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They had only been living together for a few months now. This would be their first Christmas together. Last year, Kort was on a mission and the year before that Tony was. Tony really should have expected Trent’s confused expression when Tony put up a bare Christmas tree, but Kort just shrugged and let it go.
Now, that Tony thought about it, Kort probably assumed that Tony was just waiting to decorate it. December 5th rolled around, the tree has been up since the 1st, and there were still no decorations. Tony knew that the first would arrive soon, but he hadn’t explained anything to Trent.
They both had their day jobs, so Trent didn’t really put too much thought into the empty tree, but after 5 days he had to ask, “Why are there no decorations on the tree?”
“They haven’t come, yet.”
“You don’t have ornaments from previous years?”
“I do. I have a whole collection of Christmas memory albums.”
Kort frowned in confusion and Tony couldn’t help laughing at him. “Don’t worry. I didn’t smash any glass balls for art or whatever crazy thing you’re thinking,” Tony chuckled merrily, enjoying the rarity that was Kort not having an answer for everything.
“Then what are you talking about?”
Tony grinned. “It’s probably easier to show you.” Quickly leaving the room, Tony pulled out last year’s album and brought it back to the living room, patting the seat next to him on the sofa.
Kort sat down next to him and Tony opened the album, so that they both could see it. It started with pictures of what the final tree had looked like and then the pages after contained artfully styled pages repurposing the pieces of the holiday cards so that their messages were maintained, but they were made new.
“You decorate your Christmas tree with Holiday Cards?” Kurt furrowed his brow.
“Yep. I mean, I didn’t always. A long time ago I decorated my Christmas tree like anyone else, but then one year between the frat brothers and all the people I’d helped from NCIS I ended up with so many holiday cards that I didn’t know what to do with them. Someone suggested I make a holiday card tree and I thought, why not? Now, it’s my tradition. I get more cards every year even with the attrition rate for holiday cards, so I put up the tree on December 1st and then decorate it as the cards come in.”
“That’s a neat idea. Although, I’ve never even gotten one holiday card,” Kort murmured.
“Well we’ll just have to fix that. Actually, it might be fixed this year without us doing anything further as I already told my frat brothers that we’re living together, so their cards will probably come to both of us.”
Kort smiled, though, it looked off to Tony like Kort still wasn’t sure what to think about all of this. Tony wanted to share it with Kort, however, so when the first card finally arrived, he practically hopped in place and pounced on Trent as soon as he was home. “Are you ready to decorate the tree? We got our first card!”
Kort chuckled, happy that Tony was happy, and nodded. Tony showed Kort how they made a small hole in the card, preferably someplace inconspicuous that didn’t cover up any words or ruin the beauty of the original card, and then ran a ribbon through the hole and attached it to one of the trees. Tony let Trent pick the spot for the first card.
As the rest of the holiday cards started piling in, they took turns putting them on the tree until the tree no longer looked empty. Soon it would actually be Christmas. Their first Christmas living together. Their first Christmas with neither of them on missions that prevented them from celebrating the holiday. Tony couldn’t wait.
They still had a lot to learn about each other, but Tony knew that would come with time and planned to just enjoy the newness of learning about each other’s habits and how they normally celebrated and what not. There would probably be many discussions about why someone was doing something. Tony knew they could sit down and hash it all out beforehand, but honestly he was looking forward to finding it out as it came. He’d never been overly fond of planning out every detail, after all.