Possibly, I'm Insane

glory_jean

The Doctor intends them to be festive. He finds self-jingling bells on the planet Bog and puts them up all over the TARDIS. Bells jingle all up and down the hallways.

Rose says, “It’s a bit much, isn’t it?”

The Doctor says, “The kids love it!”

The TARDIS adds helpful sound-proofing.

But it turns out the kids do not love it.

Fortuna says flatly, “Father Christmas is stalking us.”

Athena adds, “The jingle bells are surveillance.”

Brem continues, “We are living in a virtual police state.”

Rose says, “I see they were paying attention during your history lessons on totalitarianism.”  

For postynotemusing 

Rose’s kids are not good at waiting. It is not one of the skills valued by time travelers.

Rose buys them Advent calendars and brings them back to the TARDIS. The kids are utterly perplexed.

“You open one of the little doors each day of December,” she explains.

“But,” Brem says, nose scrunched up with thought, “why not just open them all at once?”

“That’s not the point. It’s for counting down each day to Christmas.”

“But we could just skip ahead to Christmas,” Athena points out quizzically.

“I vote we just open every door now,” Fortuna proposes.

Rose sighs.

postynotemusing

Life on the TARDIS meant that whatever they saw anywhere, no matter the planet or galaxy, they had only to ask for it, and it would be accomplished. Such was remodeling on the TARDIS.

The feature was most useful when it came to the kids, who, as teenagers, changed their rooms on a weekly basis. Time Lords, Rose learned, found no need to change their clothes but were dedicated to changing their wall colors and décor at a frenetic pace. Luckily, TARDIS life meant that all Rose had to do was be invited, pleasantly (and frequently), to assorted big reveals.

acciochocolate

They could, if they wanted, make Christmas come every day.

But they don’t. Rose has always liked for Christmas to feel special, and the only way to make it special is to separate it from all the other days. Their Christmases aren’t always separated by 365 days, but there’s time between them. Enough time for Rose to feel like the tree will feel special again, the carols, the feasting.

Sometimes Jackie says, “You know, it’s the middle of August,” when they fetch her for Christmas, and Rose just says gaily, “Not in here!” and then, laughing, they pull a cracker.

editrx

Some planets have endless snow and some planets have no snow and some planets have snow that’s not ash or powder or glitter (the girls love that one). On one planet, snow is a precious substance found only in single valley, and snowballs are presented on velvet cushions.

“’S funny,” Rose says. “It’s easy to forget, on Earth, just how magical snow can be.”

The Doctor looks at her and says, “Wellll, it can be easy to forget magic when you live with it too much.” He holds her hands and smiles and says, “Although I do try not to.”

The year that Athena and Fortuna developed an obsession with ballet (and more specifically the tutus associated with ballet), Rose suggested they should go see The Nutcracker performed.

The Doctor shuddered in deep horror. “Never. It’s horrifying. If you’d seen the real Nutcracker, you would understand.”

“The real Nutcracker?” Rose echoed.

“Yes, there’s a planet reigned over by a nutcracker, and he is terrifying. Always chomping down on people’s bits to punish them.” The Doctor shuddered again. “Where do you think Tchaikovsky got the idea from?”

Rose stared at him. “…You know that’s not what happens in the ballet, right?”

kaffy_r

Rose had by this time grown used to the light of all sorts of stars. On Earth, of course, the only star to shine was the sun. But out in the wide world of the universe, all sorts of stars shone in all sorts of ways. Her children grew up speaking not of sunshine but starshine.

Old habits died hard, thought. So when Rose accidentally remarked that it was sunny outside, her children laughed at her.

“Starry!” Fortuna exclaimed. “It’s starry out!”

“That’s not the sun,” Brem corrected his mum. “It’s Arcturus!”

“It’s Arcturus-y out!” Athena added.

And Rose smiled.