Chapter Text
Percy was not in the Christmas mood. After Thanksgiving, Dick and Alfred had enthusiastically decorated the entire house with holiday decorations, mostly Christmas but there were also Hanukkah decorations. Percy had been tactfully ignoring the decorations the entire month. Now that Christmas was close, Dick was way too enthusiastic about it.
“So, Percy, are you excited for Christmas? Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve!” Dick said enthusiastically.
“It’s like I’ve said, I don’t celebrate Christmas,” Percy said.
“I thought you just said you don’t remember celebrating Christmas, so we need to make it a bigger holiday to make up for all the holidays you can’t remember,” Dick said.
“No, I mean I distinctly remember that I do not celebrate Christmas, I don’t believe in Christianity,” Percy said.
“Aw but where’s your festive spirit? You have to celebrate some sort of Winter holiday, do you prefer Hanukkah?” Dick asked.
“I…the winter solstice, it was yesterday, I lit some candles for it. I don’t think I’ve celebrated Hanukkah in the past but lighting candles feels familiar so I would be more inclined to celebrate that holiday. I really don’t care for Christmas though,” Percy said.
Tim was also in the room, he’d been watching the conversation until now but he decided to chime in, “Both Bruce and I are Jewish on our mother’s side, we do both celebrate Christmas but we celebrate Hanukkah too, we’ve been lighting the Menorah, we’d be happy for you to join us with that.”
“Okay,” Percy agreed.
“That’s good. But today we were going to make Christmas cookies! And I was hoping Percy would help with that since he’s a good baker. And on Christmas you at least have to celebrate enough to open your presents!” Dick said earnestly.
“Hmm, I’ll make generic Winter Holiday cookies but not Christmas cookies. And you shouldn’t have gotten me Christmas presents, I told you from the start that I don’t celebrate Christmas, and I haven’t gotten any of you presents,” Percy said.
“Well, consider it belated Birthday presents since we weren’t able to give you presents for your Birthday last year. And it’s perfectly fine that you didn’t get us anything,” Dick said.
“Fine,” Percy grumbled.
“So, cookies? We need to make cookies for Santa,” Dick said.
“I certainly don’t believe in Santa, we can make cookies for us but we’re not making them for Santa,” Percy said.
“Santa’s dead,” Tim chimed in cheerfully.
“Timmy, not this again,” Dick said exasperatedly, like it was an old argument of theirs.
Percy just ignored them and went to the kitchen to start on the cookies.
“Ah, Master Percy, good to see you, do you need anything,” Alfred said.
“I have been informed that making Holiday cookies is important. I won’t do Christmas specific cookies but I can do holiday cookies,” Percy said.
First Percy made a large batch of his classic favorite blue-colored chocolate chip cookies, his favorite. Then he put those in the oven and started a batch of sugar cookies, he did a double recipe and dyed half of it a light blue color. Alfred got started on making white decorating icing for it. Alfred also made gingerbread cookies. There were two ovens in their ginormous kitchen so they both got to work with one of them. Dick came and joined them in the kitchen, he said he was on “clean up duty”, which was apparently an excuse to eat leftover dough from the bowls, though he did eventually actually clean up as well.
Percy found the cookie cutters, selecting the ones he found acceptable. He ended up with two snowflake designs, one candle design, one snowman design, and a 6-point star-design which he all found to be acceptable and not too Christmas-y. He used the blue-dyed cookies primarily with the snowflake cookies though he did a few with the snowman and the candle and one with the star. He then did the undyed cookie dough and made those cookies as well. Percy took the cookies out to cool appropriately, and put some in the freezer to chill them before icing them. Alfred had made a bunch of decorating icing and Percy got some of it. He decided to dye some of it yellow for the candle and the star and he dyed some of it in two shades of blue, though he kept most of it white. He didn’t do any in red or green.
He started decorating the cookies, mostly using white icing as a base layer. He did the entire star in yellow though on some of them he did white accent lines. He did yellow for the candle flame and did the base candle in white though he added blue stripes to the candle. He did the snowman all in white then used the blue icing to add the face and yellow to add the scarf. He did the snowflakes primarily in white and then added accents in the two shades of blue icing. All in all, he was quite pleased with the cookies he had decorated.
Alfred had made a bunch of gingerbread cookies and gave some to Dick with an icing bag so he could participate in decorating. Dick seemed to be eating as much icing as he was actually decorating cookies.
“Master Percy, your cookies look absolutely lovely, I simply must take a picture of you with them,” Alfred said. Percy positioned his cookies to look nice and then posed for Alfred’s picture. He then ate some of the chocolate chip cookies he’d made.
Bruce came in and saw the cookies, decorated in blue and white, “Hanukkah cookies! How lovely,” Bruce said.
“Master Percy made them,” Alfred said proudly.
“They’re generic winter holiday cookies, since I don’t like Christmas. I guess you can consider them Hanukkah cookies if you like, I guess the candles and the star especially would be fitting for that,” Percy said.
That night, they didn’t have a gala to go to, Percy joined them when they lit the Menorah candle. He didn’t believe in this either but the lighting of candles was pleasant. He looked to the hearth where a fire was burning and that felt like a piece of home.