Christmas in Camp Half-Blood

December 1st

Chiron
I was sitting in my office and going through the list of names, who would arrive here on Christmas. Surprisingly many kids decided to visit their friends here. I actually expected them to stay away from their half-blood lives for a while because of the war and the lost ones.

I gazed at the flames and let my thoughts overtook me. I lost a track of time and just let myself wonder over what had happened. Even though I've watched many heroes who I trained fall and die, I still felt sorry. They didn't deserve any of that crap. None of them.

Suddenly a knock on my door interrupted my train of thoughts. I looked over to it and called, "Come in."

The door opened and to the room stepped a girl wearing a dark green jacket with two brown braids and green eyes. What caught my eyes was the snow on her. If it was snowing then it had to be December already. I mentally facepalmed myself because I totally forgot about the date and due to that I hadn't done some preparation for snow I was supposed to.

"Hello Chiron," she greeted me with a smile. That was a good sign, telling that nobody had broken their arm, probably.

"Hello Miranda. Would you like to sit down?" I gestured to the armchair in front of me. She nodded and did as I offered her. I gave her a cup of strawberry tea, which she with a "Thank you," took. I watched her make herself comfortable and asked her, "What can I do for you?"

She sipped from her cup and said with an excitement in her eyes, "I wanted to ask, if our cabin could plant a Christmas tree."

I was a little taken aback by surprise. I didn't expect that kind of question, but it was a good idea. At least we wouldn't have to argue with wood nymphs because of the tree like every year prior. "Sure," I agreed with a warm smile, "Maybe you could plant it in the middle of cabins. What do you think?"

"That would be perfect!" Miranda exclaimed with a huge smile plastered on her face, "Thank you Chiron."

"I did nothing," I shook my head, "I should be the one to thank you and your cabin."

"We're glad that we can help," she said with excitement laced in her voice. "Everyone is looking forward to Christmas. I would say that this year even more than normally, because of the war in summer," her voice quietened down a little by the end of the sentence but I could still hear it nonetheless.

I almost frowned, but thanks Tyche I managed not to. I didn't want the girl to focus on the cruel past events right now, so I asked her, "Do you think that you could with your siblings also made some garlands? If I remember correctly, I would say we need new ones, thanks to Stolls." I sighed absentmindedly as I remembered their prank last year at the evening of December 26. Let's just say, that all our decorations were on fire at the end.

"Sure thing," she nodded with her previous excitement again. "I think I should already go," she said as she stood up, "Thanks again, Chiron."

"No problem, if you would ever want to ask anything, stop by," I gave her last smile before she left my office.

And like that I was at my office alone again with the only thing I could hear being my breath and fire crackling. Before I could zone out again, I stood up and left my office too.

As I walked through camp I saw many kids being outside and enjoying snow. Hermes's kids were having a snowball fight with Apollo's and Nike's. Before I knew it, one of them threw a snowball at me right at the back of my neck. But when I turned around I saw only few kids throwing snowballs at each other. Still, I hadn't doubted even for a moment, that it was not an accident. A little further away from the snowball fight Athena's were building an igloo from snow. Well, maybe a word snow castle would be more accurate. Its door was even taller than me. I stopped for few seconds and just admired the details. One girl with grey eyes noticed me and waved at me. I waved at her too and went away. I walked pass the arena and noticed, that Ares's were still training under Clarisse's command, even though it was snowing. Clarisse was scolding her two half brothers, when a snowball hit her. She turned immediately and saw two Hecate's daughters. She started chasing them, but they ran away pretty quickly.

I finally got to the pegasus's stages. I had to make sure that they were warm and wouldn't be sick. When I walked in, I saw a son of Iris, Butch, feeding them.

"Hello, Butch," I greeted him.

He looked up from the horse food with a surprise clear on his face, "Hello, Chiron. Sorry that I didn't notice you, I thought you were some pegasus. They're quite bored."

I smiled not minding it. After all I was half horse. I raised my eyebrows as I noticed that every pegasus had a blanket over them. "You put those blankets over them?" I asked curiously Butch.

"Yeah, I thought they were a bit cold," he shrugged continuing what he was doing, before I came in.

"Thank you. I was supposed to do that, but I lost the track of days," I admitted a little ashamed.

"No worries," he said, "everyone forgets. Plus it must be hard to remember dates, when you're immortal."

"That would be correct I suppose. However that does not excuse my memory," I sighed. I knew that what Butch had a point, after all I was the one saying quite often, that everyone makes mistakes. But that didn't erase the slightly disappointed feeling I had.

"I wanted to ask," Butch straightened and looked directly at me, "how will Christmas this year look like? I mean, I heard about the prank last year, so I was wandering, if there will be new decorations."

I frowned a little, but answered nonetheless, "As I said, I lost the track of days, so I haven't thought about it. But Demeter's cabin already offered that they could plant a tree and made some garlands."

Butch nodded. He stayed silent for a moment, his eyes a little unfocused, as if he was deeply thinking about something. Than he smiled and looked at me again, "And how about we make decorations? I mean cabins. Everyone would work on some type of decorations and at the end, we would put it together, so it would represent everyone here."

I was surprised by his idea. Not that it was bad, it was good, a really good one. I just didn't expected him to suggest something like this. But if it worked, it would be... well, definitely original. I had no idea, how it would go down with certain cabins (*cough* *cough* Ares') but it was worth a shot.

"And you think that they would like to participate?" I asked him genuinely curious.

"Yup, no doubts," he answered immediately, "literally everyone can't wait for the Christmas."

That was the same thing Miranda said. If most of the campers were excited about Christmas as those two suggested, then it wouldn't be a problem, if we start the preparations a little early, would it?

"Thank you for the idea. I will announce it at the lunch. Thank you for your time," I said as I turned to leave.

"Glad I could talk to you," Butch shouted and continued taking care of the creatures.

...

It was midday and everyone in camp sat in here, Dining pavilion. Thanks to magic, it wasn't snowing here, but it wasn't warm here either. I stood up and stomped to make everyone pay attention to me.

When campers quietened down I said, "Thank you for the attention. As you all probably know, we don't have right now any decorations for Christmas because of a certain prank which was pulled last year."

Campers started muttering among themselves and some of them even yelled something towards the Hermes' table. I had to stomp again, but this time it took longer for me to get their attention back. "I heard, that many of you are fairly excited for Christmas, so I decided to suggest making our own decorations."

Many tables bursted aloud in agreement but there were also some, who didn't look interested. When everyone quietened down again, I asked the head counselors to stop by my office after lunch, so we could decide, which decoration will each cabin create.

...

As everyone left my office, I zoned out looking at the flames. Most of the head counselors were happy about the idea and some after a little talking were also content, but there was still one cabin who didn't participate. Aphrodite's cabin. Drew was talking about some plans they had and refused to even think about cancelling them. I shook my head deciding to not to worry about it.

...
Hello!
Welcome to my book.
I would like to say something intelligent here, but can't think of anything, so bye 👋