Closed The Most Punderful Time of the Year

[Marcus Carnahan]

Christmas was Marcus’ third favorite time of year, right below Guy Fawkes night and Halloween as one of the best holidays. Unfortunately, Christmas did not have fireworks or pranks, but it still had the opportunity to dress up and eat treats, among many other traditions that made the holiday worth it. Decorating the Christmas tree was by far Marcus’ favorite tradition that didn’t involve food, and the fact that Theia and Sawyer were always able to return home for the holidays meant they could continue the tradition even when everyone was in school. Smiling wide, Marcus placed the last big box of Christmas decorations on the living room floor, before he stretched his arms over his head and looked between everyone. “Alright, where should we start kids?” He asked, noticing how many boxes of decorations there were. He had sabotaged the biggest box so tinsel flew out of it when opened and he wanted to open that box first, but knew he should leave the decision to the kids lest he risk giving away his joke before it happened. Regardless, their tree would be its usual amount of over decorated, and almost falling down by the weight of the decorations, and Marcus couldn’t wait to begin.​

(credit to Kris for the punderful title!!)

 

[Thistle Carnahan]

Presents were the obvious (and clearly, most important) draw when it came to Christmas, but more and more as she got older, Thistle was starting to see another appeal. Mysteries. What was she getting for Christmas? What was Felix getting? It could be anything, and there was a lot of fun guessing games to be played in that space. So, she was looking forward to the day immensely. And Christmas decorations meant Christmas was soon. Very soon. Thistle watched dad bringing the boxes out, sprawled on the sofa with pens and paper. She had been drawing while dad was bringing in the decorations, and once he was done, she held her paper up to show what she had drawn. "Put THIS on the tree!" She suggested insistently, showing him the very brightly coloured drawing she had done of a worm.

 

[Sawyer Carnahan]

Despite how eager Sawyer had been to be off at Hogwarts with Theia, he was glad to be home. He hadn't been worried Dad would blow the house down or trade Thistle to some garden gnomes or anything like Theia usually seemed to be, but he had found the homesickness for their slice of chaos had settled in rather quickly once the excitement of the first few days had settled.

Being home and back with family though also meant that it was Christmas time. And Christmas meant Mum's anniversary was right around the corner. He couldn't tell if Dad was just amping up the fun so that they wouldn't dwell on it, but part of him sourly wondered if he'd some how forgotten, throwing up the Christmas tree and acting like things were still normal. It had been two years, and it hurt less, but it still felt weird to Sawyer, and he wasn't sure how carrying on with family traditions was supposed to work without Mum. He was sat at the piano bench, knee tucked up under his chin, though he wasn't really intending on playing anything. It was nice to see Dad and Thistle so excited at least. "Aren't worms a more spring time thing?" He called over to Thistle, trying to get a better glimpse at her drawing as she waved it in Dad's face.

 

[Felix Carnahan]

Felix was ready to start decorating for Christmas weeks ago but he had been denied. All because they had to wait for Sawyer and Theia to get back from school which he didn’t think was particularly fair. It was so annoying that everything seemed to revolve around them now. He tried to argue that it would be a nice surprise if they came home to the house fully decorated, but dad hadn't been convinced. Now as if summoned by dad's voice, Felix came rushing around the corner and crashed into one of the boxes causing it to fall over, spilling an unfortunate amount of ornaments onto the floor. “Oops.” he said, making a face, before turning to dad. “We should start with all the big ones first!” Felix nearly shouted excitedly before looking at his sister. “Ugh, Thistle trees aren’t for drawings. That’s what the fridge is for.” he said. “It is cool though.” he added after looking at it for a while. She always drew cool stuff, even if she was little.

 

[Theia Carnahan]

Theia had mixed feelings about Christmas, as she did with most holidays. Usually it would be one of the holidays where she could sit back and have fun and allow her siblings open their gifts and make a mess of the house with decorations, because that’s what Christmas was for. But it had changed in recent years, the passing of her mother being close to Christmas ruining what once had been Theia’s favorite holiday, the reminder of how much she missed her mum, and the burden of making Christmas the same as it had always been, of being the organized person her mum always was so everyone else would be happy one Theia couldn’t get away from. She knew that now she would not be able to sit back and rest like she wanted to, or usually would, and had felt tense since returning home from Hogwarts. She had a temporary reverie knowing that day they were decorating the tree, and that was meant to be chaotic, as much as she liked having no chaos around, part of the fun of decorating was making it imperfect and personal and she was trying to stay low key and let things unfold as dad began to find the boxes of decorations. Her two baubles she had made for Felix and Thistle were wrapped in small boxes she had hidden away in her room, and she allowed herself a moment to run upstairs and find them before returning to the living room as dad placed down the final box. When Felix knocked over one of the boxes, Theia quietly placed her gifts on a nearby table and knelt down to clean up the mess of decorations now on the floor. “Felix, Thistle, I made you decorations, over there.” She mumbled, nodding through her hair, to the table with the two boxes as she picked up the baubles and put them back in the box.​

 

[Marcus Carnahan]

His attention drawn by Thistle’s exclamation to put her drawing on the tree, Marcus gasped, taking the piece of paper in his hands and looking at the multi-coloured worm in awe. “I love it! A Christmas Critter! We can put it…. here?” He asked, holding the paper as low as possible, underneath the branches, to toy with Thistle. “Ooor, here?” He asked again, holding it up high, next to where the star would be. “No no, I like it here.” Marcus confirmed, placing it at approximately Thistles height, trying to balance the paper on one of the branches, and laughing to himself as Felix knocked over one of the boxes of baubles. “I think the big decorations are in the big box, Felix.” Marcus said, a wide smile on his face knowing this was the perfect time for his prank to unfold. “Why don’t you do the honors?” He asked, turning to the tree to still try and balance Thistle’s drawing properly. He would need to find a peg or something to keep it in place so the other decorations wouldn’t knock it over.​

 

[Thistle Carnahan]

Thistle frowned in annoyance as her brothers protested about the drawing. "But it's my worm and it's cool!" Thistle argued, holding her worm up higher. She grinned in vindication when Dad took the drawing, holding it up to the tree. "No, higher!" She insisted at the first placement, giggling as he kept getting it wrong. "No!" She grinned and nodded when he put it at a better height. "Yeah!" Thistle said cheerfully. She was distracted from his balancing act by Theia, wandering over to the table curiously to see what she had made. "Oh, cool!" She said brightly, picking it up. "I wanna put it with my worm!"

 

[Sawyer Carnahan]

Sawyer watched with amusement as Dad teased Thistle about where to hang her drawing, briefly distracted by Felix managing to somehow make the collection even more chaotic. He went to share an exasperated glance with Theia, reminded of his own ornament he'd made as she grabbed her for Felix and Thistle. "Oh yeah, I made one too," He said, drifting over to the hallway where he'd left his trunk, too lazy to drag it all the way up to his and Theia's room and having zero interest in trusting Dad to get it up there safely. He brought in the ornament after fishing it out from his trunk, letting it spin gently between his fingers while it played the plunking little tune he'd managed to put together at the Art Club thing.

Setting his ornament down for now though, Sawyer headed over to where Felix and the stacked boxes of ornaments were. Righting the one Felix had toppled over, Sawyer toed the box Dad was pointing with the big stuff in it closer to Felix while he cleaned up a frankly concerning amount of tinsel, deciding to just slowly wrap it around his shoulders and neck rather than try and stuff back in a box.

 

[Felix Carnahan]

Felix sighed and threw his hands in the air as Dad insisted on putting Thistle’s drawing on the tree. It was going to throw off the carefully messy way they decorated the tree every year but apparently he was the only one who cared about that. But his annoyance didn’t last long and he quickly moved. “Oh right!” he said and looked toward the biggest box that was off to the side. He knelt down as Sawyer kicked it closer to him before taking off the lid. Not even a second later there was an explosion and the room was covered in tinsel. Felix froze for a moment from the shock of it but was bent over laughing the next. He looked around at his family’s shocked faces and wheezed out a “Good one Dad.” before shooting a slightly sheepish look at Theia, knowing she was probably going to be annoyed now. Felix took that opportunity to hop up and grab the decoration she made for him, not caring about the tail of the tinsel he left behind him. “Thanks!” he chirped as he opened the box to get a good look at the decoration, before she got too mad at him and took it away.