radio got tiresome really quickly. The modern ones were the worst. If he had to hear Hippopotamus for Christmas one more time he might fly to Africa to feed himself to one. Anything to end the suffering. He tried to refuse to play any of it at Mini Putt Palace, but he made the mistake of decorating the place for the holidays, and Mica was adamant that it wouldn’t be a complete experience without holiday tunes. Matt compromised by setting up a playlist of the ones he thought were tolerable instead of relying on the radio.
He loved spending time with people he cared about. Going back to visit his family was nice, but getting to see his friends in a relaxed, but celebratory way was his favourite. The Fakes had a tradition where everyone went over to one person’s house for a potluck wearing their ugliest Christmas sweater and would watch a horrible Christmas movie and heckle it. Ever since his first, that event became the highlight of his holiday. But his favourite part was Christmas morning. Waking up beside Gavin and cuddling together in bed before dragging themselves out for tea and hot chocolate. They would enjoy a lazy Christmas morning before going to whichever holiday feast they’d promised to attend.
He hated buying gifts. It made the holiday so stressful. Getting something for Gavin was never a problem, the two of them decided from their very first Christmas together to only do things that were either handmade (food counted) or tickets to events. He also sent his mother a piece of jewellery every year. And that was the extent of the easy gifts. But there were so many people who he knew were going to give him a gift, so he felt pressure to get them a gift. It meant that he needed to spend way too much time in shopping malls (with crowds and tacky decorations and annoying music) stressing about what everyone wanted. And even though everyone said ‘no gifts’ he knew everyone went out and got ‘just a little something because we knew you’d like it’ and he was not going to be the only one who actually didn’t buy gifts. Again.
But no matter what he felt about Christmas, Matt loved one thing more than anything else: seeing Gavin get excited for the holiday. His soulmate loved everything about the holiday. The only thing he didn’t like is that Los Santos didn’t get any snow, but he was threatening Matt with spending the holiday in England to get a taste of the traditional white Christmas. Whenever Matt was stressed or unhappy about the season, he just needed to look at Gavin to see the childlike excitement in his eyes to make everything warm and fuzzy to him again.
Right now they were in the midst of one of those moments. Gavin had his bluetooth speakers playing Michael Buble and Mariah Carey and there were boxes of ornaments hauled out from storage open and overflowing with glittery decorations. The tree was half decorated. Gavin insisted on a real one, which meant stuffing it into the elevator and leaving a trail of needles. The lights were on and they were busy unwrapping the decorative baubles to hang on the tree.
Matt had just unearthed his favourite ornament when disaster struck. It was a beautiful blown glass ball that he had been given during a family vacation to Germany. He still cherishes the memories from that trip. He had been twelve at the time, old enough to appreciate it, but young enough to still like traveling with his family. The art galleries and museums they had visited have all faded in his memory, but he vividly remembers the Christmas market. Clustered beside a huge cathedral, there were little chalets for any festive goods you could imagine. There was roasted nuts, hot punch, and all kinds of cookies and sweets. All of the decorations were charming instead of tacky and each narrow, winding street had just the right amount of decoration to make it a magical memory for Matt.
He remembers being mesmerized buy a glass blower. He had moved part of his workshop to the main square and was giving demonstrations. Matt couldn’t understand what he was saying, but it was hard not to be impressed with watching what looked like lava getting turned into delicate glass creations. There was an alarming moment when the glass blower took one of the balls he’d made and smacked it against the wall. But it didn’t break. Apparently he was showing the crowd how strong the glass was.
To Matt’s utter delight, on Christmas morning one of the boxes he opened contained one of the creations from the glass blower, and he has treasured it ever since. Especially because it was only a few weeks later that he lost his father in a car crash. The trip was some of his last happy memories of his dad.
He pulled it out of the newspaper protecting it and turned to contemplate the tree. Gavin was singing and dancing to the Love Actually’s version of All I want for Christmas . Matt had just decided on the perfect spot for is glass bauble, a place where it would catch the light and not be hidden by the branches, when Gavin came spinning towards him. Just as Matt started reaching to hang the ball on the tree, Gavin’s hand shot out as he butchered the high note of yoooooooouuuuu pointing to Matt. He watched in slow motion as Gavin’s hand collided with his arm, sending the ornament flying into the wall and smashing against the floor. In the defense of the glass blower from all those years ago, hitting the wall didn’t break it, just the floor.
Matt stared in horror at the pieces of his favourite ornament in pieces on the floor. It hadn’t shattered. In fact, cleaning it up shouldn’t be too bad because there were a few large pieces. But like Humpty Dumpty there was no putting hit back together.
“Matthew! Oh I’m so sorry!” He turned to see Gavin’s face twisted in regret. “I shouldn’t have been taking the piss like that. I didn’t mean to.”
“I know, babe.” Matt said, looping an arm around his boyfriend’s waist. “It was an accident. It happens.” Matt kissed Gavin’s cheek and went to get a broom. Gavin scrambled after him.
“Let’s put it in a box so it doesn’t cut through the garbage bag by accident.”
“Good idea Gav.”
Matt swept up the pieces and tried not to think of the tinkling of glass as he poured it into the box as the sound of his heart broken just a little bit. It was silly to get upset over something like this breaking. He’d always have the memory of that trip even if he didn’t have the souvenir.
Gavin kept spewing apologies, but Matt kissed him to make him stop. He hadn’t meant it, after all.
~~~~~
Matt woke slowly. He reached out for Gavin but found the other side of the bed cold. He lifted his head and blinked blearily at the empty bed, sheets rumbled. As his brain started waking up a few thoughts occurred to him.
The first was that it was Christmas morning and Gavin was nowhere to be seen. The second was the sound of a kettle boiling and clattering coming from the kitchen, along with a heavenly smell of cinnamon. Matt was just coming to terms with the fact he would have to get out of bed when Gavin appeared with a tray.
“Damn, I didn’t mean to wake you up, well, at least not like that.” He finished with a cheeky grin. Gavin offered the tray to Matt who saw that there were two mugs of hot chocolate with candy canes sticking out to stir in the powder. Alongside them were cinnamon buns with sticky icing. Matt took the tray and Gavin snuggled back in bed beside him. They nibbled their treats and sipped the now minty chocolate while enjoying the stillness of the morning.
Once they were done their treats and the dishes were safely set down they indulged in a treat of a different kind. Kissing each other and enjoying the taste of Christmas on the other’s tongue. They eventually had to get up, Geoff was hosting an afternoon brunch (even though the crew argued that wasn’t how brunch worked) at a rented out cabin up Mount Chiliad and they needed to get ready for that.
Before Matt could peel himself away from Gavin and out of the warm bed, the other gave him a grin and asked “Do you want to see what Santa brought for you?”
“Was it a lump of coal?”
Gavin laughed and climbed out of bed, grabbing his hand and pulling Matt along behind him.
Under the tree was the pile of ‘not gifts’ the two had picked out for their crew members, planning on taking them with them to the cabin. But on top of it was a small, beautifully wrapped box Matt hadn’t seen before. He kissed Gavin’s cheek and said, “Wait while I get yours.”
Matt ran back to the bedroom to get Gavin his gift. It was small, just an envelope, but Matt knew Gavin would love what was inside.
He handed his gift to Gavin who didn’t even pause before tearing into the envelope. Inside was two plane vouchers.
“You always talk about England.” Matt said, putting his hand over his lover’s. I thought it was about time you showed me what all the fuss is about. Maybe we can even go for Christmas next year.”
Gavin broke into a huge grin. “Thank you! It’s going to be top Matthew! I can’t wait to show you around!” And then Gavin was flitting to the tree and back pushing the box into Matt’s hand. He was practically bouncing with excitement.
Trying to be a tease, Matt carefully undid the beautiful wrapping, taking his time. When he finally opened the box he saw a familiar glass bauble, but with gold veins running through it. His German souvenir. “Gavin, what is this? How?”
“It’s called Kintsugi. They use gold coloured epoxy to fix broken things. Because being broken is part of the thing’s history, and shouldn’t be hidden. I know how much you loved that ornament. Is it alright?”
“Gav,” said Matt, tearing up. “It’s perfect.” He took a closer look. The ornament had broken into fairly large pieces, so there were only a few thin golden cracks, but on one side there was a larger fill where the pieces were too small to have put back together. It looked almost like a golden spider web. Matt hung it on the tree and wrapped Gavin in his arms for a kiss.
On their way out the door to Geoff’s Matt looked back at the tree to see his ornament catching the light, just like he thought it would. But now it glittered with new life.
Fixing something broken with gold. He was sure there was a metaphor there somewhere.
But Gavin was tugging on his sleeve and he closed the door with a smile. There was a lot to love about Christmas.