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“Daichi,” X began, breaking Daichi out of his focus on his work. It wasn’t unwelcomed, as a quick glance at the time told Daichi he’d been working a little long now and was due for a break. “I have noticed an increase in pictures and videos depicted indoor trees that have been decorated with lights and odd items hanging from the branches.”
Though X didn’t directly say so much, his observation was clearly posed as a question. As he often was, he was confused by an aspect of humanity, and it would be up to Daichi to explain it to him. Although X could likely find the answer himself with the internet, Daichi liked to do what he could to help X learn more about Earth and humans – and it was better X not risk venture to far into certain corners of the internet (there were some things Daichi did not want to have to explain, the incident with him discovering some conspiracy theorists were bad enough).
With a small hum, Daichi leaned back in his chair, looking over at X. The X-Devisor was currently propped up, allowing X and Daichi to more easily see each other. “Well…” Daichi began, thinking how best to explain it to X, “They’re Christmas trees. They’re a part of this holiday that some people celebrate called Christmas. People decorate it with lights and ornaments, and then they put presents for each other underneath.”
“Presents? So then it’s a kind of gift giving holiday.” X seemed to consider the information that Daichi had given him.
“It is,” Daichi smiled, “People give each other presents, and then they open them on December 25th. Though at least in Japan it’s a fairly commercial holiday. You’ve probably seen characters from things dressed up in a lot of red and white – they’re supposed to be Santa Claus.”
There’s a moment where X hummed – a sort of confused and curious sound, one that Daichi had heard plenty times before. Many things about Earth both fascinated and perplexed X, though he was always eager to learn more. The task of teaching him often fell to Daichi and the other members of XIO. “This Santa Claus…” X began, “is he some kind of deity worshipped during this Christmas.”
Daichi supposed that was an understandable conclusion to come to, especially with so many holidays having some kind of religious origin. Even that could be said about Christmas. “Not exactly… Nowadays, his role is to bring kids who have been good a present. They go under the Christmas tree at night on Christmas Eve.”
“How does he get the present inside the house? Does he break in?”
Of course X would wonder that, it was probably on Daichi for not specifying that Santa Claus wasn’t real. He really should have made sure that was clear. “X, Santa Claus isn’t a real person, he’s just… a story used to give kids incentive to behave.”
“Oh,” X sounded both a bit disappointed and a fair bit relieved, “Another instance of making up stories in order to influence children into behaving a desired way. I see.”
Something told Daichi he should probably just sit down and tell X about as many of the holidays that involve things that aren’t real as possible. When he had time. Which was not now, as he should probably be thinking about getting back to work. “Yeah, we’ve got… quite a few of those. There’s probably more that I don’t know of, too.” He cast one last glance at X, “If you’d like, we can set up a little tree for Christmas, so you can get to experience a bit of it.”
“That would be a very informative experience, I believe.” X sounded interested, Daichi knew that meant it was a yes.
It seemed Daichi would have to find a small tree and decorations. He might as well go the extra mile and see if he could come up with any other “Christmas-y” things.
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After he finished up at XIO for the day, Daichi gets a small fake Christmas tree. He wasn’t sure if he was ever going to use it again, it would depend on how this year went, but if not, he could probably find someone to give it to. It wasn’t too hard to set up, occupying a corner of his apartment, but even he’d admit it was rather plain. He didn’t have a lot handy for decoration, even after buying a few things, but they’d have to make do.
Once he’s propped the X-Devisor up so that X can see the tree, he picks up a long string of shiny silver stuff. “Alright, let’s see, so this is garland. It gets wrapped around the tree.”
X nodded, “It’s shiny, meaning that it’ll reflect the lights from the tree.”
“Yeah,” Daichi agreed, beginning to wrap the garland around the tree. It was a bit of work, but thankfully not too complicated, either.
Once that was done, it was just ornaments that were left to put on the tree. He had a few, but they probably wouldn’t be enough to fill up the tree fully. Still, they would help it look better. “Now we’re on to the ornaments. I don’t really have a lot, but that just means we’ll have to make sure they’ll all placed well.”
As Daichi worked to decide where to place each ornament, X gave his input, advising Daichi to place the ornament he was holding higher or lower, more to the left or to the right. It was a team effort, and soon enough they had hung all of the ornaments that Daichi had gotten.
Taking a step back, Daichi looks at the tree from further away, “It looks pretty good,” he said, “Usually people put a star or an angel on top, but I didn’t get anything.”
“There’s still time to add to it,” X said, “December has only just started.”
Staring at the tree thoughtfully, Daichi nodded, “Yeah, we’ll find something to put up there in the future.”