Secret Santa 2003, for Raven (poetrygirl@pcisys.net).
Disclaimer: I don't own the song, the characters or the tree.
A/N: Happy Holidays.
Underneath the mistletoe.
“I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus
Underneath the mistletoe last night”
It was the 20th of December. Outside, the snow had been falling all day and the usually busy streets of the nation’s capital were now covered in a white carpet.
Inside a house in Georgetown Willow hummed with the music from the radio in the corner as she danced across the parquet floor of the living room. A shake of the hips here, a twist there and suddenly she was over at the coffee-table where the boxes of decorations were standing.
“She didn't see me creep
down the stairs to have a peep;”
She glanced up at the clock at the wall, once, before she grabbed two of the silver bells from one of the bright blue boxes and sashayed over to the waiting Christmas tree. They had chosen fir.
She had wanted a plastic tree, so that they could use it, and reuse it.
He’d looked horrified at the idea and muttered something about the smell, or lack of smell with the fake tree. He’d acknowledged that a real tree would loose the needles over half the floor, but they would have to use a duster on a plastic one ever so often.
In the end he had managed to persuade her to have a real tree. She grinned at the memories of the methods he had chosen, and would never look at a feather the same way, ever again.
This was one of the first times she had ever decorated a Christmas tree. It had always been a thing for families, and hers hadn’t done it. Nor had she done it with her husband when they had first gotten married.
But even if she found herself of a questionable character when it came to religion, a little bit Jewish, a little bit of Wicca and very much lapsed in both of them, it would be nice for Sara to have Christmas traditions that didn’t exclude her from the rest of her friends when she grew older.
“She thought that I was tucked
up in my bedroom fast asleep”
Besides, Willow grinned to herself, the Christmas celebrations would be mixed with Hanukkah-traditions. She had already made the latkes.
She put the silver bell on one of the low branches, where Sara would be able to touch it to make sounds.
She glanced back up at the clock. Where was he? He had said that, barring a major political crisis, he would be home in time to decorate the tree with her.
“Then I saw Mommy tickle Santa Claus
Underneath his beard so snowy white;”
She shrugged. He was late, again. It was the downside of being married to a politician. Computer programmers had much more reasonable hours, and especially since she was working free-lance after Sara’s birth.
She grabbed a couple of porcelain angels, a gift from Cordelia and Angel. It was most likely that Cordelia had bought them as a gag-gift. But they were beautiful and one of them looked like Sara.
They weren’t something suited for a two-year old, however, so she hung them on the higher branches where they would be appreciated.
The popcorn, that CJ had insisted was mandatory, hung around the green tree, in between the lights and angels. She looked around, before she grabbed one to eat.
Immediately she felt ashamed, if she kept eating the popcorn off the tree at the speed she was going, it would be empty before Christmas morning.
She began to occupy herself with the candy canes instead. Small, white and red. She hung them at various intervals, and on different branches.
She stepped back, one candy cane still in her and perused the result.
It was a beautiful Christmas tree, surely it didn’t need another candy cane.
Willow unwrapped the end of the sweet, and stuck it in her mouth.
The sweet, minty flavor along with the smell of the Christmas tree quickly overwhelmed her senses and she didn’t notice the man walk quietly into the doorway that led to the hall.
“Ho ho ho,” a deep voice suddenly said.
She turned around from the tree, the candy cane still in her mouth, utterly surprised by the sight.
“If that – if that,” she bowed over laughing. “If that’s how the congress is dressed it’s no wonder you’re not getting anything done.”
“What?” her husband sounded affronted. He went over to one of the mirrors and turned around to look at himself from all angles. “What are you talking about? I look great? Don’t I?” He had even put on a white wig and a thick white beard.
“Yeah, you really do, Sam. I think you need to diet, though.”
“I wanted Sara to have a Santa to give her the presents,” he explained. “You really think I went a bit overboard with the pillows?”
She went over to her very personal Santa Claus and grabbed hold around the man and the thick pillows under the red velvet suit.
“Aren’t you going to ask me if I’m naughty or nice?” she grinned up at him, an innocent smile, before she dragged the white beard down to plant a kiss on his jaw. “I’ve been told, on very good authority, that Santa Claus is supposed to do that.”
“Well, you’re not sitting on my lap, now are you?”
“I’m not? Well,” she placed a few kisses down his neck before she opened the red coat. “We’ll have to skip to the opening of presents then.”
Oh what a laugh it would have been
If Daddy had only seen
Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night
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