Ineffability

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like

Hands down, Jenna's favorite holiday was Christmas. She was technically raised Lutheran, but always identified more with pantheism before discovering that Dante got it pretty correct. Now that she knew angels and demons, not to mention Celesterns, were so much realer than she ever guessed, Christmas held more religious significance, but was still primarily a time of secular celebration, of friendship and music and camaraderie and love and food and giving. And now that she'd met two angels in particular (one Fallen, one less so) a time of diverse traditions as well.

As an angel, Aziraphale did not subscribe to any particular denomination, and as such observed pretty much everything. He had introduced Jenna to Kwanzaa, Channukah, St. Lucia's Day, the Chung Yeung Festival, Lohri, Omisoka, Waitangi Day, Bon Om Touk and many other international human celebrations, all of which she thoroughly enjoyed, not least because they'd experienced them in the actual countries. She had also celebrated the Winter Solstice with Anathema and Marjorie when they met in 2020, and was looking forward to doing the same this year.

Crowley didn't have any religious or spiritual traditions to share, but he was the expert on how to enjoy every commercialized aspect of the holidays he'd created. Jenna had asked him once why he did that, when he and Jesus were such good friends, to which the demon responded with a barking laugh and a "You kidding? Not only did he haaate his birthday, but Jesus was a Virgo. He would have appreciated my bastardization of humanity's incorrect estimation of the day he entered the world."

Jenna insisted they not listen to Christmas music until at least after Halloween, which Crowley took to mean he could blast Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You" at 12am on November 1st. Jenna almost yelled at her beau, but grinned lovingly instead upon jolting up and seeing him dance around in his sparkly red dress, lip syncing into a hairbrush. That was the beginning of the festivities during their second Christmas together in 2021, followed by Crowley showing her his favorites of the myriad obnoxiously early holiday commercials he'd inspired over the decades, as well as rating the toys he'd won commendations for, such as Bop It™ and the jack-in-the-box.

After Jenna's birthday on November 21 (which Crowley insisted on making as fantastic as possible, since last year she'd spent it fighting psycho Archangels and demons) came the American holiday Thanksgiving, which they celebrated by watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, donating thousands to NARF and video chatting with Jenna's aunt and uncle a bit. Crowley always lamented over the brutal origins of the day, having experienced it all firsthand, and Jenna had always been horrified her country was founded on genocide and slavery, plus neither had family nearby, so they skipped most of it. The demon did, however, enjoy telling his girlfriend how, in 1986, he'd caused a gust of strong wind to blow the Superman balloon into a tree, and how he'd inadvertently got Sonic the Hedgehog banned from the parade for 18 years.

The Friday after Thanksgiving, Jenna and Crowley began the holidays in earnest. They decked Crowley's spacious halls in bright tinsel of various hues, verdant garlands, pointsettas terrified into looking their best, soft cotton masquerading as snow and, at Jenna's request, a tiny Norman Rockwell esque village with hundreds of miniature people, places of business and Christmas trees. They could never decide between gaudy and classy, so some rooms were full of animatronic Santas, Rudolphs with scarlet noses and Nightmare Before Christmas wreaths, while others contained sparkly blues and silvers and porcelain Nativity scenes that Jenna loved to stare at in rapture.

Crowley insisted on picking the very best tree, and had wandered the lot for hours when he gave up and found Jenna nodding off beneath a tall, scrawny evergreen. It was patchy, and a bit brown, and shed quite a few needles in fear when he approached, but Crowley had never seen any plant so beautiful as the one sheltering his beloved as she slept. Jenna made him promise not to scare it, then helped him dig it out in a way that preserved the roots somewhat and place it in a water-filled container. At home, they decked it with countless kitschy ornaments Crowley had collected over the millennia and strung it with twinkle lights, then sat on the couch to admire its peaceful beauty.