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As soon as Thanksgiving dinner was over, Clark flew from Kansas to the already growing line of deal hunters outside of the southeast Metropolis Walmart. He was lucky enough to be 10th in line and not affected by the (warm for winter nights in Metropolis) 40-degree windy weather. It was only 9 p.m., and he had till 4 a.m. for Walmart to open its doors. He laid his back on the hard, dusty Walmart exterior and watched as the line expanded.
After around 10 minutes Clark hears an older woman sneeze next to him. The senior is wearing nothing more than a light long sleeve and a thin jacket, her withering hands clutching into her pockets for warmth. Clark pulls off his winter coat. “Ma’am, do you need a jacket? It’s only going to get colder tonight.”
The woman’s eyes warm. “Oh, why thank you, sir, but I can’t ask that of you—you’ll be out here as long as I will be. My granddaughter warned me to wear a jacket, but my stubborn behind told her that because I’m from Lesotho, I could handle a little wind.” She gave Clark a crooked-teeth grin and pushed his jacket away.
“I visit the North Pole a lot… for my job! I can handle this weather. Please take it; I don’t need it. Look, I’m sweating!” Clark pushed, and after multiple back-and-forths, the grandma conceded.
“Fine, I’ll take your scarf, sir!” Clark smiles as he wraps the scarf Ma made him around his line neighbor's neck.
The woman holds her hand out. “My name is Cary; what’s yours?” He shakes her hand. “Clark Kent, ma’am.”
“What are you doing spending your night like this? You should be with a girlfriend with a face and manners like yours or with Santa at the North Pole. I’d sure be more interesting than here.”
“At my job, I have a group of co-workers I’m good friends with. I want to get each of them a nice Christmas gift. I’ve got all the gifts planned; I just have to be able to afford them all and gifts for family and friends. So I figured I’d join the ‘2014 South East Boulevard Walmart Black Friday camp out.’ I’m in the Facebook group and everything.”
Cary seemed to warm up after the scarf and took her hands out of her pocket to pull out her phone to show a picture of a cute curly-headed 8-year-old.
“That’s my youngest granddaughter, Julie; her mom is Jewish, so I’m trying to afford getting her gifts for eight days. She’s staying with me this holiday, so I want her and her mom to know I respect their holiday even if it’s not my religion.” Cary pulled her hands back into her pockets, and Clark feigned shutting his eyes in a yawn, using his heat vision to warm up the surroundings. Clark wished he could warm it up for everyone in the line. But it looked like most of the lightly dressed were huddled up around a heater near the Walmart employee break table. One of the heater hogger’s was wearing a Batman sweatshirt.
“Huh, that’s really interesting. Hanukkah does that gift tradition. You know, I think one of my friends is Jewish… Is it bad if I get them just a Christmas present?”
“Well, it’s different for every Jewish person, I think? I know I used to only give my grandbabies gifts on Christmas, but I realized I was isolating Julie, whose mom wouldn’t allow her to have Christmas gifts. It was a boundary I ignored till Julie told me how much it bothered her. I’m pretty sure not all Jewish people feel so strongly about not celebrating Christmas. But I’m sure they would be grateful that you considered their holiday instead of yours. Just ask them how they feel.”
Soon after, Cary drifted to sleep sitting in line. Clark draped his jacket over the woman as a blanket and made some edits to his original plan.
Bruce was Jewish. He mentioned celebrating Hanukkah with Dick last year. God, how could he be so inconsiderate to give him a Christmas gift. With everyone on the Justice League, he just assumed they all celebrated Christmas. He only had 6 hours to Google and Facebook stalk to match everyone’s gifts accordingly.
Bruce’s and Hal’s mothers were Jewish, so they would now be getting eight small gifts. But also both of them had Christian fathers… So Clark will just get a Christmas gift too, just in case. Barry and John made a Christmas post last year, so they are in the Christmas gift pile. J’onn said that he was cool with Christmas gifts last year when Diana asked. Diana was an actual Greek demigod, so she was most likely Hellenistic. He guessed the Amazons celebrated the woman-only, Ancient Greek, Dionysus-themed winter festival, the Holea, and Diana would enjoy fancy white wine. J’onn doesn’t celebrate anything. Now there’s only one last person on his list.
Captain Marvel.
At first Clark thought of a wine gift as well, as the Captain gets his powers from Greek gods like Zeus and Atlas. But then he remembered Solomon and Mercury and freaked out. Solomon meant both Hanukkah and Christmas, and Mercury meant Saturnalia. Even with the reporter's recent raise, he could not afford to get that many gifts.
Before Clark even noticed, 4 a.m. came, leaving any sense of camaraderie the line had. Clark stopped a man from stealing Cary’s cart and was able to stop a fistfight over a 50% off DVD set. Thankfully Superman didn't need to make an appearance, and Clark hurriedly checked out before tailing it home to sleep.
As soon as Clark woke up in the evening for the league meeting. He had a plan.
Batman’s routine news and check-in ended fairly quickly, with most sane villains respecting the holidays this year. Leaving them all to their 15-minute coffee catch-up time. Everyone made their way to the kitchen to prepare their cup—except for Captain Marvel, who didn’t like the taste.
“Cap, I have a question.” Clark sat on the free barstool next to the captain, who was munching on a chocolate bar.
The Captain chewed while responding, “Sure, what’s up?”
“Out of all the gods who sponsor you, who do you talk to the most?”
“Hmm, I mean it depends. I don’t talk to them a whole lot; they just give me their powers. But out of them all Solomon talks the most, usually when I ask for wisdom, but he gets bored and humors me the most.”
“Would you say you believe in what Solomon believes in?” Clark could afford the Abrahamic religions.
“…I’m not sure? It’s a tizzy, so I try not to worry about it too much. I mean, Solomon believes in the Abrahamic god, and Solomon has magical wisdom. So most likely the Abrahamic god is real, but also I get my powers from Greek and Roman gods, and my powers come from a wizard. So is the Abrahamic god not the only god? But being truly Abrahamic is being monotheistic? If I’m Abrahamic, would I be Jewish or Christian? Jesus seems nice and honestly relatable, but again, monotheism. Sorry about my rant. In summary, I guess I’m just vaguely spiritual or agnostic?”
“I get it, with Krypton being all about Ra and America being all about Christ. Not going to lie, I forgot my next question after that. I was going to try to guess more to keep the surprise. But I give up! What holiday would you like a gift for?”
“Oh! You don’t need to give me a gift. But that’s very thoughtful—“
“You are getting a gift!”
“Okay! Just like, get me a normal gift and put it in a happy holidays bag.”
Captain Marvel was an actual genius. Instead of this whole guessing game, he could have just gotten a regular gift and happy holidays-ified it. Well, too late now. Time to own it.
Hal sneaked up from behind them. “Yeah, man, I get the issue. My mom’s Jewish, and my dad’s Christian, but we literally celebrate nothing.”
Clark was definitely going to just text and ask everyone next time.
During the holidays. He gives the captain a heater. Clark doesn’t know if he does actually feel cold. But, after seeing the captain smuggle chocolate and protein bars after the coffee talk, he thinks the heater will be appreciated.