“Celestia,” you whisper, poking her side. “Psst… Celestia.” You poke her again.
She’s not moving.
A hoof comes within two inches of smacking you right across the face as Celestia turns her entire body away from you.
“Go away!” she groans. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“You don’t have to talk, you have to get up. This is ridiculous.”
“It’s 5:00 in the morning!” she exclaims, addressing you directly by stating your name. “Shut up and go to sleep!” She grabs a pillow and places it hard on top of her head, as though such an act will cause you to vanish.
It doesn’t.
You poke her side again. “It’s Christmas. So get the hell up.”
“Mmph mmemmerrmm mmaemmnerr,” she grumbles, her voice muffled by the pillows.
“What was that, hon?”
“Mmn mmamm, ‘Mmph mmemmerrmm mmaemmerr.’”
‘Oh. Thanks for clarifying, babe,’ you think.
“Take your head out from under the pillow and speak like a grown up. You big baby.”
She removes her head and looks directly at your soul. You suddenly feel very vulnerable. And scared. Terrified, really.
Celestia has never looked so pissed off at you, ever. Her eyes are narrowed and she is practically growling. You prepare to make a break for it in case she attacks you.
“I’m the one being childish?!” she basically shouts, placing a hoof on her chest. She is clearly ready to attack you, but you can tell she is holding herself back. She points an accusing hoof at you. “You’re the one waking me up an hour and a half early to celebrate Hearth’s Warming Day! We only went to bed two hours ago!”
That you did. The Hearth’s Warming Eve Ball was hosted by Celestia at the Royal Canterlot Palace, which occurs every year immediately following the Hearth’s Warming Play at Canterlot Theatre.
The play was interesting, to say the least. It offered you a glace into ancient Equestria history, and how the three races of ponies came together in a great time of need, creating Equestria and Hearth’s Warming Day.
Chancellor Puddinghead was your favorite character. She was so loud and random. She reminded you of Pinkie Pie, but could you really imagine Pinkie in a position of absolute power?
That’d be absolutely terrifying.
The play seemed to be about some ice demons that were fucking up the world because all the ponies hated each other.
Once they finally realized that, everypony started to be a lot friendlier with everypony else. Which makes sense.
‘Be nice or the demon ice monsters from a frozen hell will destroy the planet,’ seems to have been the theme of the play.
Whenever violence was even mentioned in the play, the audience would gasp and recoil. Which you thought was hilarious. Entertainment on Earth is all about violence, so watching all these ponies react so terribly to it was pretty funny to you.
You had great seats. You sat next to Celestia in a box seat, to the top right of the stage. You could see everything.
Best part is, only you and Celestia were in the box. Not that you two were doing anything weird up there. But the privacy was nice. Luna didn’t go to the play and Shining and Cadence had their own box.
You were wearing a tux the entire night. It barely fit. It was dreadfully uncomfortable and it made you want to stab someone. But you couldn’t. Mainly because you had limited movement in your arms, lest you rip the suit.
As usual, Celestia wore nothing. Which is great. Nothing except her crown and necklace thing. She never wears clothes, and probably never will.
Immediately after that, you two had to leave to return to the Castle. You had to quickly make the final preparations for the Hearth’s Warming Eve Ball.
You two really didn’t have to do anything. The ponies that set that crap up did a great job, as always.
Octavia’s mini-orchestral group was providing the music for the Ball. Which was awesome. You got to talk to Octavia for like, 35 seconds before you had to go.
You doubt Vinyl got invited to the party. She’s not very… refined, you suppose is the word. Not that she’d want to be there anyway.
Guests started arriving soon after Celestia and you took up position at the top of the Grande Staircase, right in front of the entrance.
Celestia stands here during every single party she hosts. She never dances. She does not drink.
But she has to greet every single guest that she has invited (not that she writes out the invitations). And, because she’s doing it, you have to do it too.
Not that you mind. At least you get to be with Celestia for a while, even though you’re never actually talking to her.
You get to say ‘hello’ and become vaguely acquainted with the elite of Equestrian society. It surprises you that Celestia actually knows the majority of these ponies by name.
You’re terrible with names. The second after they first introduced themselves, you would forget their name immediately. It’s not your fault, though. There are just so many damn names of ponies that you don’t care about. And they probably don’t care about you. But for the sake of getting on Celestia’s good side, they’re not going to show you any animosity.
So you spent a couple hours standing up there, greeting your guests.
After all that shit ends, Celestia and you walk around the main room where the guests have congregated. You make small talk and that’s it.
That’s all you do at any upper-class party. Sounds fun, right?
Wrong. It sounds awful. Boring. Terrible.
You understand why Vinyl hates parties like these. You can’t even call that a ‘party.’ It was a gathering of posh, noble douchebags who talked about themselves all night with other ponies who were not listening.
The party ended at 2:00 in the morning. Very, very late.
So then you went to bed.
But before going to bed, you switched the alarm from 6:30 to 3:55. You knew it would suck and Celestia would be pissed, but you did it anyway, for the sake of the Royal Family.
They need this.
Celestia flops her head back down onto her pillow. “Just go to sleep,” she yawns. “I’m sure whatever you want to do can wait a few hours.”
“No, it can’t,” you respond. “Please! Get up.” You try not to sound desperate.
“Why should I get up right now?”
“Cause we need to celebrate Christmas before Luna goes to bed.”
There is a pause. And in that pause there is silence. No noise. Nothing.
You can tell Celestia is in deep thought.
“That… actually makes sense…” She finally admits.
“Damn right it does! I thought of it, right? Everything I think of makes sense.”
You can’t see her face, but you’re just assuming she is rolling her eyes.
There is a certain time of night where Luna is fully awake and not a mindless zombie who drinks her coffee and stares at the kitchen table. You don’t want your family to be like on Christmas, so you figured waking everypony up 2 hours early is a good idea.
The more you think about it, the more holes you find in your logic, but you’re doing this for Luna!
“Well…” she whispers. “Alright. Alright I’m getting up. But you-“ you feel her hoof touch your chest "-have to go wake everypony up. I am not doing that.”
“That’s fine, that’s fine,” you say quickly, wrapping Celestia in a hug. “Just go down to the sitting room and wait there. I’ll get everypony else.”
Celestia nuzzles your cheek with hers. “OK, sweetie. Don’t forget Blueblood.”
“Oh, how could I forget Blueblood?”
You pull away and dress yourself. Well, you put on a pair of pajama pants and throw on your robe. It’s Christmas, you don’t need to dress yourself up.
As Celestia goes to dress herself, you walk out onto your frozen balcony. The snow tingles your feet in a very unpleasant way, but you’ll only be out here for a few moments.
You scan the night sky, looking for any sign of the Princess of the Night. She can often be found roaming the night skies. She hates sitting in the Throne Room all day, as Celestia has to.
You look straight up. “Luna!” you shout as loud as possible, which is quite loud. “Luna! C’mere!” You wait a few moments.
After only a few freezing seconds, you hear wings flapping above you.
You look up to see Luna floating down from the sky and towards the balcony. She descends until her hooves hit the snow. She looks at you and smiles.
“How may we assist you?” she asks.
“You may assist me by going down the sitting room with your sister,” you say, motioning for her to go inside. “It’s Christmas, and we’re celebrating.”
She quirks an eyebrow. “Why must we go downstairs? We are still watching over the night.”
“The night is lovely, so take a break. There’s no time to explain, just go downstairs.”
You hear another set of hooves behind you. “Come, sister,” you hear Celestia say. “I don’t know why he’s so excited, but he seems to think it’s rather important.”
“It is important! So the both of you need to go!” You grab Luna by her hoof and pull her inside. “Now you two go downstairs, we’ll meet you guys there in a few minutes, OK?”
“Well, alright, but are you-“
“Yes. Whatever you were going to say, yes. Just go downstairs, for the love of Christ. I’ll answer any questions at a time that is not now.”
“Very well, then,” Luna says.
You smile and walk out of your bedroom ahead of your Princesses. You want to make this Christmas perfect, so the first thing you have to do it wake everypony up. And fast. If you don’t wake them up soon, Luna will start getting cranky. And you don’t want that.
You open the door and leave.
==========
You are sitting in the Royal Sitting Room. Appropriately named, you think. All one does in here is sit. The Royal Family has to have somewhere to congregate as a family too, you know.
You are currently resting on a very large couch, facing the massive, shiny, fully decorated Christmas tree.
You somehow managed to hide all of your Christmas presents until now. Hiding things in a Castle with guards walking around everywhere is very difficult, but you did it. Somehow.
You wanted everything to be a nice surprise, which it was. All the presents under the tree look very festive and very beautiful.
The Royal Sitting Room has various pieces of comfortable and squishy furniture throughout the massive room. You don’t know what this room is used for exactly. This is actually one of the first times you’ve ever actually come in this room.
‘Perhaps it’s just for celebrating Christmas?’
It’s possible. You don’t know what else one would be doing in the room. It’s literally a room for sitting, as the name implies. And that’s it. Nothing else besides sitting occurs here.
Except for Christmas. That’ll be occurring now. You look around the room.
Celestia is sitting next to you on the couch. She looks more than ready to fall back asleep.
Luna is the only one who seems to be fully awake. Which is odd. You rarely ever see Luna fully awake. She’s usually just drinking coffee and staring at tables, but now she seems… excited?
You guess so. There are lots of reasons to be excited on Christmas morning, are there not?
Shining and Cadence are lounging on some giant sofa. Shining looks ready to pass out.
You feel bad for Shining. Not because of Cadence or anything. You like Cadence. It’s just Shining works a ton of hours to ensure your safety, so he’s generally tired anyway. And now you’ve woken him up 2 hours early.
You feel kind of bad.
But that feeling leaves you as you realize that this is Christmas and he needs to cheer the hell up. He gets to spend time with his family.
You wish you had some Christmas CD’s or something. The Hearth’s Warming carols Equestria has are alright. Ponies love to sing, so there are a ton of songs. But it’s just not the same. How is one supposed to truly get in the Christmas spirit if they don’t hear ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus?’
You don’t know. But you’re trying anyway.
Cadence is leaning heavily on Shining with her eyes closed. You’re guessing she’s actually asleep. You wouldn’t doubt it. It’s like, 4:00 in the morning.
Once every pony starts to wake up, they’ll start enjoying themselves a lot more.
Or, they’ll become so enraged that they’re awake that they’ll violently attack you and throw you into the dungeon.
One of those two things will happen, and you hope it’s the first one.
The dungeons scare you. And it’s no place to celebrate Christmas.
Blueblood is sitting on some chair, waiting for his coffee. You all are. The sooner it comes the better.
Even this early in the morning Blueblood looks pretty good. It looks like he has bathed and prepared himself for the day, something the rest of you cannot claim.
When you woke him up a few minutes ago, you swore you heard him mumble “Ba humbug” on the way downstairs, but you doubt it. Charles Dickens doesn’t exist in this world, so they wouldn’t know who Scrooge is.
There is a fire going in the fireplace across the room, helping everypony relax, and probably assisting them in falling back asleep.
You hear the doors on the far end of the room open.
Everyone’s heads turn their immediate attention to the cause of the noise.
“Breakfast is served,” one of the waiters proclaim as other waiters walk around him with trays of food.
“Oh, thank Christ!” Shining mumbles, sitting up. Cadence wakes up too and sits up.
You taught Shinning to say that. He doesn’t know who Christ is. He is the reason you have this holiday in the first place.
A lot of the ponies around you on a daily basis to get to hear you swear. A lot. Swearing is fun. So when they hear what comes out of your mouth on a regular schedule, some ponies are bound to repeat what you say.
They’re like children. Just repeating whatever you say, but you don’t care. You preferring saying ‘Oh my God’ to ‘Oh my Celestia.’
You’re just not a big fan of ponies using your marefriends’ name in vain.
A giant tray of fresh cinnamon rolls is placed directly in front of all of you all on the table. You can see the steam rising from top of them. You can smell the cinnamon, and you suddenly feel very hungry.
Individual cups of coffee are placed in front of everypony and yourself. The best part about waking up, is Folgers in your cup, you know?
You know.
“Ah! Hot!” you hear Blueblood yell as he bites a roll.
You smile. You want to say something to him, but you decide not to. It’s Christmas after all, so there is hardly time for any bickering.
You briefly wonder what will be for dinner tonight. On Earth, Christmas dinner can range from a wide variety of things. However, all of those things are meat.
Some families on Earth have turkey. Some ham. Some chicken. Some even have a combination of all three and then some.
But not you. You will probably be eating a salad with a candy cane stuck in it. Which is disgusting. Some things should just not mix together.
Like toothpaste and literally everything else.
You take a bite of a roll. “Ah! Shit!” you exclaim, effectively burning the taste buds off your tongue. You pick up your coffee and take a quick sip, attempting to calm your burning tongue. “Ah! Fuck!”
The coffee is hot. Not just hot, but boiling lava hot. You will now not be able to taste anything for like, two months. You’re tongue is just burnt too much.
You take a few deep breaths, attempting to cool down your mouth.
You look up and realize everypony is laughing. Very hard.
You don’t inquire as to why. You already know. You just sit back for a few moments so they can be done with it.
They eventually calm down and you feel Celestia place a wing over your back and side. She kisses your cheek.
“You’re so cute, sometimes,” she giggles.
You just roll your eyes. “I wasn’t trying to be, but thanks,” you say, leaning into her slightly.
“I didn’t think I would need to tell you these would be hot.” She gestures to the food. “I would have figured you would have already known.”
“I did know. I just… I don’t know, these things happen. Bad things happen to good people, you know.”
“I wouldn’t know. I’m a pony.”
That she is.
“Whatever. Who wants to open the first present?” you ask, beginning to get up. You quickly glance out the window and notice it’s snowing. It’s always great when it snows on Christmas.
Nopony answers your question. You walk over to the tree and still don’t hear anything. So you just pick up the first one you see.
To: Cadence
From: Shining
‘Oh this should be great!’
You pick up the terribly wrapped gift and walk towards Cadence, being careful as to not knock over any coffee or rolls.
“For you, Princess Mi Amora Cadenza,” you say, bowing deeply.
“Oh?” she asks, leaning forward. “And who is it from?”
“Your dear husband, of course.”
She levitates it out of your grip and over towards her.
You rejoin Celestia on the couch, simply waiting for Cadence to open it. Waiting and staring.
Cadence begins to tear off the decorative paper and you sit back. You wonder what your family is doing right now.
They’re probably sad. You’re ‘dead’, and it’s Christmas. You suddenly feel terrible and homesick. You hope they have a great Christmas regardless of where you are.
You lean into Celestia. She is your family now. These ponies around you are your family now, so you’re going to make sure they have to best Christmas ever.
Celestia wraps a wing overtop of you and shuffles herself, finding a more comfortable and more relaxed position.
“Oh, Shining!” Cadence exclaims. “It’s just what I’ve always wanted!”
==========
You didn’t know what to get anypony.
From what you’ve learned by being a human and watching movies and such, you know that women desire jewelry and clothing more than anything else in the world.
So, what do women get on Christmas? Jewelry and shit, you guess. You don’t know what women want.
Unfortunately, Celestia does not desire jewelry. Or clothing. She wears the same thing every day, so giving her clothing makes absolutely no sense.
She has been wearing the same crown and necklace for the longest time, and she’s never going to stop wearing it.
What the hell were you supposed to get the Dark Princess of the Night? You didn’t know.
You got her a scarf. A damn scarf. The scarf was lovely, though. It matched her coat exactly as Rarity described. And she loved it. When she opened it she ‘squeed’ and gave you a bone crushing death hug.
But it was a scarf. That’s like going back in time and giving Hannibal a scarf as a Christmas present. He’d probably eat it.
Oh well. It was something, and she was happy for it.
You got Blueblood two “Fuck Off” coupons, which he seemed very appreciative of. The way the coupons work is if Blueblood wants you to go away, he gives it to you and you leave.
You didn’t know what else to get the little bastard, so those coupons were a cheap way of saying “I care.”
Even though you don’t.
You got Shining a coffee mug, because you are lazy and uncreative. He liked it though. It said “#3 Captain,” which you guess he is. You don’t see why not. Captain Sparrow is the world’s greatest, followed by Kap’n Crunch in a close second.
You got Cadence a necklace or something. Something shiny that the typical female would enjoy. Cadence is hardly the typical female but she seemed to have enjoyed it.
Everypony got you clothing. All you got this Christmas from the Royal Family is clothes.
Not that you mind. You are actually touched that they went through such a great effort as to find your measurements (probably by asking Celestia) and going to get you some tailor made clothing.
You already have a fair amount of shirts and socks and stuff, which is what you got, but you could always use more.
Finally, you gave Celestia her gift. Just live everypony else, you did not know what to get her, so you just got her the only thing you think she will enjoy.
Socks.
Really long, full leg socks. The socks go all the way up her legs until they touch her body. You got her two pairs.
The first pair is light blue and they each have Celestia’s cutie mark imprinted at the very top. Instead of buying them in pairs, you get them in fours, due to the fact that ponies have four legs and all.
The second pair is striped dark purple and light purple.
You wanted to get her a slave, but the only zebra you know lives in the Everfree Forest. You doubt Celestia would accept a slave as a present anyway.
It would certainly save some of those tax dollars, though.
Surprisingly, Celestia loved the socks. You thought she was going to throw you out of the Castle for your lack of thought, but she seemed thrilled enough just to be getting a gift from a significant other.
You also got Celestia some massage oils, but you’ll give those to her later. No need to gross out the rest of the Royal Family, as though the socks weren’t bad enough.
Nopony else gave Celestia anything better than what you gave her. She got a hat, a new necklace that she’ll never wear, ever, and some slippers.
In all honesty, the socks were more of a present for yourself than it was for her. You pictured what your Goddess would look like in the socks before purchasing them, and you thoroughly enjoyed what you saw.
She can look beautiful in anything, and she looked sexy in those socks.
As far as presents go, this Christmas was nothing special. Not in the slightest. But Christmas is about spending time with the ones you love, and you love these ponies more than anything else in the world.
Now you are all sitting around and chatting, your pile of clothing sitting next to you.
“Did you have the Christmas you wanted?” Celestia asks you, lying on her side on the sofa. “You were awfully excited this morning.”
That you were. You smile. “Celestia, anything we do together is automatically great.”
The sofa isn’t big enough for you both to lie side by side, so you decide to lie on top of her. It’s clearly the best thing to do.
You straddle her midsection for a moment, finding a comfortable position where your genitals aren’t all twisted up. After finding such a position, you lay the rest of your body down on Celestia. Your head comes to rest on her neck. You wrap your arms around her.
You kiss her neck. “This Christmas has been pretty great so far, honey. And it’s not even morning yet.”
Your Princess probably has to raise the sun in about a half an hour. But for now, the both of you can just lie with each other.
“I’m glad you’ve liked it. This is the best Hearth’s Warming Day I’ve ever had.” She bends down to kiss the top of your head. “All because you’re here.”
You lift your head for a moment to kiss your Goddess on her lips.
You quickly glance across the room and notice everypony else has gone back to sleep. Luna’s sleeping on her chair. Blue is dozing on his. Shining and Cadence are curled up on their sofa, sleeping soundly.
You didn’t want to have to wake everypony up so early, but you had to in order to make your Christmas great. You wanted Luna to be awake and happy, just as she was.
You lay your head down comfortable on her neck once more.
“I love you, Celestia. I love you so much.” Your grip around her becomes much tighter.
Her wing moves out from underneath you and wraps around your body. “I love you too, sweetie.” She pauses for a moment. “Is something wrong?”
“Oh, no, nothing at all.” You rub your cheek against her neck. “I’m just happy. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been so happy.” You close your eyes and relax your body.
“Me either,” she whispers. It’s still quite some time before Celestia has to get up to raise the sun, so now you can relax with the one’s you love.
You want to fall asleep and dream, but it’s rather difficult to imagine a world better than this one.
The fire crackles.
There is a pause before you hear Celestia whisper again. “Sweetie?”
“Hmm?” you ask, not moving. You’re too comfortable to move.
“Merry Christmas.”
You smile. “Happy Hearth’s Warming Day, hon.”
You relax into the warmth of Celestia’s wing. You allow your mind to go blank and drift off into sleep as you hear the fire continuing to roar.