The Dreaming: Christmas Shopping
And Other Traditions
By Phil Foster (ifoster6@compuserve.com)

This part of the Project was originally hosted by
A Light In The Window

Disclaimer: All characters herein are the property of DC Comics and are used without permission, but no harm is intended and no money is being made. Please do not archive without permission from the author. Feedback is appreciated.

 Author's notes for those who don't know:

 Robert Gadling is a slightly cynical bloke who has done a number of different jobs, drinks a bit too much and is slightly balding. Pretty much a normal English bloke in his late-thirties, really -- apart from the fact that he was born at some point in the late fourteenth century and just hasn't gotten round to dying yet.

 Nuala is a fairy who, for various reasons, left the realm of Fairie, spent some time in the Dreaming and now works as a waitress in a pub in the real world.

 It's set a couple of weeks before #16 of "The Dreaming." That's pretty much all you need to know. Oh, apart from the fact that there's some mild bad language in this one.

To Robert Gadling, Christmas time in any one big city was much the same as any other.
He'd seen them all in his time. Most were just for flying visits, or for holidays and travel, or

occasionally as a place large enough to get lost in for a while. But he'd lived in a fair number as well,
and had spent Christmases in a wider range of cities than most other people could ever hope for. But in
the end they were all the same.
Advertising boards plastered with snow scenes and reindeer and cheery elves dancing around

were all over the place. The snow might have been accurate for New York in the Christmas season, but
he didn't think any reindeer had ever been seen here, at least, not in the wild. And the chances of seeing
an Elf in this day and age were astronomically against anywhere on earth, let alone a place like New
York. The polar bears and the "Always Coca-Cola" bottles, on the other hand, were plastered across all
the buildings in the city.
Christmas lights were everywhere, like some mad attempt to pretend the long nights didn't

exist by filling up the void with colours that could never shine in daytime. Pine trees started sprouting
in parts of the world that would barely see a Dutch Elm any other time of the year, draped in tinsel and
plastic balls that would soon get crushed underfoot. Poor desperate-for-money bastards would dress up
in a bizarre parody of a tradition they'd long forgotten, "Ho-ho-ho-ing" until their voices cracked, and
often as not scaring the little kids they were supposed to be entertaining.
Shops blared out what they thought was traditional Christmas music -- carols and hymns that

most people barely even knew the words to, though any shop assistant could recite them to you in her
sleep after the first week of hearing the endlessly repeated tapes. The real traditional Christmas music
nowadays, he often thought, was John Lennon's Christmas hit, George Michael crooning "Last
Christmas," and that bloody song by Slade that drove its way through your head in every bloody shop
in every bloody street in every bloody city of the whole bloody world.
But if there was one tradition that really got on his wick, it was Christmas shopping. The

crowds. The noise. The endless screaming mass of people flooding the shops and streets like a
miniature tidal wave, throwing money at lumps of plastic and sparing a dime for the busker on the
corner, caught up in the frenzied mass of "Buy Buy BUY" being yelled at them across the speakers.
"Latest Kick-Ass-Ninja-Battle-Action-Hero! Perfect for your son or daughter! Only ninety-nine dollars!
Accessories at extortionate extra cost!"
He couldn't really fault the wave of consumerism that washed around him -- he'd spent enough

time in his six-hundred and whatever years chasing wealth himself to understand the behaviour -- but
when a person spends that long seeing the same thing over and over again, it becomes easy to look at it
from the outside and see it for what it really is. And Robert Gadling had long since thought he'd lost
interest in all that stuff; especially with all the bloody crowds he had to wade through to get what he
wanted.
Although that was one of the few things that he thought was really new. Christmas always

produced crowds -- he could remember several Christmases trying to buy food at Les Halles, the great
market centre of Paris in the late Eighteen Hundreds -- but in all his years of living he didn't think he'd
ever seen this many people packed into such a tiny space.
Well, at least not voluntarily.
He sighed, giving up on yet another wasted shopping trip. He never could decide what to buy

Gwen anyway, and he doubted he'd find anything he liked in these sorts of shops. Besides, he'd timed
his walking carefully to arrive near a certain pub he'd found a few days ago at just that time of the
evening when he could really do with a drink.
The Green Dragon was a small pub off a side road, fashioned in the style of an old Tudor

building. Actually not too bad for a mock-up, he'd thought, the first time he'd seen it, and the beer
inside was almost drinkable. Microbrewery stuff rather than the cold lager the Americans kept trying to
pass off as beer -- not wonderful, but good enough to get decently drunk on. He went in, grabbed a
stool at the nearly-empty bar, and ordered a drink.
 
 
If there was one thing Nuala did miss about Faerie it was the weather. When asked what she

thought of the cold she'd say she found it invigorating and exiting, and most of the time she'd be telling
the truth. But there were times when the cold winds stopped being fresh and enlivening, and would
bare teeth to bite at the skin and hurt the ears; times when the blanket of snow would stop being the soft
sheet that dulled the noise, but would become icy water down the back and in the shoes, an assault of
cold from all fronts that could only be stopped by an open fireplace, warm blanket and good wine.
Of course, that's why she still enjoyed the walk down to the Green Dragon. That moment

when she would open the door and walk into the tavern, full of warm air and the equally warm buzz of
quiet conversation. That moment on the brink of stepping out of the cold with the wind at your back
and the promise of comfort inside, the thought of calm faces and open conversations, old stories and
new friends, of...
"'Scuse me, luv?"
"What...?" Nuala turned back to the man at the bar who had called to her. "Oh, sorry, Robbie.

I was just thinking."
"Away with the fairies, more like it," he snorted. "While you're back with us, could I get

another pint?"
"Of course," she said, smiling at him and resuming their previous conversation. "This is the

third day you've been out Christmas shopping without buying anything. There are only four days left,
you know."
He sighed, and ran a hand through his balding hair. "I know. That means another four days of

them bloody gits out there yelling 'Merry Christmas' every five minutes. I'm getting too old for this."
She almost laughed at that. "Oh, I know people a lot older than you who still get into the

Christmas spirit. You're not that old."
A funny look crossed his face. "Believe me, I'm older than I look."
"I take it you don't agree with the Christmas spirit, then," she asked, putting his pint down in

front of him.
"What? Yelling 'Merry Christmas' all around the town? Of course I don't."
"Oh? Why not?"
He looked at her with slightly un-focussed eyes. "Do you know where that phrase comes

from?"
"Not exactly, no."
"Well I'll tell you. It's from when the Lords of the manor used to hand out bottles of wine to

all the farmers whose land they owned for Christmas. The Lords would hand booze out for free, yelling
'Merry Christmas' as they did so -- meaning it literally. Have a merry Christmas; ie. go get blind
stinking drunk somewhere for a day and pass out in a ditch somewhere."
Nuala paused, remembering the importance of wine in Faerie, and particularly the high value

placed on it by her brother. "Well, that was nice of them, giving away wine so the farmers could enjoy
Christmas."
"Nice of them?! Bollocks it was. It was just a way of softening people up so they could get

more money off of them. Twelve days of Christmas constantly on the piss would be the perfect time to
raise taxes and levy, and like as not get rid of the troublemakers in a local 'accident' down to the booze.
Nah, you yell 'Merry Christmas' and you might as well be yelling your support for the upper class."
"Is that true?"
He gave her another look, then shrugged his shoulders. "No idea. Might as well be the way

most of those old bastards used to behave." He laughed. "Anyway, you don't want to hear me going on
all night about Christmas, especially since I think this stuff you laughingly call beer is starting to have
an effect on me."
She glanced over at the rest of the bar -- virtually empty -- and leaned down on her forearms.

"You know I don't mind listening to you, Robbie. Although I wish you would cheer up a bit."
"Cheer up a bit. Heh. Gwen keeps telling me that." He sighed, and was silent for a moment.

"But you know what I miss?"
"No. What do you miss?"
"Some of the old traditions. You know, the things people used to do to celebrate Christmas,

back when traditions really meant something apart from just 'what everyone does at this time of the
year'."
"And what sort of traditions would those be?"
He laughed, and waved his empty glass at her. "Get me another one of those and I'll tell you."

He was silent while she poured the fresh pint, and looked at the glass for a moment when she passed it
to him.
"When I was...well, back in the olden days there was this tradition they used to have in the

villages. Different in each village, of course. Us English were a right awkward bunch even back then.
But the way I remember it you used to use cider and an old tree." He took a long mouthful of his pint.
"The first thing was to cut down the tree sometime during the day. It'd have to be something

that needed to be cleared for some reason, but every year there was always one that could be found.
Then the rest of the day would be spent getting the cider ready, which meant heating it up and adding
stuff -- if you were lucky some herbs that someone had, but often-as-not it would just be old potato
peelings thrown in the pot. But -- and this was the important thing -- the fire you used to heat the cider
with had to be made of the remains of the tree that you'd chopped down. No other firewood could be
used.
"And then when it got dark you'd take pot off the fire and start to hand the cider out to

everyone there. Normally it would just be the family, but if anyone else called round while you were
doing it you let them have some as well -- but you had to make sure that some of it was left in the pot
even after everyone had had some to drink, because once you all finished what you had what was left
would be taken away and tipped over what was left of the tree. And then the tree-stump would be set
alight and left to burn down."
He took another mouthful of beer. "Always thought that last part was a waste of good cider

myself, but that's tradition for you."
"That's a nice tradition. Wassailing, isn't it?"
He looked at her in surprise. "How'd you know that? That's a bloody old tradition even over in

England."
"I'm older than I look," she replied with a grin.
He stared for a moment, then snorted and tipped his glass at her. "And smarter, I'd reckon."
"Thank you. Actually I learned the name of it from a book. A very good friend of mine owns a

library, you see, and he used to let me read some of the books in there."
Another drink. "So what else did you learn about the old traditions?"
She paused and thought for a moment. "Well, I suppose it's that most of the traditions are

really celebrating the same thing, aren't they?"
"And what's that?"
"The coming of the new year." She frowned, trying to get her thoughts in order. "You see, this

time of year has had celebrations going back thousands and thousands of years, people making a
sacrifice to the new year. Or, not to the new year exactly -- I mean not as it is today. It's more...the
darkest day would always be celebrated with some sort of feast and a sacrifice. And light. Always the
light of a burning fire to keep the dark away, to remind everyone that no matter how dark it gets, this is
the turning point. From this day onwards the light comes back and the spring comes back. The sun will
return."
He gave another snort. "Yeah. The Son will return. If I hear that one more time..."
Nuala frowned. "I don't think I understand you."
"Never mind. I'm just making a bad joke. I interrupted you; carry on."
"Well that's it really. People need to do something at this time of the year to keep the dark out,

because this is the longest night of the year, and if they can keep away the darkness for this night then
they know they can keep it away for every other night to come, until the sun returns and spring comes
back to the world." She sighed. "I'm sorry, I'm not explaining it very well. The book I read said it so
much better."
"No, I think you've got the gist of it. I wouldn't mind reading this book, if you could still get

hold of it."
She smiled. "I'm not sure about that, but I'll try if you want me to."
"Cheers, luv." He put down the empty pint glass and stood up. "Well, on that note I'd better

leave before I embarrass myself."
She picked up the glass. "Same time tomorrow?"
He paused on the way to the door. "I'm not sure. I'm thinking maybe I'll go somewhere else to

get the shopping done. But if I don't see you before, Merry Christmas, or whatever it is you celebrate."
"I'm sure I'll find something. And I hope you do to. Merry Christmas, Robbie."

 

 

The End