Christmas Open Thread

[rude_not_ginger]

•deck•the•halls•

• THE DOCTOR LEARNS THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS •

~•~


Christmas Eve. 2009.

The Doctor loved Christmas! Back when he was a wee Time Lord, the first place he ever landed was London on Christmas Eve. He promised himself he'd never miss another Christmas ever, but that promise went into the same pile as "Lose weight" and "Regenerate a better hairline" and "Stop leaving companions in other universes". But the Doctor had never quite gotten the hang of New Years'. (He once spent several hours commiserating on the similarity between the confusing nature of New Years and Thursdays with one Arthur Dent, who will sadly not be appearing in this piece of narrative. -editor)

But! Through all his travels in space and time, he still hadn't quite figured out what Christmas was for exactly. Except as a yearly excuse for turkey, too much wine, and plum pudding (all of which the Doctor approved of). This year, though, as he strode the streets on this wonderful Christmas Eve, the Doctor decided he would figure out exactly what Christmas was all about.

This may or may not have included use of a intergalactic manipulative detector and a full pack of radio stellar isotopian crystals. Oh, and a cup of hot chocolate. In a festively-coloured cup.

There was a lovely light snow, and the Doctor grinned madly at the stars. Christmas. This year, he was going to figure out what it was all about.


~•~

OOC: Open thread, feel free to tag in as if your character is a passerby or as if your character is a long-standing companion! I'll be working on this thread up until the New Year, most likely! Everyone from any verse (or no verse!) is welcome, just let me know if you'd prefer it from a community or specific universe! And, for this thread, threadhopping is totally welcome!

Happy Holidays, everyone! &hearts

Comments

[marthajonesmd.livejournal.com]

Martha ran to catch up with the Doctor - she'd invited him home to dinner with her family, but he had, perhaps wisely, declined, so she'd told him she'd meet back up with him later. And, well, it was later, and here she was, cheeks flushed with happiness (and perhaps some wine, followed by spiked eggnog), and sporting a festive Santa hat perched at a jaunty angle on her head.

She also had a present for him from her mum - two presents, actually, because Francine had also been full of the Christmas spirit (more spiked eggnog). Which, all right, didn't really qualify as much of a benefit, but Martha was chalking it up in that category anyway.

"You ever go Christmas carolling?" she asked him as she caught up with him, her breath making little white puffs in the air.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Christmas caroling?" the Doctor cringed at the very idea.

He did feel pretty relaxed from the number of glasses of eggnog and rum he'd let intoxicate him while he was building the bits of technology he had in his hands. But the very idea of caroling?

"Have you heard me sing in this incarnation?"

[marthajonesmd.livejournal.com]

She rolled her eyes as she tried to tug the hat down to cover her ears. "I'm not going to make you carol - and, no, I haven't heard you sing, actually - it was just a simple question. My family used to do it every Christmas Eve, with some of my mum's family. Except then one Christmas, Mum found out about Annelise, so she spent the entire time I was home on break trying to chuck things at Dad's head. Haven't done it since." Martha shrugged it off. "C'mon, caroling. Singing songs in the snow, hot cocoa, that sort of thing. Haven't you had a festive incarnation, Doctor?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"I'm festive!" the Doctor protested. He gestured to his form. "I regenerated on Christmas this time around. I think that's about as festive as you can get. Sort of like sharing a birthday with a religious figure on your planet."

Not that he was being impossibly egotistical or anything.

"Religious at all, your family? I've never asked."

*USES THIS ICON FOREVER*

[marthajonesmd.livejournal.com]

"Oh, God," Martha groaned. "Is there no end to your ego? Anyway, Jesus wasn't born on Christmas, you ought to know that. Christians co-opting a pagan holiday for their own means, and all that." He had probably been there - she certainly wouldn't put it past him.

"Nah, typical Christmas and Easter sort of thing, you know the deal. 's just that Christmas has always been a family sort of time for us." Which, in the past, had involved far less bickering than, say, the Doctor had ever seen from the Joneses.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Probably not," the Doctor replied, casually. He liked his ego, and while he liked the idea of a historical messiah in human history, occasionally the idea became so absurd he had no choice but to talk in jest about Him when He was brought up.

"Seems like it would be hard, your family being so busy during the year. But! At least you've got Christmas. Couldn't even get my family together during Otherstide, and that didn't even happen every year."

[marthajonesmd.livejournal.com]

"I know there isn't." Although it was a bit of a Catch-22, if he readily admitted that there was no end to his ego, wasn't it? There was a very good reason Martha hadn't been a literature student at uni. (Well, other than her lifelong ambition to become a doctor.)

"Oh, it is - though it's easier now that I don't have to try and keep the peace with Mum and Dad and Annalise." And Martha definitely didn't miss those days. "And I got to see Keisha again. I swear that girl grows an inch every time I turn around!" Did the Doctor even know she had a niece? She wasn't sure if the topic had ever come up - he certainly wasn't much of one for discussing family (particularly Martha's). Which was probably a good thing, really, because Martha could go on about the topic for ages if nobody stopped her.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"That's Leo's daughter?" the Doctor asked, keeping his eyes on the device in hand.

[marthajonesmd.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, his and Shonara's. She can just about manage to call me Aunty Marf now." She'd never thought about what had happened to them during the Year - didn't want to. She'd seen enough young families just like them.

"What's that, then?" Martha gestured to the device in the Doctor's hand, suddenly acutely aware that she was monopolising the conversation (for a change).

((ooc: *threatens Martha with a stick till she's less boring* :|))

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Yes, I think I met her once." Once. Briefly, but far too long. He'd never tell Martha what happened, he didn't think he could.

He held up the detector proudly, glad for a change in topic. "Christmas spirit detector. Well, no, it's actually a psychic resonance detector, but if my theory is correct, then it should help me figure out exactly what Christmas is all about."

[marthajonesmd.livejournal.com]

"Christmas spirit detector?" Martha looked at it dubiously. "What, do the settings go from Scrooge to Santa?"

Also, she was pretty sure finding the meaning of Christmas was one of the hackneyed plots of just about every Christmas special ever. "The true meaning of Christmas is inside your heart," she offered. "I'll go buy you a little misshapen Christmas tree, though, if you'd like."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

Hey, the Doctor liked those Christmas specials! Especially if they involved a) Holiday music, b) Some form of pet being saved over Christmas, c) A token nod to Hanukkah, c) Special effects. He did so love special effects.

Moving on.

"Which heart, though?" the Doctor asked. "Because I like Christmas, and I've got two."

[marthajonesmd.livejournal.com]

"Both," Martha decided. "That means you've got extra Christmas spirit."

Not that she was playing a game of 'let's humour the Doctor' or anything.

"Do you like fruitcake?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"You're just humoring me," the Doctor said, narrowing his eyes. "And...yes, actually. Especially when it's got a lot of rum inside."

[marthajonesmd.livejournal.com]

"I am not!" Martha said, putting on her best innocent face. (She loved the man, she really did, but he could be a bit...weird sometimes.)

She rummaged inside her coat for a moment and pulled out a suspiciously heavy tin wrapped in a lumpy piece of knitting (which she was pretty certain was a scarf, as her mum hadn't learnt how to do anything other than straight lines yet). "Here you go!" Hopefully the rum would distract him from her shiftiness.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Ooooooh."

The Doctor would absolutely take the sweet cake. He awkwardly juggled the hot chocolate and detector before finally figuring out how to hold them all and still unwrap and much on the cake.

"But!" he said, around a bite of cake. "There's got to be a way to explain Christmas."

[marthajonesmd.livejournal.com]

Martha gave him another strange look; very few people were able to stomach her mum's fruitcake. Still, someone out there had to like the stuff, she figured, otherwise the recipe never would've been passed down to begin with.

"There isn't a way to explain Christmas. It just...is." Oh, God, this was turning into a Christmas special hopefully, the narration would note, the sort with aliens in it. "I think it's a human thing," she offered helpfully.

((ooc: I can has dark!Ten tag? *bats eyelashes* also, on a more relevant note, did you read Paul Cornell's DW Christmas story on his blog?))

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The fruitcake was hard, but it was sweet and tasted like he was drinking a glass of rum. Miles and miles better than anything Jackie Tyler had produced from the kitchen.

"Well, if it's just a human thing, then why do I feel it, too? Susan used to love this time of year."

A small, lonely-looking cat crossed their paths. On its neck was a red collar, but no tag. It meowed up at them pathetically. How many tropes can you fit into one set of tags?


((ooc: On my way! And no! Linkplz!))

[marthajonesmd.livejournal.com]

For years, the secret to a successful Jones family Christmas had involved pacifying the adults with rum (Martha couldn't manage the fruitcake quite yet, but she'd become adept at slipping the leftover rum into the eggnog).

This was somewhat depressing when you thought about it, which was why Martha didn't really do that.

"Humanoid," she amended. "And possibly extended to anthropomorphic snowmen and sentient reindeer with glowing noses."

Obviously, Martha immediately scooped the kitten into her arms, wrapping her mum's knitting around it. "Aww, poor cat! You shouldn't be out in the snow like this." And meanwhile, someone perused the list of Christmas tropes.

((ooc: :D Here you go! My new life's ambition is to be Paul Cornell.))

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"You're thinking big. I was just hoping for snow and an alien invasion." Not that he'd mind dealing with Rudolph and Frosty, of course.

"We're not keeping it," the Doctor said, firmly.

Blimey, that really did sound like he was a Christmas special character.

"We've got to figure this out. And soon!"

[marthajonesmd.livejournal.com]

"Who's a kitty?" Martha cooed, scratching under the kitten's chin. "Who's a kitty? I think it's youuuu!"

Maybe the cat was the first alien in an invasion that would render the population incapable of speaking in anything but lolcat. Martha was going to ask it if it wanted a cheeseburger any second now.

...or maybe not.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"All right, bring the cat, but don't think it's coming anywhere near the TARDIS. Last time I had a cat living on board the ship got hairballs."

Still, the Doctor had to admit it was a really cute kitten. For a cat, of course.

"Right! We should head this way, see if we can't figure out the source of this psychic wavelength."

[marthajonesmd.livejournal.com]

"Well, I can't leave it with my mum, she's allergic!" The only pet Martha had ever had was a pet fish, which Leo had accidentally killed two weeks after she got it.

"Kittykittykittykitty." Martha tickled its stomach. "Do you know the source of the psychic wavelength? Do you?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Oh, all right. But figure out a good name for it. And don't get distracted."

The Doctor sighed, eventually reaching over to take the cat from Martha and hand her the detector. "Focus!"

[marthajonesmd.livejournal.com]

"Okay, but don't you go sticking captions on him." She looked down at the detector, which was...definitely blinking.

"So this isn't going to end up catapulting us into some weird alternate reality that shows us what would happen if I'd never been born, right? Because I really hate that film."

"And I think it's pointing north," she added helpfully.