Merry Batmas To The Youngest Of Us

Once upon a winter

Unlike most people at this time of year, Damian was not having a good time.

He glared at the light that had been shining through the curtains he hadn't bothered to close the night before for a while now. With a small huff he curled up a bit more in the blankets he had cocooned himself in. The usual rush to get out of bed at the slightest sight of dusk was nowhere to be found. It took a lot to make Damian break routine and not get up at his usual time. The current state of affairs was, in his opinion, more than enough to warrant such a juvenile thing as staying in bed longer. Only for the fact it meant he could avoid the other inhabitants of the household for just a bit longer.

To somebody as mature as Damian, the month of December was no other than any other months. In Nanda Parbat, there were no such foolish celebrations as Christmas. Who in their right mind would let an obese elderly man climb down a very narrow chimney to leave boxes with unknown contents inside. Luring everybody but especially young children to let their guards down and risk even bigger disasters. Let alone the ritualistic murder of millions of beautiful trees worldwide just for some temporary decor. Thousands of acres of habitats were destroyed just to grow these trees and then only let them slowly die inside the house over the course of a month to then be disposed of like trash once it served its use.

Truely whoever came up with this must have been mentally unwell to think this to be a normal occurrence to be celebrated each year.

Not only that, but for the residents of Wayne Manor specifically it was a mess. Of course his mother had explained that his father was Jewish, so he would be celebrating Hanukkah. While his father wasn't actively practicing his faith he still enjoyed some of the traditions with which he grew up.

As it turns out, Grayson would also follow the traditions of his birth family and fast until the day before Christmas. Of course with both his jobs this was hard and he only followed a partial fast to continue to honor his own traditions. Even with his own residence and work in Blüdhaven, he would often make the trip to the manor or sleep overnight after patrol to spend time with the family.

Drake had grown up here in the states and had some form of connection to the Christmas celebrations. Having grown up mostly with his servants while his parents were elsewhere, made him have quite a dislike for the holiday. Envious of all the happy families that spend the holidays together while his parents couldn't even be bothered to send him a simple message. It wasn't until well into his integration into the Wayne household that he started becoming more fond of the celebrations. He still did not go into any extremes and kept things rather lowkey. While he wouldn't go out of his way to participate, he would dress festively and chose what he wanted to participate in. Still, most of his time was spend working for school, WE or in the Cave as the days leading up to the holiday were very hectic in all three aspects.

Cain was very similar to Drake in only participating when she chooses so, but usually she would trail behind Grayson and help where she can.

Both Brown and Gordon had their own families to spend time with so while they did spend time at the manor, they had their own family traditions to attend to.

Pennyworth would always be given the choice of where to spend his holidays as the elderly butler didn't have much family remaining in England these days that he felt the need to spend time with. This year he had chosen to return oversees and had left detailed instructions on how to care for the home in his absence. Including a long list of readymade meals he had prepared and catering that had been set up in advance.

That only left Todd. While not a resident himself, the others would attempt to rope him into their activities just like they had with Damian. Of course Todd had it way easier to refuse as he lived in Crime Alley and had his own work to do there. Most of them knew to not trespass and to give Jason space if he so wished. Damian found himself envying the man. How he wished he could as easily avoid Grayson's insufferable attempts at participating in such childish traditions as decorating the tree and manor or making cookie houses. Nearly stabbing the man with the damned star last year had done little to deter the man from trying the same this year it seemed. At least he had managed to convince his father to get a tree that could be watered and replanted on manor grounds after the blasted festivities were done with.