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Charlie fucking hates Christmas.
He knows that's a stupid huge cliché, but he does.
He's thought about it a lot, and he thinks he can pin this eccentricity, like so many others, on his weirdo family. Honestly, how can someone be expected to enjoy a holiday when his mother has such high expectations for it?
She insists that they sit there as a ‘family’ at the dinner table and poke at the awfully cooked potatoes and turkey and pretend they're delicious. His little sister gets to pout and whine and mum has to placate her with Christmas pudding or trifle, but all the gods forbid Charlie expect special treatment like that.
She's taken the divorce rather hard, mum says. Like Charlie hasn't? His father was his idol for his whole childhood. Besides, it's been two years. She's ten now. She needs to grow up.
Maybe his father was the reason he hated Christmas. He has such horribly vivid memories of the first Christmas without him, mum's fake smiles and Lizzy's crying and their grandparents making the trip to see them which they'd never done before, saying they were trying to help out your mother, Charlie. Like it was helpful for her to have to put on this fake Christmas when she was already in pieces after finding out not five weeks ago that her husband had been cheating.
But whatever. He was gone now. No fucking contact. Not even on their birthdays.
“Chaaarlieee!” came mum's shout from downstairs.
He pulls out an earbud. “Yeah?”
No response, so he opens his bedroom door and calls down the stairs again.
“Yeah?”
No fucking response again.
He sighs, accepting his fate and trudging down the stairs.
“Yeah?” he says again as he finally reaches his mother in the kitchen.
"Oh, there you are darling! I thought you hadn't heard me!” She says. Like as if he hadn't replied three times.
“Did you need help?”
"Yes, I do actually. Would you get the Christmas decorations down from the attic?”
Oh fuck. This again. One Christmas a year really was too much. It should only occur on leap years.
"Are we using the fake tree or a real one?” He asks.
She stops and peers at the corner of the room. “Hmm. You know what? Let's go for a big one. The plastic one always looks a little sad, don't you think? Yes, we’ll get a real one.”
He wants to scream. They don't have any more space than last year, when the already cramped sitting room had been colonised by a fake pine tree. He doesn't have the time to hoover up all those green needles from the floor, and he most certainly doesn't want to smell a forest in the safety of his own home.
“Alright. I'll leave the baubles up there until we get it.” Anything to somewhat delay the ridiculous bedecking of their house with gaudy ornaments. “Actually, should we just leave the decorating until we get the tree?”
“No! Goodness, no! And will you get the Christmas cards while you're up there? They'll probably arrive late, but better late than never, as they say!”
They won't be arriving late. He's not even on holidays from school yet. They'll be ridiculously early, if anything.
“Ooh, why don't we put up some fairy lights outside? Wouldn't that be lovely? You don't mind, do you?
Oh for fuck sake.
_______
He's exhausted by the time the lights are up, his fingers numb from clipping them to the gutters, and he wants nothing more than to flop into bed, but Lizzy is in the sitting room and she calls him as he walks past.
“Charlie! Charlie, put on a Christmas movie for me!”
He sighs. “You have to learn to do it yourself, Liz. You're a big girl now, and you should be able to do things on your own.”
"But you do it better!”
He sighs. Much as he complains about her though, he loves her. She's the most important thing in his life, and he'd do anything for her.
“Fine.” He kneels by the DVD box and flicks through them. “But I get to pick the movie.”
"Not fair!” She pouts. "I want to watch Barbie!”
He snorts and pulls out a case. “She has a Christmas movie?”
His sister nods enthusiastically. “The Nutcracker."
“That's shit. You'll like this one.” He puts the disc into the dvd player.
“Did you just say a bad word?”
He rolls his eyes. “Don't tell mum or I'll tell her you're taking her makeup.”
As if she doesn't know already. Lizzy isn't very careful.
“Fine. What's the movie?”
He sits beside her on the couch and shows her the case.
"The Muppet Christmas Carol.”
It's the only Christmas movie he likes. Scrooge is hilarious.
“The what?” He sighs. Of course she doesn't know the Muppets. Or maybe it's the Christmas Carol she doesn't know.
"Just shut up and watch it. It's good.”
Miraculously, she does.
_______
The next day, mum comes home with a ridiculously tall tree and Charlie has to decapitate it with a small saw from the shed while balancing precariously on a rickety little stool.
He leaves mum and Lizzy to decorate it while he rewatches the Muppets, but mum stands in front of the TV after about ten minutes and asks him to go down to the local corner shop for some milk, because of course they can't survive until morning without it.
He gets on his bike and pulls on the stupidly large helmet that he hates, a Christmas present from last year, and cycles as fast as he can to the shop while praying to whatever god there is that nobody he knows is there to see his foolish headwear.
His prayers are answered as he picks up a two litre carton and a bottle of coke, only because they're in the cool glass bottles.
He decides to get some crisps as well, walking to the confectionery section and stopping short at the sight of a boy his age.
The other boy looks up and scowls, and Charlie finally recognises him as the new boy who started in September. He can't quite remember his name, something weird. Probably Welsh. His clothes are weird too, looking better suited to the medieval era than modern day England.
He hopes the boy won't speak to him as he picks up a packet of Quavers, but alas, his good luck is gone.
“Charlie, yeah?”
“Um, yeah. Hi.”
“Can I borrow two quid?”
“Ummm.. no, sorry, I only have a fiver and I have to get..” he holds up his handfuls of stuff.
“Right, yeah.” He looks thoughtful. “Did we get maths homework?”
Charlie blinks. “Are we in the same maths class?” “Yes.”
“Oh. I don't remember. Why didn't you get it, were you sick?”
"Nah, I was asleep.”
Yeah, now that he thinks of it he can remember the boy sleeping in a lot of classes. He seems like the type to brag about stuff like that. Actually, now he thinks about it, he looks at the boy's hands and sees a twenty pack of Marlboro gold, complete with the revolting picture of someone in hospital with cancer.
“They're not going to sell you those, y'know. You're sixteen. They aren't stupid.”
The boy grins like he was just waiting for Charlie to comment on the cigarettes.
“Yeah they will. I got a fake id, look.”
He pulls out a card and Charlie reads the name with a frown.
“Nadbor Sodden?” He says out loud. “Yeah, they aren't believing that name for one second."
The boy scowls at him. “That's my actual name, wanker.”
“Oh shit, sorry. Are you from Wales then?”
“It's a Polish name, idiot. My dad's Slavic. And I grew up in England.”
“Shit, I'm really sorry,” Charlie starts babbling a bit. “I swear I'm not racist, I just-”
Nadbor grins. “Nah, I really don't care. Want to walk around a bit?”
“Sure, yeah.” Charlie is just relieved that the boy seems so easygoing. “Just let me buy this stuff and we can go.”
_______
And that is how Charlie ends up walking his bike through the streets as the Christmas lights turn on with a boy he's never spoken to before in his life. He hangs his helmet on the handlebars and uses it as a basket for the milk and coke as he and Nadbor share the crisps.
“I absolutely love Christmas.”
“Really?” Charlie frowns. Nobody their age likes Christmas anymore. Sure, they don't hate it quite like he does, but they certainly don't love it.
"Yeah. Look at all the lights, and all the people talking to each other that don't normally, and doing stuff like donating food to shekters. People are just so much nicer.”
“Doesn't that bother you?” Charlie asks. “That they save all their kindness up for one occasion? They don't normally bother to make the place look pretty, or talk to each other, or donate stuff.”
“Sure, but it's nice that they're trying at least once, isn't it? It's unreasonable to ask people to keep that shit up consistency. Nobody has that much time or money to spare. But then at Christmas, they all find a way to make it work, at least once, even if they just donate a tin of biscuits that they don't want. I think it's coil.”
Charlie hasn't thought of that really. He just hates how fake it all seems. “Whatever.”
“I used to get so scared as a kid that Santa would miss my house, since I lived in the middle of nowhere on a farm.”
“A farm? Cool.”
“Not really.”
“Not really a farm, or not really cool?”
“Not really a farm. We kept horses, which somehow put us in the category of farm. We did horse riding lessons for a while before we moved.”
“Why'd you move?”
Nadbor shrugs. “My dad is on the run from the Russian Bratva for harbouring a little girl who was super politically important a few years back. We had to move to the city to hide in plain sight.”
“Ha ha.”
Nadbor doesn't smile.
Commitment to the bit, Charlie supposes.
“Right. Sounds interesting.”
They walk in silence for another while before Charlie speaks again. “Look, I'd better go. My mum needs the milk for some reason or other, and my sister's going to need me to show her how to use the TV again.”
“Right. Well, see you in school Charlie.”
“See you, Nadbor.”
And Charlie puts on his helmet and cycles home.
_______
On the way back, he frowns at the sight of a homeless man with a long white beard outside a shop, being denied entry. He feels bad for the man, but oh well. Not his problem.
Except he finds himself braking his bike, coming to a stop beside the dejected man.
“Er, excuse me?” The man looks up and smiles, far too jolly seeming for a guy living on the streets. “Yes, son?”
Ick. He hates strangers calling him son. But whatever. He holds out the coca cola that he had been looking forward to drinking, offering it to the man. It feels weird, but he can't help but think of Nadbor as he does it, and the boy's optimistic view of the holiday season.
The old man's face lights up. “Are you sure? I couldn't possibly.”
“No, it's fine. Season of giving, and all that.”
The man smiles and accepts the coke.
“Hold on, son. I might have something for you as well.”
And he hands Charlie a bright red Santa hat. Where did that come from? Charlie could've sworn the man's hands were empty a minute ago. Still, he takes the hat with a smile and puts it on before finally cycling home.
As soon as he walks in the door, he is met with the smell of spiced biscuits being made, and he walks into the kitchen to see his mum and sister covered in flour.
“Charlie! We made biscuits!” Lizzy holds up a revoltingly blackened biscuit. “Want to try?”
“Maybe later,” he smiles.
They decorate the tree together, and afterwards, Charlie puts the star on top. It feels weirdly good to do, like accepting the joy of the holiday season for once. He hasn't done it in years.
That night, he watches the Muppets Christmas Carol in his room again, laptop balanced on his knees.
“Chaaarliee!” Comes his sister's screech from downstairs. “It's Santa! Look out the window!”
Charlie sighs, but walks to his window. There he sees the old man from earlier, wearing a full Santa outfit and ringing a bell with a donation bucket beside him. Ah, Charlie realises. That's how he had the hat.
He smiles in spite of himself. It actually is nice to be nice. Fuck Nadbor for getting to him like that. He really wants to see him again.