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The Stilinski family Christmases had never been very big. When Stiles was younger he remember that his maternal grandpa used to come, along with his aunt and her husband, but then they stopped and a few years later Stiles’ mom had died.
Stiles’ dad had never been very close to his family, not since a major argument when he was a young man that had cause irreparable strife in the family. His father had since passed away and his siblings had never really forgiven him, blaming him for worsening the condition.
As such Christmas had usually been a very small affair, it was really just John and Stiles and they’d sit around and watch bad movies and pretend they weren’t crying because Mrs. Stilinski wasn’t there.
This year though, and the past few, there was Isaac. The first Christmas had felt awkward on his side, but as the years went by, Christmas at with the Stilinski’s became tradition. He wasn’t really able to help Stiles cook the little food they decided to have, which was really just a ham, mashed potatoes and green beans, but he thought of it as a feast.
His own Christmases, after his mom died and before Stiles asked him to come over for Christmas, hadn’t been great. Before Camden joined the army there had usually at least been an outward show of Christmas cheer but after that, Christmas just wasn’t that good.
“Oi! You two! Stop this gloomy doomy reminiscing and help me peel the spuds so we can open presents! Chop chop!” Stiles said from the doorway to the kitchen, raising his hands and eyebrows in a ‘what are you waiting for?’ gesture.
Isaac smiled at the Sheriff, “John, please”, and went to help Stiles peel potatoes. John meanwhile scoffed.
“This is still my house young man, you can’t order me to peel potatoes.” He said, entering the kitchen and started to pull out ingredients to make the famous Stilinski Hot Chocolate(tm), because opening presents just wasn’t the same without the beverage. He took out the candy canes to put in Isaac’s, having found out that’s how he preferred it and the bag of marshmallows of course. He put those in the living room though, Stiles had a bad habit of eating most of them before they could make it into the hot chocolate.
As he went back into the living room he turned on their usual Christmas cd, starting with Let It Snow!, because the background music was a necessity.
When Isaac heard the music he smiled, he had always liked the holiday music from the fifties and sixties. He hummed along and started swaying to the music without a thought and didn’t even notice until he heard Stiles chuckle. Isaac blushed and Stiles shook his head.
“It’s cute. Don’t stop because of me.” He went back to halving the potatoes and putting them in the pot, having finally gotten the ham and thermometer into the big pot. Isaac had been confused to begin with, why would they peel the potatoes this early if the ham had to boil for hours before it went into the oven? Stiles had decided that if they got that out of the way, they just had to turn the stove on later for the potatoes to cook, besides, getting the peeling part over early was good, because nobody really liked peeling potatoes anyway.
Isaac smiled, and heard as Winter Wonderland started playing. Stiles yelled for his dad to start the hot chocolate, the spuds were nearly done.
Once he was done pouring up the hot cocoa and they all gotten their cups the way they liked them they sat down to give out presents. There weren’t a lot of them under the tree, but they were meaningful, and Christmas had never really been for the presents for any of them.
When that was done, and Isaac and gotten new pens and paper for drawing and Stiles had gotten new copy of the Narnia books, his old ones had been carefully stored, they had been his mother’s to begin with, they had the usual argument. Every year they had the same discussion, should they see the Nightmare Before Christmas on Christmas, because they were the Halloween Town residents after all. Every year though, the movie was inevitable played, along with a mix of cartoons, such as Frosty and Rudolph, and other movies, like National lampoon’s Christmas vacation.
When lunch had been eaten, and they had all just napped and then there were cookies and more hot chocolate to drink and by the time evening came they were all really sleepy but happy and relaxed.
Stiles and Isaac would go outside after John had fallen asleep in his chair and look at the stars. This year it was colder than usual, but they stood out there and breathed in the stillness and wiped off a part of the porch to sit on.
“She would have liked you, I think. And she would have been glad that me and dad weren’t alone on Christmas anymore, it was her favorite holiday.” Stiles said and put his head on Isaacs shoulder. Isaac hummed and stayed otherwise quiet. Stiles still didn’t talk about his mom very often, but sometimes, on still and quiet nights like this, things could be shared.
“She’d make apple cider and there’d be mulled wine and a turkey. Dad never understood why we should have both a turkey and ham, but she insisted. They’d bake these cookies, sugar cookies and snickerdoodles and gingerbread cookies. Dad tried, the first year to do everything, but it just went really bad. And the food and the presents was never really the whole meaning of it anyway, she just loved that we could all be together and not have to worry about dad working or anything else.” He rubbed his hands together to warm them up. Isaac took Stiles hands in his and looked towards the stars.
“Mom would take me and Camden out, every Christmas to look at the stars. She said that we were all so small, and yet there’d always be people who thought they were actually really big and important and we had to learn that we weren’t. Because to the stars, we are all just specks of dust, or a dustmote really, not even really visible.” Isaac said. Stiles smiled sadly and stood up, keeping Isaac’s hands in his.
“Come on, time for bed. The stars will be here tomorrow.” Stiles said.
Isaac gave one last look at the stars and followed Stiles into the house, breathing in the scents of the Christmas baking and most of all, the smell of home.